Designers

• Kathryn Blewis
• Michelle Brown
• Beth Conley
• Jamie Donnelly
• Patrick Dorsey
• Ellen Doyle
• Chris Fleming
• Nancy Herb
• Johanna Hoelzle
• Kate Nelson
• Theresa Nurek
• Theresa Ponte
• Eileen Stec
• Doug Stofflet

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Classroom Weblog

Designer: Kate Nelson

This tool is a community weblog through which students will be able to comment and reflect upon what they have learned, express their opinions on current events by becoming more critical thinkers and readers, and grow as creative, individual writers. The classroom weblog will serve as a community portal for students to share their thoughts, ideas, and interests with their peers. The students will drive the layout and design of the blog to ensure a more learner-centered approach and experience. I intend for the project to be adaptable in scope, sequence, and content development so that it can be used in a fourth, fifth, or sixth grade classroom.

Target Population

• The learner audience is elementary aged students in an inclusive classroom. The learners will be a diverse group, ranging in their developmental levels, learning styles, socioeconomic backgrounds, and existing knowledge and skills. The audience will include students with special needs, gifted students, and students performing at or near grade level ability. It is likely that the learner audience will have a range of experiences and knowledge in navigating, manipulating, and implementing various forms of technology and applications, which will make it necessary to survey the learners’ background knowledge prior to starting the project.

Teaching Standards

The classroom community weblog can address several Pennsylvania academic standards, as well be adapted to specific grade levels within these standards. The following are the academic standards and curricular content areas that can be incorporated into the weblog.

• Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening Standards (Grade 5, adaptable to Grade 8)
  • Standard 1.1.5: Learning to read independently
  • Standard 1.2.5: Reading critically in all content areas
  • Standard 1.4.5: Types of writing
  • Standard 1.5.5: Quality of writing
  • Standard 1.7.5: Characteristics and functions of English language
  • Standard 1.8.5: Research
• Civics and Government (Grades 6, adaptable to Grade 9)
  • Standard 5.1.6: Principles and documents of government
  • Standard 5.2.6: Rights and responsibilities of citizenship
  • Standard 5.3.6: How government works
  • Standard 5.4.6: How international relationships function

Teaching & Learning Theory

• Information Processing: Throughout the course of the weblog project, the students will be asked to organize new information and link this knowledge to what they already know. They will do this through critically reading selected, appropriate texts, and being asked to respond to these texts through online publishing.

• Constructivism: The weblog project will also challenge students to participate in an online dialogue with their peers and to engage in collaborative problem solving. They will be asked to evaluate “real world” problems (relevant to their lives) and to provide realistic solutions to these problems. This portion of the project will require that students evaluate themselves and continuously construct meaningful solutions from new questions.

Products

• Teaching Tool (html file)
• Teacher Notes (pdf file - must have Adobe Acrobat reader view the file. Click here to download the reader)
• Literature Circle Roles & Responsibilities (html file)
  • Artist Role (pdf file)
  • Detective Role (pdf file)
  • News Anchor Role (pdf file)
  • Traveler Role (pdf file)
• Literature Circle Group Evaluation (pdf file)
• Literature Circle Self Evaluation (pdf file)
• Reading Rubric (pdf file. Download Acrobat Viewer )
• Writing Rubric (pdf file. Download Acrobat Viewer )

Multimedia Design Tools

• Movable Type Software
• MS Word and Apple Works
• PowerPoint