Welcome to our blog!
Our blog gives the opportunity to share our ideas with other students, classes, and even schools. This means we can extend our learning beyond the four walls of the classroom and beyond the school day. Our blog also allows us to invite our family members, no matter where they live, into the classroom. We welcome comments from family members; our students always love to receive feedback from our larger learning community!
Our blog is a safe place to share ideas.
- I review and approve every comment before it is posted. This means that your comment will not appear on the blog as soon as you hit the Reply button. It is waiting to be approved. Look for your comment to appear within 24 hours. If you still do not see your comment at that time, please e-mail me (dausten@bcps.org) and let me know that you left a comment. I’ll be sure to check it right away.
- Students should never share their last name when they are leaving a comment. I will remove any last names from the comment if you forget. Also, the email that you enter with your comment will never be shared.
We communicate respectfully.
Another reason our blog is a safe place to share ideas is the respectful way in which we communicate. Just as we practice Genuine Conversations in class, there are guidelines we follow when having an on-line conversation as well. We share compliments, questions, and comments. If we disagree with a comment that someone else has left, we disagree respectfully.
Here are some different types of comments that you can leave:
- Question – ask a question about a post
- “How did it feel when you…?”
- “What was your favorite part of …?”
- “Could you explain more about …?”
- Opinion – share what you think about a topic and WHY you think that
- “My favorite part of the learning garden is the benched because I like to sit and read outside.”
- “I thought it was hard to make the paper airplane. I had trouble understanding the directions on the computer.”
- “I didn’t like to bus ride on our field trip. It was too long. I suggest that other students bring a book to read if they take a long bus ride like this one.”
- Piggyback – share an idea that connects to something another student shared
- “John wondered how tall the tower was. I wonder how wide you were able to build your tower.”
- “Shana liked being able to draw a picture of the hermit crab. To piggyback, I liked using crayons to add color to my drawing.”
- “Anton’s favorite part of Sports Day was the water balloon station. I loved getting wet too!”
We practice “school writing” on our blog.
To make your communication clear, it is important to write in complete sentences and do your best to use proper capitalization, spelling, and punctuation. I will give you some reminders if you need them and ask you to revise your comment to make it clear.
We do not use texting lingo when we share on the blog. Neither do we write in ALL CAPS or use lots and lots of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. This just makes the message confusing.
Thanks again for visiting our blog. I can’t wait to hear from you on-line!
🙂 Mrs. Austen
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