Best-of-the-Best Teacher Blogs

Here are some awesome teacher bloggers that you will find interesting and informative!  I'm excited that you have begun this adventure as a blogger yourself, and hopefully these blogs will supply you with both ideas and inspiration for posting.

Venspired
One of my favorite blogs, sure to give you new inspiration and passion for teaching!

Cool Cat Teacher Blog
Lots of great info on educational technology and Common Core.

Web 2.0 Classroom
This guy shares relevant and inspiring info about ed tech, leadership, and other topics.  Be sure to follow him on Twitter (@web20classroom) for your daily dose of professional development and inspiration!

Byrdseed
Links and info about gifted education but relevant for all teachers.

History is Elementary
An elem. teacher shares practical strategies and ideas.

History Tech
A history teacher blogs about teaching history, integrating tech, and more.

Edublogs Best Teacher Blogs of 2012
Be sure to check out The Nerdy Teacher and his concept of "20 time" in his classroom.

Top 25 Elementary Teacher Blogs of 2012
A wealth of good content and creative ideas!

Announcing... Our Class Website!

Visit our class wiki at the link below to access all online resources, instructional strategies, and books for effective social studies teaching shared during our classes, as well as former block students' social studies lesson and unit plans.

http://sites.google.com/site/muwed310/

Want to join so you can add content? Leave your Google account email in the comments. (To protect your privacy, I'll delete as soon as I invite you to join.)

Flat Stanley Project

Visit this website to learn more about how schools around the world are using the Flat Stanley series to make geography come alive!

For a homework assignment in this class, you must mail, email, or photo text the flat version of yourself :) to at least one person outside the state of MS. The person must take a photograph with "flat you" in a landmark location in their town/state and mail/email/text the photograph back to you. You are only required to obtain one photograph, but you are encouraged to get as many as you can! With the speed of email and text messaging, this project should be both easy and fun. Awards will be given on our final day of class to students with the most locations and the farthest locations.

What ideas do you have for using the Flat Stanley project in your own classroom?

Top 10 Essentials of a Culturally Responsive Classroom

In class last week, we had a wonderful discussion about the essential components of a culturally responsive 21st century classroom.  Here are a few of the students' ideas:

I love making "Top 10" lists, so here are mine:

Top 10 Essentials of a Culturally Responsive Classroom

1. A willing and passionate teacher and lifelong learner.
2. Maps, globes, games and other geography/social studies hands-on learning resources.
3. Big ideas about history and social studies reinforced across the curriculum.
4. Focus on active learning and connection of learning to students' lives and prior knowledge.
5. Frequent discussion and posting of current events and kid-friendly news sources.
6. Invitations for students and families to share of themselves.
7. Highlight important leaders of all cultural backgrounds year-round, not just during specific months.
8. Meaningful technology integration - kids as producers, not just consumers.
9. Communiction/collaboration with and about other people and places beyond the doors of the classroom/school - around the community and across the country/world.
10. Fostering a global mindset and  tolerant attitude where "weird" is replaced with "different."

Directions for Blog Assignment

Directions: 

Each student will create a blog and post at least 10 times throughout the semester. (Share link with Dr. Coleman and your classmates by leaving a comment on this post.)  Dates for posts are listed on the Course Schedule.  In addition to each post, you should view/comment on at least two classmates’ posts.  Choose from the list of prompts below.

Blog Post Prompts:

• Current Events (briefly describe event, give link to news site, and describe classroom application)
• Reflection on social studies teaching/learning strategies learned/observed in class or field experience
• Social studies teaching strategy overview
• Featured social studies teaching resource (Ex: book, game, teacher resource material, website, app, etc.)
• Educational policy issue (overview and your reflection)
• Thought-provoking or inspirational photo/quote (directly applicable to teaching in general and/or social studies education) – No more than 2 posts

Helpful Hints for Using Blogger (Google’s free blog service):

• To access:  Go to either www.google.com or www.blogger.com and sign in using your Google account email and password. (Once you are signed in, you can also access Google’s other products.)  Then, click on the blog’s title that you want to view.  This will take you to your Dashboard.
• To create a new post, click the orange “New Post” button (top left).
• To change the design of your blog, click on the “Template” button, then on “Customize.
• To change the layout, click “Layout.”
• To change privacy and other settings, click “Settings.”
• To view changes to your blog at any time, click the “View Blog” button at the top.
• To edit a post after it is published, click on the pencil icon.  You can also view/edit all posts by clicking “Posts” from the Dashboard.
• To edit any other blog elements, click on the wheel icon.

You are welcome to customize your blog’s colors and design, but you must use an easily readable font and color.  Remember that everything you publish as an educator reflects your professionalism!