Blogs I Follow

Below I share with you some of the blogs written by fellow educators that I have personally found very useful, in the hopes that they will be helpful for you too. Please leave a comment on the page if you have a great blog you’d like to share!

Blogs on Using Technology in the Classroom

21st Century Skills

With regards to 21st-Century Skills, educators like Scott Petri have great blog posts that discuss how to implement these skills, like listening, into your classroom (Paccone, 2017). Other blogs like the “The 21st Century Principal” might be a resource you’d want to share with your administration because it discusses effective ways to to use social media in schools (Lepi, 2012). I know I’ll be sharing this post with my principal at our next PLC meeting!

Making Global Citizens

Amy Ronsentein’s blog is one to follow on KQED (Paccone, 2017). In one of her blog posts entitled “Students Transform into Global Change Agents with Technology,” she discusses using Skype and other technology to connect her classroom to other classrooms around the world (Paccone, 2017). If you are looking for ways to incorporate Skype into your classroom, I also recommend checking out this video which gives you a quick training on Skype (Skype in the Classroom, n.d.). In the same vein of incorporating video technology into the classroom, Michael Hernandez has a great blog post on using videos as a way for students to show what they know (Paccone, 2017). I’m incorporating this particular strategy in an upcoming lesson on the carbon cycle!

Technology Challenges in the Classroom

One of the biggest challenges I face in my own classroom is the lack of consistent WiFi. When I came across Darcy Salvadore’s blog, I felt so validated in my frustrations (Paccone, 2017). Her blog post “When the WiFi Doesn’t Work Teach Resilience, Patience, and Problem-Solving” is a must-read (Paccone, 2017). It taught me that spotty wifi is something students can learn a growth mindset from (Paccone, 2017). I can teach them how to work around issues with technology and how to persevere (Paccone, 2017). In my next unit, I’ve already started to plan in  more chromebook activities –something I was afraid of doing until reading this post.

Blogs on Different Teaching Strategies 

Differentiation

My biggest focus this year is differentiation; that’s why I enjoy Caitlin Tucker’s blog (Paccone, 2017). One of her posts, “Station Rotation Model: Student Designed & Led Stations,” provides a great deal of information on implementing learning stations in your classroom (Paccone, 2017). I’ll be implementing learning stations into my upcoming unit 3 curriculum. I also enjoy reading Jen Roberts’ posts on using google forms in the classroom (Paccone, 2017). In one particular post, she discusses using “branching google forms” to differentiate student facing materials (Paccone, 2017). I don’t yet use google classroom in my classroom, but next year I will begin implementing it and when I do, I’ll definitely use branching google forms! Another hallmark of differentiation is teaching to “multiple intelligences” this blog post discusses modern teaching strategies aligned to multiple intelligences that you can start implementing today as I have (Lepi, 2012).

Annotation

Our school’s instructional focus this year is annotating, that’s why I follow Kelley Hutchison’s blog (Paccone, 2017). One of her best blog posts of 2017 was “Embracing Annotations: The Know How” (Paccone, 2017). I teach many english language learners (in fact, 2 out of my 5 sections are 100% english language learners); for this reason, I like to follow educators who post about creative and effective ways to reach ELs (Paccone, 2017). This blog post entitled “Apps for English Language Learning” talks about how to use photo apps to teach content and at this site you can sign up to receive newsletters on how to teach english to ELs (Lepi, 2012; UsingEnglish.com, n.d.).

If you’d like to follow any of the blogs I mentioned please find in the references section below links to the top 20 teacher blogs of 2017 and the top 10 high school teacher blogs. Those are all the ones I follow and you should too.

References

Lepi, K. (2012, September 24). 10 high school teacher blogs you should know about. Retrieved from https://www.scoop.it/t/adaptivelearnin/p/3995828351/2013/02/02/10-highschool-teacher-blogs-you-should-know-about-edudemic?

Paccone, P. (2017, December 28). Teachers Who Blog: The 20 Best of 2017. Retrieved from https://ww2.kqed.org/education/2017/12/28/teachers-who-blog-the-20-best-of-2017/

Skype in the Classroom. (n.d.a). Virtual Adventures with Skype in the classroom [Video file]. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/gettrained/skype

UsingEnglish.com. (n.d.). RSS news feeds for ESL students and teachers. Retrieved from http://www.usingenglish.com/feeds/