Ms. Miller’s blog contains many nice features, as she incorporates writing and visuals. Those teaching math may enjoy the ‘Dear Poly(gon)’ letter as students write replies to concerns from geometric figures (the main page gives a sample of a right triangle envious of an equilateral triangle’s properties and a student writes a reply lauding the usefulness of being a right triangle). Aside from tips on dos-and don’t for blogging, another nice way to use her blog included having students take and submit pictures of geometric figures in the ‘real-world’ such as hexagonal floor tiles.
Miss Lindgren’s geek speak blog takes the approach of many by having students create their own blogs, with links on her blog to each student. She also makes use of a virtual teacher in the form of a ‘Voki’ (the orange tabby looking at you from the top right corner) virtual teacher avatar. The link takes you to the Voki site, at which a teacher may liven up simply posting assignments by customizing an avatar ranging from cats and dogs to cartoons and even ‘celebrities’ (one with a striking resemblance to Britney Spears, complete with pink shades and ear microphone). The teacher may record their own voice to make for a more interactive site.
While having ‘Britney’ help teach may seem over-the-top, many teachers do use blogs creatively to add a bit of fun to learning, especially in lower grades. The ‘Welcome to room 3’ blog includes a blog ‘from’ the class mascot Coco, apparently a very technology-saavy canine! Several teachers of younger students use similar methods to keep students interested in the blogs as they are given information in a different way.
Mr. C’s blog contains a myriad of useful information and techniques. He includes nice tools such as Google translate (one of many ‘gadgets’ you may add to a site, although many are not that useful for teaching so remember not to clutter up your blog),a dynamic periodic table, and a video about electric circuits. Both sidebars are used for links on everything from classroom procedures to other teaching blogs. This blog not only is used for teaching but also as a resource with listings of other teacher blogs and school information.
If Mr. C’s blog seems a bit daunting, most use a more subdued approach, such as Mrs. Rose’s math blog and Mrs. Smith’s English blog. Mrs. Rose maintains an archive of posts and makes general postings with useful and interesting math topics such as math riddles and fraction games. She invites viewers to email favorite websites, which is a good usage of learning from others and the sharing of websites and resources is one reason many like the usage of blogs. Mrs. Smith maintains her site with an emphasis on assignment due dates and reminders in a similar way as many use websites for classes. The design is very professional and may in its design be useful for the A.P. English students to teach design habits for presentations and sites at future jobs or for future classes. D. Brosius uses a similar businesslike approach in his blog.
Some blogs, such as the Fairview P.E. blog, use pictures to show what is being taught to parents and other students. Mr. Borges goes a step more, using not only a series of links to useful math resources but also podcasts. At times, links to other blogs may be useful as teaching resources. The SCC blog in Ireland is designed with more of a collegiate target yet has a plethora of useful links and artistic galleries which may be useful for a high school art class. Other useful ideas are the SVHS booster club, which includes fundraisers as well as memorials, and Moturoa’s blog, in which each elementary student in the New Zealand class creates a list of five things the next teacher should know about him/her. The design and usage should balance drawing students’ interest with usefulness in teaching. Videos, gadgets, and avatars are fine and can be exciting as long as they enhance rather than detract from the learning process.
The techniques used in a blog depend a bit on the subject and grade being taught. One aspect which I used in websites and would continue for a blog would be incorporating links to useful sites where students could practice and learn mathematical techniques as well as resources and tutorials, with a few puzzler/riddle/fun problems blended in to make the book topics a bit more interesting. I would check for effectiveness based on available resources. I would use the posting/email methods used by Ms. Miller among others to have students submit solutions for certain problems. Tests would on occasion include a problem using a theorem, property, or concept discussed on the blog or a required reading link. If students were able to have their own blog, then that could be a way to include writing and have students post real-world examples of certain math topics for others to see.
