Blog Post 3: Blogs That Work, Blogs That Don't

I performed a Google search for “4^th Grade Class Blog” and was given 3,880,000 results. I honestly just chose random blogs from the first results page to evaluate. I explored Mr. O’Brien’s 4^th Grade Blog and found that it “works.”  I recognized the Blogger icon and realized the blog was created using the same website as our Educational Technology blogs. Mr. O’Brien chose to stick with a template blogger provided and I couldn’t see many alterations from the original layout. This ensured that fonts worked well together, background colors meshed, and the layout was simple and effective. The blog is very easy to navigate. The week’s announcements and lesson plans are posted on the left and all links are on the right. Each lesson plan is supplemented with several videos. These include interviews about the subject studied and short informative pieces created by students around the world. If I were a parent, I would enjoy watching these and learning a bit about what my child is studying. I could gather some information and then ask my child more questions about the subject. A link list to the left is titled, “What We Are Studying Now.” It lists a learning theme, like Probability BBC, and acts as a hyperlink to a website where the theme may be practiced, either through online games or short tutorials. There is also a link list that includes resources like Online Thesaurus and Create a Graph. I think that all links provided are relevant and helpful for both students and parents. Links to homework assignments, spelling lists, and student work are also provided. I didn’t appreciate the Live Traffic Feed Gadget. This showed the number of site visitors and their locations. While this may be interesting to the teacher, it is not important for parents and students to view and takes up space where other valuable information could be posted.

Mrs. Ponsart’s 4^th Grade Blog didn’t work. The background is appealing and the layout is simple and easy to navigate. Why then, does the blog not work? It is lacking in content. The only posts seem to be creative writing prompts. I’m not sure if they actually are creative writing prompts, because the blog does not have an introductory message to new visitors or any summary of assignment requirements. Students have posted responses to prompts, and maybe that is its soul purpose, but it is not explained. The blog doesn’t possess any links to other information sources or documents. I feel there is so much more information that this teacher could be presenting. Even a monthly update about important dates would add to the content.