Teach 2 Blog

Another Way to Follow a Blog

2012-01-14T21:30:00.003-05:00

Another method of following a blog is to sign up to receive email notifications when new posts are added. There are just 4 simple steps to follow.

Look for the invitation to submit your email address. This one appears in the upper right corner of this blog.

You will be prompted to identify the coded message. Type the letters you see in the box at the bottom.
Click "Complete Subscription Request"

You will receive an email message to active your subscription.
Click the link.

You will see this confirmation message from
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A New Year, A New Blog

2012-01-03T20:43:00.002-05:00

Welcome to my new blog! If you know my blogging history then I'm sure you are thinking that the last thing I need is a new blog. I might be addicted to creating blogs. A few weeks ago I was preparing for a presentation and I was able to trace how the events in my life created new avenues to explore through blogging. See My Blogs for details.

This school year I developed a proposal which allowed each of my students to create their own blog and use it as an extension of their classroom experience. As I worked out the kinks by researching and learning through tutorials I felt I needed a new blog to share this information with educators. I tried to create pages with this information on a couple of my other blogs but it wasn't a good fit. Why would an English teacher go to the GRADS Classroom Blog or the ABC's of Reading to learn how to start their own blog?

When I created Teach 2 Blog a couple weeks ago the design was totally different than what I have now (and may even change again). I stumbled upon a post by Sonia on her blog LogAllot titled If I Could Start My Blog Over and found these 5 ideas useful.

1. I should have a plan and think about what I really want this blog to be about.
2. To brand everything under my real name.
3. To apply myself and stick with writing
4. To become a part of the blogging community and form relationships through visiting and commenting.
5. To have an attractive, colorful blog design.

Even though this blog is considered "Under Construction" I hope you find it easy to navigate and full of useful information.

Build It and They Will Come

2011-12-06T11:45:00.004-05:00

On Sunday my cousin came to visit. She is a nurse and isn't happy with her job anymore. I kept prodding her. "You could blog about nursing. Someone will see your professional articles and hire you." She said, "No." she wanted out. "What else do you like to do?", I asked. She replied, "The things I like to do won't pay for retirement."
Then we started talking about recipes and making holiday cookies. I showed her my King Arthur Flour catalog. She sighed, "I would really like to be a caterer." Then, with every turn of a page, "Oh, look at this, look at that!" And I would interject, "are you listening to your life?"
Last week I gave a presentation to the GRADS teachers in Delaware, Ohio, "Blogging: Are You Listening to Your Life?" The intent was to show them how easy it is to start a blog.. But the consensus was, "If you building it, we will come to your blog." The next time I give this presentation I'm going to create a new blog right in front of the audience. Then they will see that with just a couple clicks they can have a blog site of their very own!

Here is the video I showed during the presentation: Blogs In Plain English. Click on the arrow in center to start.

Here is the rubrics I use for scoring a student's post (article) on their blog.

Is this post creative? (color, font, picture, good opening)
Shared thoughts, ideas, opinions
Entry is positive, engages reader, contains more than 1 link, asks a question of reader
Uses correct spelling and grammar.
Contains 3-4 paragraphs, demonstrated understanding of topics.

Classroom Blogging

2011-09-29T13:39:00.001-04:00

As a student with reading challenges I know how our reluctant readers feel about content area textbooks. The students have no interest in spending their time pretending to read and understand what we put in front of them. But like me, these same kids will become sponge-like if they can read something that pertains to their own life. Think about all of the pamphlets, booklets, and handouts we provide about prenatal development, legal issues, child birth, and fatherhood. These are the topics that most interest them, these are the topics they seek to understand, these issues are what they absorb and then they want to discuss with their peers. They also want to write about all aspects of this journey into teen parenthood.
There is an excellent, brand new blog I found, Ignite, Incite, Inspire. The author discusses how blogging will help students with literacy issues. Please read his easy to follow directions on how to create classroom blogs and I know this will "ignite, incite, and inspire" you to begin the blogging journey.
View my Classroom Blog Proposal
View the rubrics, Basis for Scoring a Blog Post