Blogging Reflection

Oh that time of year….report cards. Always a busy time for any teacher. A chance to put into words what a child has achieved. An ongoing personal reflection on how aspects of the curriculum have been covered in class and demonstrated successfully by students. The challenge to put into words for parents “how their child is doing”.

One of the things I have been thinking about during this blogging project is the amble opportunity my students have exploring the technology world. Having ipads readily available in my classroom has been a fantastic opportunity. Being able to use technology as another avenue to explore any topic is reality for everyone in 2015. It is great my grade 3s are able to do the same. Not only is it fantastic to explore various topics, but then taking it one step further and communicating their findings on a blog is even more important.

Looking at the curriculum expectations for Grade 3 Literacy, I see a strong correlation between blogging and specific expectations. 3.1 states that students will be able to “identify the topic, purpose and audience for media texts they plan to create (e.g., a collage of images conveying the mood of a poem to help classmates understand the poem. Pic Collage is a fantastic way to do just that! Student’s love pic collage and love sharing their creations even more. Linking this app to a poem or story is a fun task and in turn communicating about a poem or story is one way to accomplish this language expectation. Expectation 2.2 can extend this activity further. The expectation states that students can “identify the conventions and techniques used in some familiar media forms and explain how they help convey meaning” Exploring media through the ipads (tumble books, book flix, blog posts, webpages for kids, is a great way to analyze “media” and determine what features enhance the information. Overall, there is always so much to do and so much to learn. Technology is an additional tool to take our learning further.
Happy report card writing everyone!