3
December
2006
At the start of this year you had just come out of Year Seven and you know how much you’ve changed since then. And now you’re looking forwatd to being in Year Nine. What do you hope year nine will be like? Will you take with you the learning that you did in 8 Alive? Will you remember any useful things to help you in the future? What are your goals for year nine and into the future? And what will you be doing in the holidays?
Have a look at the students’ writing in the comments of this post. Here they are reflecting on whether blogging is different to writing with pen and paper. Have a read of the comments and write in your blog what you think about what the students have said. Don’t forget to link to the student’s blog if you refer to them. It’s only polite to do that.
Posted under reflecting
19
November
2006
What Have You Learned Through Blogging?
What Would You Say To Other Year 8’s About the Possibility of Blogging in Year 8 English Next Year?
Some people say that blogging is just a different way of learning. What do you say about the possibility of using blogs to learn?
Posted under Uncategorized
22
October
2006
Now we’re reading The Dons by Archie Fusillo. And you’re doing some thinking about the themes, doing an assignment of your choice. What did you get out of reading the novel? Have you had experiences with grandparents similar to Paul’s experiences? Have you learnt anything about Italian marriage customs in Nonno’s times? What sort of marriage customs do we have in Australian society? How do you know?
If you are not reading The Dons tell us about some of the parts of the novel you are reading? What is good about it, what are you not enjoying? Don’t forget to read other blogs - check out the blogs of students in Canada and leave some comments.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about your reading.
Posted under Uncategorized
8
October
2006
Some people have asked for ways to help them learn about “nouns and adjectives and stuff”. And it is true that we as students often want to know why a teacher will say that something is “correct” or “incorrect” in our writing. Will this knowledge help us be better communicators? What did you learn today about how language works? Did you find out something you didn’t know before? What do you think about the site we went on today?
Posted under Uncategorized
9
September
2006
Our class blog has been linked to a school in Oklahoma in the USA. Maybe it would be good to go on over and have a look and leave some comments. It is time to start recognising some good blog posts written by bloggers in our very own class. Claire writes in a very natural voice about things she is interested in, television shows she likes and her friends. She tells us her nickname and has even put up an impressive logo with her nickname. I think this blogger should write more and make the world just a bit better by doing so. Another lovely post come from Bree who writes about her friend and has some points to make about learners. Karina writes a post that includes a plea for comments, then immediately gets one from New Orleans! Wow! She also has some fabulous thoughts on learning and teaching. And finally Jess has some advice about being a good learner on her post. Her thoughts on asking questions are very useful.
What should you do this leasson? Pick out some blog posts you like: one from our class and one from a student anywhere in the world and write a post telling us what you like about them. Don’t forget to link to the blogger by highlighting their name and clicking on the chain icon on the task bar when you are writing your post. Then put the url for the blogger in the dialogue box and click insert.
Posted under Uncategorized
25
August
2006
What are good teachers like? What qualities do they have? What does it mean to be a good learner? What are qualities of good students? What expectations do you have of this class? What expectations do you have of me as your teacher?
What does it mean to have a good learning environment? What does it mean to be a producer of information versus a consumer of information?
I recently read Smiths 9th Grade honours class blog and was interested in what her students were saying. I would love to know what you think.
Posted under Uncategorized
29
July
2006
It has been a long time since we have all met together as a class. Today I would like you to think back to what you have done for the last two weeks on eight alive and all the other things that have been happening instead of class. Reflect a bit on what you have learnt and what you liked and didn’t like about these activities and events. What did you think of Girls Talk? How are you going with reading Alex? Did you remember to bring an article about an Australian sportswoman from the paper? Are you looking forward to the assignment on Alex? Do you feel you want to read further books in the series? Why or why not? Here we are in the computer room. Write your blog entries on these ideas or others that you think of? Read some other blogs and comment where you want to, trying to respond to the ideas they have written about. If you like you can find our newest bloggers in the school at http://mccb.edublogs.org/ Have a look and see what you think. You may want to leave comments there as well.
