I signed up to be a mentor for
The Student Blogging Challenge. Thanks to what I learned in my
Flat Classroom Certified Teacher course, I quickly added my mentees to a new folder in Google Reader so that I would know when they are adding posts. The amount of pulling and not pushing time saved for the 28 students will be well redirected to other learning.
Then I spent a wonderful hour getting to know 13-year-olds from the US who love cheerleading, the 49ers, running through the park, eating, baseball, play station, rock music and dancing. I was inspired by their avatars so I created some of my own. Even more fun, I added an avatar creating activity to the
lesson plan for my digital art students who will add them to their blogs. Using art as an expression of self is one of our learning points. I am excited to find out more about them through their avatar creations.
And then the light bulb went on. I have three classes of digital art students and I read their blogs a few times a week. I click through to see who has written and updated posts and who hasn't. For some unknown reason, it never occurred to me to put them in Google Reader. You know what I'll be doing after I post this.
G'day Tamara,
ReplyDeleteTried leaving a comment from my iPad but don't think I hit the right buttons. Smazing how what we learn for one reason can suddenly be used again in another area.
I found students loved making avatars and then I would often create an animoto to put on the class blog showing all the creations.
Thanks for helping out in the student blogging challenge as a mentor. Great to see some new teachers out there prepared to have a go doing the same thing the students are asked to do.