Catherine Way

At the moment, I am quite interested in using blogging in the primary classroom.  I'm thinking through the various ways blogging might be used, wondering why a teacher might choose blogging over other forms of sharing and working through some of my concerns about sharing student work and photos online in this format. For a teacher, I believe a professional blog could be a valuable way to capture professional learning, reflect on practice and connect and share with other educators.  A blog, rather than other platforms, might make sense for this as writing is a common way to reflect.  But what about a classroom blog or student blogs? A classroom blog seems like it could be a wonderful way to document student learning capture class memories show students work demonstrate and practice safe internet usage and digital collaboration or, create an authentic context for writing and sharing online. But I work predominantly with younger students (up to Grade 2) and to make this type

Padlet is a digital pinboard on which you can place cards showing text, pictures, video, weblinks, music and so on.  You are able to share the boards and collaborate on the board with other people.  It is a very easy to use platform which does not take long to learn. Some of the ways that I have used Padlet in the classroom are: to create a timeline which students can add cards to with new dates and information as a customised word wall with picture prompts displayed during a lesson (eg. science word wall, displayed when students are working on science) Other ways I might use Padlet with primary grades: collaborate as a class to add research links and facts about a topic display the class agenda and to do list event planning collecting book reviews have students find or photograph and post images that meet a certain criteria (eg. find examples of triangles) class document or weblink hub There are also some ways you could use padlet to create customised interactiv