Reviews by Lab Llama: Kid Blog

Some sites are old...some sites are brand new...others are glitchy...others run great! Who has time to vet them all?? 

Lord knows that I don't, but I want to share some llama love by rating the sites that I have had some firsthand experience using. I'm not paid (darn) and by no means are these reviews "official" but hey, who says they can't still be useful. 

So here we go...Kidblog! It is a blogging site for teachers to host student blogs. 

Price Point
Okay, so I know we like free. I mean, we really like free. But this is one of few subscriptions I have felt has held its value.

As of September 2017, an account costed $60 annually. At $5 a month for it to host all my students...not a deal breaker.

Kidblog offers free 30-day trials for you to check it out and sometimes run seasonal specials for discounted prices (I've seen 20% offers at times). 

Practicality
Kidblog definitely checks the proverbial box for practicality. 

- Students login with a dropdown menu of the usernames associated with a given blog (can I get a "hoorah!" for not worrying about mis-typed usernames!!).

- The teacher dashboard allows you to lock down posts and comments (I require approval for both), it's easy to reset student passwords, and you can create bulk accounts using a CSV file. 

- The account license doesn't limit how many computers use the site so students can access their blogs from home. 

- Public versus private is a breeze. You can make your class's blogs public, private to only the teacher and students, or limited to students + a specific list of email addresses. 

Student Engagement
So, student engagement is key. In my class, if it's too far from being a "game" I get terrible final products from my classes. Kidblog scores full marks for student engagement. 

- They have fun tools for customizing avatars and images for within a given post.

- Further customization can be done to individual blog posts including custom fonts, backgrounds, and header images. 

- Plus commenting, commenting, commenting! Boy, do kids love to talk (as if you didn't know that already).

Reliability

I am on year three of using this website and have seldom run into problems of the site being down for maintenance. Since it doesn't run flash or any other bells and whistles, there's little else that affects this site's reliability...other than your internet connectivity, of course.

Academic Value
The students like it - good. It works reliably - good. But does it contribute to learning? Any computer lab teacher worth their weight in RAM knows that activities must make the students more computer literate or what's the point??

So what skills does Kidblog enhance?
- Typing skills
- General site navigation (dropdown menus, signing in and out, saving work, etc.)
- Digital citizenship (cyberbullying through comments, appropriate post topics, secure passwords, and more)
- 'Netiquette (typing in ALL CAPS, spamming, replying to others)

Final ScoreWhat type of llama lover would I be if my scoring wasn't llamarific!!

With a solid rating in each category, it may not come as a surprise that this site gets a score of...

5 out of 5 Lovely Llamas!

I'd love to hear from you! Have you used Kidblog or a similar blogging site for kids? Please share in the comments below.

Llama love,

Sam

Exploring New Robots

As the school year comes to an end, I'm looking into radically upgrading our robotics component of class. Here is one of the robots I'm looking to purchase this school year. They are made by Wonder Workshop and offer a variety of teaching resources.

I don't intend to purchase "Dot," but do want several "Dash" robots.

Do you have any experience with robotics and students? What would be your greatest teaching concern?

Thanks for sharing!

A Hiatus with Purpose

Admittedly, the school year came around and *poof!* no more posts or products have appeared in my little corner of the internet. While I could make excuses (and in a way I am)... it boiled down to moving classrooms, a new teaching environment, and finishing up my teaching credential.



Despite the fatigue, it was so rewarding!

Finishing my teaching credential consisted of a process called "induction" in California. I am oh so happy to have accomplished this goal of mine so I wanted to share three highlights of the experience!




1st Highlight: My induction program helped me implement diverse strategies I would have put off until I was more "experienced" (when does that even happen?).

My favorite implementation had to be the "exit ticket." Previously, I had written this type of strategy off as something that would only work for teachers who had a significant amount of time for their lesson - and with resources like paper and pencils! However, I found that my smartboard was a great resource for a quick exit ticket. Here's an example:

Students were asked for "key words" for internet searching.

2nd Highlight: I was taught to seek out good resources. An example would be this article of 10 Tips for New Teachers.

3rd Highlight: I grew in a definite area of weakness - assessments. Gah! Grading for a computer class was so scary to me...do I give grades for creativity? Behavior? My induction program helped me to realize that structure for my assessments (as well as including informal assessments) is so important for staying level-headed about those scary stacks of (digital) papers to grade!



Even though I had initially dreaded having to do more to clear my credential, the induction program was rewarding because of how it helped me change my own perception of my own teaching. What felt like failures at the start of my teaching career now feel like bumps along the dirt road that is teaching. It helps inspire goals for my teaching future - specifically, continuing to be adventurous in my teaching practices. Why not make this learning thing fun, right?

Please share a meaningful take-away you remember from your first years of teaching! Where did it come from?

Operation Sphero a Success

Phew!! Eighty-five degrees feels just a bit warmer when you're outside directing groups of excited 5th and 6th graders! I am so pleased with how today's Sphero experience went.

I had students with big grins and crazy ideas flitting in and out of the quad at our school. Here's a picture (sorry for the lame face covers... I went with a Sphero emblem).

Today we used the "Sphero" iPad app to control our Spheros (Spheroes? Spheri? We'll go with Spheros.). It is the primary app to drive Sphero around. I let them experiment with different things and enjoyed when they came up to me excited that they'd unlocked a new trick. I think it's important to let students have a little free-reign with technology before I rope them in and put them to work. Next time these Spheros will be used, we will use the "Macrolab" app to program our robots to do specific actions.

Sorry if this is the ramblings of a crazy person. :) Does your school implement any form of robotics?

If Robots are Geeky...

If robots are geeky, guess I'm queen of the geeks this week! I am so excited to have my very first "Sphero" day with my students tomorrow. Sphero was created as a toy, but has launched a program for schools to use them to teach computer programming and coding using a tablet device.



Now, I know very little about these things, but I'm willing to learn right along with my students. School started three weeks ago and I have not gone a single day without a student spotting me in the hall and shouting out, "SPHERO!!" I almost answer to it as my name these days!

I had a small group of fifth graders gather around my room on the morning they saw my supply arrive:

 



I'm excited to share my experience with this whole thing come tomorrow! I love getting new technology in their hands - they just soak it up and the excitement beams from their faces.

Have you had good experiences with kids and technology integration? I would love to hear about any "aha!" or "oh no!" moments. :)