Teaching Ideas from Barone & Wright (2008)

1. Allowing students to stay in the classroom or computer room during recess to engage in non-instructional activities. This would be particularly useful for students without Internet access at home, and would potentially help students remain focussed during the teaching time because have can look forward to free-time on the computers after class.
2. The creation of a group of students ('Wright's Techies') from his 4th-grade class who had moved up to 5th grade. It is their responsibility to assist their 5th grade teachers and classmates with everything laptop-related, including the operation of all applications and troubleshooting problems.
3. Useful website resources:

• Flashcard Exchange - Teachers can input information for flashcards and students access them online
• Google Earth Can be used in teaching mapping skills and about other countries
• WritingFix Can be used to teaching writing traits

Barone, D., & Wright, T. E. (2008). Literacy instruction with difital and media techologies. The Reading Teacher, 62(4), 292-302

Happily Blogging

The following are examples of educational blogs which could be used to model effective blogging to students.

The Amazing Adventures of Albert the Blogging Bear

This is the class blog of the year 4/5 class at Orange Grove Primary School in Perth and would be suitable for Stage 2 and 3 students. It is particularly good for students because it is attractive, user-friendly and consists of student-created content.

WWF Climate Blog

This stated aim of this blog is to provide readers with an inside look at the climate change policy negotiations. It also provides information about the WWF's campaign actions, how to take action and engage with the WWF's Climate Team. It could be used with a late Stage 3 class as a research activity and can be used in conjunction with the Grab Your Fork blog (below) to demonstrate the different types of blogs which exist.

Grab Your Fork

This blog could be used for late Stage 2 and Stage 3 students to show that blogs can be used in everyday contexts as well. It is attractive and demonstrates effective use of visuals to accompany blog posts, and also demonstrates that some blogs are commercial and create advertising revenue.