I am using the Books at Sandaig blog to get my new class blogging.

The Children write a short book review and draw an illustration.

They

  1. Scan the Picture which I then move from the Standalone with the scanner to the networked PCs.
  2. They Crop and Resize the image using the MS Office photo editor
  3. Type the review
  4. Blog the picture and text.

I am not worrying too much about the quality of the reviews at the moment, short helps as we need to work on our typing.

I am testing the new layout on the Sandaig News blog, it looks like it is going to be doable. I wonder if having the top image as a background image is going to cause problems. The links etc are going to move to the left and eventually be joined by a list of the School Newsletters to download. I’ve updated the test main page again and will check out how it looks on the school machine (800 by 600 windows 2000) tomorrow.

New Sandaig News is going to replace the Sandaig News page I hope.

This session I want to try and combine the Web site and the blogs. I’ve had a few goes over the summer, but I’ve not managed anything I like so far. I learned a bit about laying out the blog with the Elephants, Netherlands 2005 and Sandaig Poets last session. Due to the school computer monitors we have to fit on a 800 by 600 screen. And I’d like to keep the Sandy with a blackboard menu in some form too.

I’ve been putting together a unit on blogging for editc and gathered a fair number of links, which are here. (they are also in my bookmarks, furl and del.icio.us links). I am finding it quite hard to decide where to keep all of this stuff in an organised fashion.

Anyway here are the links…

General Research

Teacher Educator Blogs

  • edu.blogs.com Ewan McIntosh shows how blogs and podcasts aren’t just a gimmick: they can be used to provide powerful learning in Scottish schools.
  • edcompblog random thoughts about Educational Computing from a lecturer at Jordanhill, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow
  • weblogg-ed.commaintained by Will Richardson, blogvangelist: site is dedicated to discussions and reflections on the use of Weblogs, wikis, RSS, audiocasts and other Read/Write Web related technologies in the K-12 realm.
  • blog of David Warlick Educational technologist.
  • Educational Weblogs, numerous links and resources all about educational weblogs and best practice examples.
  • edublogs.org is a no-profit adventure into providing free WordPress blogs and hosting for teachers, students, researchers, librarians, writers and anyone who is interested in or working in education. May be a good place to get a free blog.
  • anne.teachesme blogvangelist
  • Alan November?s blog.
  • ?Reflections of a Techie

School and class Blogs

Other Blogs

  • edugadget blog about ?interesting technologies that could be used in the classroom.?
  • SQAComputing blog the web log of computing staff within the scottish qualifications authority.