Summer Bloggers and Community

A few of my third graders are continuing to blog over the summer, even though school is out, and I'm no longer their teacher. I still check, edit a little if necessary, and approve all content added to their blogs, including comments. Which is why I write this now.

One of the wonderful things about the tool I use, David Warlick's Classblogmeister, is that there is a community that comes with it. Students stay in touch with other students - in large part because of the familiarity with the tool - they all know how to comment, where to look for new stuff, navigation is the same, etc. It's nice, it lets teachers and kids concentrate on their writing, and not spend a lot of time trying to figure out a new navigational system.

But what really sets it apart is the teacher community and the conversations that happen in it. The meeting place for that community is a good old 1.0 Internet form, the discussion list. There's a very active group (open to anyone) at Yahoo! Groups. Much support, problem solving, questions, and so on. And every once in a while somebody comes along and just amazes everybody with what they've discovered, or in this case, developed.

Adrian Bruce posted Positive Comments... Animated :), as a way to embed little animated flash reinforcers in comments. Works wherever you can use html, like here:


Award Courtesy adrianbruce.com

Award Courtesy adrianbruce.com

Award Courtesy adrianbruce.com

I just added these little gems to comments of some of my kids:

• Logan
• Lindsay
• Jonathan
• Keean

Nifty stuff, beats the heck out of scratch and sniff stickers :) Thanks, Adrian!