Feel Free to Contact Us!

You are now ready to use blogging in your classroom--hooray!  Some of you may have created your first blog, and some of you have already had blogs.  Either way, we hope you have a few new ideas for how to use them in your classroom.

We also have a few resources to help you gain readership for your students' blog posts!  Including the #Comments4Kids hashtag, as well taking advantage of the Student Blogging Network Google Plus community, will both help generate readers for your students' blogs.

Remember to keep reading JMLiteracy, our professional blog, for literacy and technology-related ideas for your classroom.  Feel free to peruse samples of our class blogs as well:
Mrs. Knapik's Math Class
Mrs. Diamond's English Class

We wish you the best of luck as you start incorporating blogging into your classroom.  Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions in the future!

You can also reference our book for further information on blogging and other tech tools!

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and keep up with our blog posts for future ideas and resources!

Which One Do I Choose?!

Now that you know what a blog is, you need to set up your own blog.  There are a bunch of different options, and each platform has its merits.  Remember, there a multitude of ways to use blogging as a part of your class, and there are always resources online to help you if you ever get "stuck".  Check out Richard Byrne's post on FreeTech4Teachers for some video tutorials on how to set up a blog using various platforms (plus other resources, too!).

Here are the links to some of the most popular blogging platforms.  Click on an image below to choose the platform that is right for you, and let's get started!

A few more helpful resources:
Blogger in the Classroom
   Getting Started on Blogger
   How to Set Up a Class on Kidblog
   Setting Up a Kidblog Tutorial

Blogging in Education

Let's get some inspiration.  We have aggregated a few blog posts on using blogging in the classroom.  Take some time to read the posts.  Then comment below with some initial thoughts on your new learning.

Some student bloggers in Mrs. Diamond's class

• What stood out to you as you were reading?
• What inspired you?
• What questions do you have?

Edutopia Blogging in the 21st Century

So You Wanna Use Blogs in the Classroom

Best Educational Blogs for 2014

Some student bloggers in Mrs. Diamond's class

These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things

We mentioned that when we start blogging in our classrooms, we play "Blogging in Plain English".  This is a Common Craft video that breaks down blogging into easy to understand terms.  This is a great video to play with students before you explore some blogs as mentor texts together as a class.

To get you started, search for topics of interest via one of the search engines for blogs.
Google’s Blogsearch
Technorati
Bloglovin

Plus, here are some of our favorite blogs!  (Notice we are into education and cooking.)
JMLiteracy blog (Our blog!  Hey, everyone has to start somewhere.)
Dy/Dan
Stump the Teacher
FreeTech4Teachers
Blissful Basil
Real Girl’s Kitchen
The Sarcastic Superhero
Angela Maiers's Blog
A Beautiful Mess
SkinnyTaste
Cooking for Two

Hello! Who are you?

Helloooooo, ILA 2015!  We are so excited to have enthusiastic educators here to learn about blogging to meet the Common Core State Standards across all content areas.

Before we get our hands dirty, let's learn a little about each other.  In the comments below, post a brief introduction about yourself.  What and where do you teach?  Why are you at ILA?  What do you hope to learn from our workshop today?  Give us one interesting tidbit about yourself.  ;)

Meg Knapik & Jamie Diamond enjoying #ILA15