Posted under Uncategorized
1
May
2006
Think about these rules for blogging. Do they make sense? Can you think of others we need?
1. Please, no last names, addresses, IM screen names etc. Never EVER EVER give out or record personal information on your blog. Your blog exists as a public space on the Internet. Don’t share anything that you don’t want the world to know. For your safety, be careful what you say, too. Don’t give out your phone number or home address.
2. Do not link to your personal blog/journal from your school blog; you might reveal information on there that you don’t want to reveal on your school blog.
3. If you want to write your opinion on a topic, make sure you’re not going to be offensive as you write it.
4. Always make sure you check over your post for spelling errors, grammar errors, and your use of words. Paste your post in a word processor and run spellcheck, or download a spellchecker for your browser.
5. Never disrespect someone else in your blog, whether it’s a person, an organization, or just a general idea. You don’t want someone making a stab at what you are passionate about; don’t do it to someone else. Again, your blog is a public space. And if you put it on the Internet, odds are really good that it will stay on the Internet. Always. That means ten years from now when you are looking for a job, it might be possible for an employer to discover some really hateful and immature things you said when you were younger and more prone to foolish things. Be sure that anything you write you are proud of. It can and will come back to get you if you don’t.
6. Don’t write about other people without permission; if you can’t get their permission, use first names only. Never share someone else’s last name.
7. Watch your language! This is part of our school community. Language that is inappropriate in school is also inappropriate in your blog.
8. Make sure things you write about are factual. Don’t be posting about things that aren’t true. Link to your sources. Never link to something you haven’t read. While it isn’t your job to police the Internet, when you link to something, you should make sure it is something that you really want to be associated with. If a link contains material that might be creepy or make some people uncomfortable, you should probably warn them by using a parenthetical note or some other word of caution.
9. Keep it education-oriented. That means that you probably shouldn’t discuss your plans for the weekend, the last dance etc.
from: http://intheknow.edublogs.org/rules-for-blogging/
Posted under Uncategorized
1
May
2006
Year 8 Activity on People’s Lives during World War 2
Use this computer lesson to find out about the following topics. You must use your findings to present a paragraph or two on each topic. To find relevant information use the BBC “children at war” website, Google and the website on “Goodnight Mister Tom”. The topics are:
• What was it like to be an evacuee? Remember that not everyone had a positive experience.
• What was the diet of people like during the war? There was rationing and people had to make the best of what was available.
• What was it like during the Blitz in 1940?
Posted under Uncategorized
2
April
2006
Today I would like you to have a look at some other student blogs and comment on them if you feel you want to. Please include the address of your blog in the URL space of the comment. This means that the person you are commenting to can click onto your blog and leave you a comment as well. When you are commenting think about asking a question. Some sentence starters for comments which I got from Anne Davis , a teacher and a blogger who has great ideas, are here:
This made me think about…….
I wonder why…….
Your writing made me form an opinion about…….
This post is relevant because…….
Your writing made me think that we should…….
I wish I understood why…….
This is important because…….
Another thing to consider is…….
I can relate to this…….
This makes me think of…….
I discovered…….
I don’t understand…….
I was reminded that…….
I found myself wondering…….
Blogs from other countries: check these year 9s in Brazil who are learning English: http://brazil.eslblogs.org/3emes06-7/ and here are the blogs from the students at Snow Lake, a remote part of Canada: http://mr-fisher.edublogs.org/
These blogs are from the year 8s in Upwey: http://susaneights.learnerblogs.org/
And these are from a year 6 class in Australia: http://lifeandtimesyear6.blogspot.com/
When you have read a selection of student blogs (usually linked to the side of the class blog which is the link) and commented on a few, write a blog entry of your own on the most surprisinf thing you found out by doing this.
Posted under Uncategorized
