C4K #10 Part 1

Mrs. Yollis’ class blog is the best I have seen so far when it comes to class blogs. It is packed full of information and links, facts, activities, podcasts, videos and interactive educational programs. Her blog was extremely busy. It was as if everything stood out to me, not just one or two interesting things. There is a link to a how-to wiki she created for teachers wanting to start their own blogs. There was a video about how to Skype and many pictures of her class doing all these things. There were links to classes all around the world that she has interacted with. You could easily spend hours navigating her blog and not see it all or get bored. Two other things I really liked on her blog were the RevolverMap visitors counter and Neo Earth widgets. I also liked that comments left by other people were lined up on the right side of the screen for readers to see as they scroll down. Everywhere you looked, from left to right, top to bottom, there was something to read or a picture to look at or a link to click. You can see Mrs. Yollis works hard on her blog and really puts a lot into it on a regular basis. She is really dedicated to blogging and to her students. I was surprised to see some familiar names at the bottom. Her class has corresponded with Jarrod from Australia. I remember reading Jarrod’s post about Skyping with Royce and I see now that Royce was a student in Mrs. Yollis’ class. I also noticed she has had a little over 72,000 visitors to her blog where our class blog has almost 49,000. Another big thing I noticed is that she is PROUD of her students. She is always posting their work and praising them for their efforts. This is something I would like to see more of on the EDM310 class blog!

The one link I found most beneficial was Mrs. Yollis’ class website. Like her class blog, this website was jam-packed full of valuable information for parents, students and other teachers. On the home page, she encourages students and parents to explore all the links together and smartly advises parents to monitor their child on the internet. This website was so useful for her class. One page I was already familiar with (and grateful for) was the HTML code page. She gives homework on this site, spelling, reading, social studies and math lessons, class movies, news, search engines, typing games, parent information and other useful items. It was organized really well. You could click, for instance, on the “money and time” link and it takes you to a great math website where you can play one of many games that will help you learn to count money or tell time.

I found Mrs. Yollis’ blog and website fun, interesting and extremely beneficial for her students and their parents. Other teachers could learn from this. It makes me wish my child’s teacher had a blog for us parents to visit. It would help keep us organized at home and allow me to see what my child is learning in class every day. I think that would help me tutor her or even give her a head start on what she needs to be learning. Her blog and website have convinced me to keep an active blog going when I get my own classroom. She did a really great job for her students. I will be a frequent visitor to her site.