Well. There's no getting around it; the purpose of this particular blog, and therefore of these initial posts, is to complete course assignments. While I have prepared for this work, I had not anticipated having limited parameters placed on formatting! I'm a big Wordie; I enjoy all the bells and whistles that Word document formatting provides. I have to confess to frustration with plain text in emails and the limitations on Excel spreadsheets. Sooo ... how far can blog formatting go...? I'm curious to find out.
But I digress from my assignment! In this first blog (Oh - how frustrating is Lotus Notes formatting? I've just discovered I cannot cut and paste here - which makes Lotus Notes seem advanced.), I will take on a couple of questions. I notice myself thinking of these as first drafts, assuming that once I seem them posted, I'll have revision ideas.
A reflection on what I hope to learn from this course:
In this course I am eager to learn how to create and manage a blog that will add interest and meaning for my struggling middle school students. Initially I thought I would use it only for reading responses; however, as I have examined other blogs, I have realized my students and I could easily expand our work to scanned copies of writing. I also wonder if it might add meaning to publish our power point presentations of comparing homophones....
Identifying the purpose of my blog:
Not surprisingly, this connects to what I hope to learn from this course. Added to the above, then, I have identified approximately twenty Language Arts TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) that I would provide opportunities for students to practice over the course of the year, as they grow to mastery through blogging. In general, students would "write expository and procedural or work-related texts to communicate ideas and information to specific audiences for specific purposes.” In particular, “Students are expected to:
6th grade 110.18(C)
… write responses to literary or expository texts and provide evidence from the text to demonstrate understanding.”
7/8th grades 110.19/20(C)
… write responses to literary or expository texts that demonstrate the writing skills for multi-paragraph essays and provide sustained evidence using quotations when appropriate.”
Spacing is interesting.... But just think of all the dendrite connections we can strengthen by this new learning....
Luego.
Hey Barbara,
ReplyDeleteYour blog is looking good! Green is one of my favorite colors and it looks like you were able to remove the "next blog" links at the top of the page.
I agree that formatting a blog post can be frustrating. It gets easier as you go. I'm still getting used to the blogger format myself.
~Nicole
Nicole, I'm glad to hear from you. I didn't think I'd actually ever figured out how to remove Next Blog, so until I saw where it is on John's, followed by your comment to me, I was not at all certain. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteFor those of you who maintain long-standing blogs, when you post, do you generally create it in a document and paste it in, or do you usually type straight into your site?
Good for you Barbara. I'm still trying to create my blog and feeling very frustrated. Do you ever do an author's study and use that as a kick off to writing ideas for the students?
ReplyDeleteBarbara= to answer your question I did get to meet the other Natalie Wilgoren when I went to visit my son and family in Fl. We are related through my husband's side of the family.Somthing happened a long long time ago and I never met that part of the family. She never married. I very nice professional person. Hope to see her in Dec when we get together to see our only grandchild again. Thanks for asking. Enjoy the rest of your summer.
ReplyDelete