Welcome to Day 15 only 5 days to go in 20 Days to BlogTastic. Today we're looking at Homework, Notices and Calendars. If you'd like more information about the 20 Days to BlogTastic please click here.
Homework
Another way to integrate your blog into your classroom is to post homework activities to it. I'm personally not a fan of endless homework sheets and projects but a quick reminder about practicing basic facts, reading with a family member and helping out at home is great. Maybe you could make a time each week that homework is posted to your class blog and let parents know this.
You might also like to encourage more comments by getting students to comment on what they've done for homework each week. For primary school students if students don't have internet access at home this becomes part of their morning routine or one of the comments they make during literacy tumbles. For high school students this becomes something they do when they first get to class or the last thing they check and complete before leaving. It could also be something they have access to outside of class times if this is possible.
You could also post links to appropriate online games and activities that students can use at home. This could form another page on your blog. The videos on Day 4 explain how to add pages to your class blog.
Notices
As teachers and parents we know that notices don't always make it home to the right person and are often found at the bottom of bags, lunch boxes, book bags and all sorts of other weird and wonderful places. To make sure the information gets to your parents why not add a link to your notices on your blog.
Many schools already have a spot on their school website for this so you could link directly to that. If they don't check with your Management Team and ICT Lead teacher. Maybe they could setup a Google Drive folder that links to PDF copies of your school newsletter. Once this folder is setup it can be linked by anyone - so each class can have a link to the drive folder.
To get the link to a Google Drive folder select the folder while looking at your drive and then press the sharing icon. You can retrieve the link like you would for a Google document.
This video shows one way of linking to a Google Drive folder from a Links List gadget on your blog.
Calendar
Does your school have their own events calendar? This is another great link to make on your class blog.
This help file from Google explains how to add a Google Calendar to a website (a Blog is a website). You need to paste the iframe code into an html gadget that you've created for your blog.
It's another great place for parents to get information about upcoming events without having to read through each notice.
Keep it simple, choose one way you're going to help your parent/caregiver community to connect with your blog and create it today.
Once you've created a connection add a comment to this post so we can take a look at your great work. If you have other ways you've helped your parent/caregiver community connect with your blog please share them in the comments as well.
Homework
Another way to integrate your blog into your classroom is to post homework activities to it. I'm personally not a fan of endless homework sheets and projects but a quick reminder about practicing basic facts, reading with a family member and helping out at home is great. Maybe you could make a time each week that homework is posted to your class blog and let parents know this.
You might also like to encourage more comments by getting students to comment on what they've done for homework each week. For primary school students if students don't have internet access at home this becomes part of their morning routine or one of the comments they make during literacy tumbles. For high school students this becomes something they do when they first get to class or the last thing they check and complete before leaving. It could also be something they have access to outside of class times if this is possible.
You could also post links to appropriate online games and activities that students can use at home. This could form another page on your blog. The videos on Day 4 explain how to add pages to your class blog.
Notices
As teachers and parents we know that notices don't always make it home to the right person and are often found at the bottom of bags, lunch boxes, book bags and all sorts of other weird and wonderful places. To make sure the information gets to your parents why not add a link to your notices on your blog.
Many schools already have a spot on their school website for this so you could link directly to that. If they don't check with your Management Team and ICT Lead teacher. Maybe they could setup a Google Drive folder that links to PDF copies of your school newsletter. Once this folder is setup it can be linked by anyone - so each class can have a link to the drive folder.
To get the link to a Google Drive folder select the folder while looking at your drive and then press the sharing icon. You can retrieve the link like you would for a Google document.
This video shows one way of linking to a Google Drive folder from a Links List gadget on your blog.
Calendar
Does your school have their own events calendar? This is another great link to make on your class blog.
This help file from Google explains how to add a Google Calendar to a website (a Blog is a website). You need to paste the iframe code into an html gadget that you've created for your blog.
It's another great place for parents to get information about upcoming events without having to read through each notice.
Once you've created a connection add a comment to this post so we can take a look at your great work. If you have other ways you've helped your parent/caregiver community connect with your blog please share them in the comments as well.
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http://2015frankleyroom5.blogspot.co.nz/
ReplyDeleteYippee I had already done this!! Feeling like Im pretty flash now for a person who had never 'blogged' 20 days ago!!!
Awesome! Go you, so happy to hear that you're feeling good about blogging. Keep sharing your blog with other teachers and students so they can get the blogging bug too.
DeleteHave added team newsletters
ReplyDeleteGreat, it sounds like your blog is going to be a really useful place for your students, parents and caregivers to visit and learn from.
DeleteI love the idea of posting the class newsletter and having an events calendar on the blog, particularly if parents receive automatic emails to say the blog has been updated. It gives them a cue to check it, rather than just relying on their child to inform them of what is happening in the classroom and at school. Unfortunately, it is not something I can do on the Evolving Dinosaurs blog.
ReplyDelete