These 12 tips will help keep your teacher-parent email exchanges professional, productive, and positive. Summary poster included!
Author: Kathleen Morris
My Journey with Global Collaboration
Bright Ideas is a blog by the School Library Association of Victoria and the State Library of Victoria. Rachel from Bright Ideas recently asked if I’d share with readers how I got involved in global collaboration and I was only too happy to help. Hopefully, together we can inspire more teachers to make connections globally […]
Five Steps to Starting a Class Blog
The school year began in Victoria, Australia last week. Many teachers have been thinking about the benefits of having a class blog and are keen to start their own class blog. I’ve been getting lots of questions about the process of starting a blog so I thought I would write a post to help get […]
2011 School Year Begins
Today was the first day back at school for teachers in Victorian Government Schools. All schools are spending the first three days on professional development and planning. This year my school is focussing on in-house professional development. Each Monday night teachers will be presenting on Literacy, Numeracy and ICT. I am in charge of ICT […]
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Follow Up: Overcoming Obstacles
In my last post, I wrote about some common obstacles that teachers put forward as to why they don’t blog or use technologies in their classrooms. I discussed lack of time, lack of equipment, lack of keyboarding skills and internet safety along with possible solutions to these issues. The comments on this post were very […]
Overcoming Obstacles
A few days ago I was honoured to be invited on the The Virtual Staffroom podcast. Chris Betcher interviewed Linda Yollis and me about our classroom blogging and collaboration. Click here to find the podcast or look up “The Virtual Staffroom” in iTunes. One of the topics that arose on the podcast was around getting […]
A Reflection on the Benefits of Classroom Blogging
I updated this post in March 2013. In August, 2017, I wrote a comprehensive post on The Edublogger about ten benefits of blogging. Most of you will know how passionate I am about blogging in the classroom. Since I started blogging with my students in 2008, I have come to realise how enormous the benefits […]
Goals for 2011
The school year begins for us in Victoria, Australia in a few weeks time. 2010 was a steep learning curve for me; I started to do a lot of things differently and this has influenced how I plan to approach the 2011 school year. I am again teaching Grade Two and, like 2010, I will […]
Holidays are Here!
Thank you to all my readers for you support throughout the year. 2010 has seen over EIGHTY posts on this blog! ***** I have also collaborated on THIRTY Tech Tools for Teachers email newsletters with Simon Collier. These free weekly e-newsletters for teachers offer instruction on ICT tools and sites that can be used in […]
Literacy Skills and Blogging: How Far They’ve Come!
I’m always telling people how much my students’ literacy skills have improved through blogging. In my seven year teaching career, I have not come close to finding another medium that helps students to refine their reading and writing so well. Through advice from the inspirational teacher, Linda Yollis, I have been able to set very […]
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My Blogging Journey
Many people have asked me how I got started with blogging. With my recent Edublog Award nominations, it has been an opportune time to reflect. In 2008, as part of my Teacher Professional Leave project I visited the DEECD Central Office to get some ideas on how technology was being used in schools. There I […]
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Edublog Awards – Voting is Open!
I was flattered to discover that my blogs have been nominated for the 2010 Edublogs Awards. Voting is now open and ends on Tuesday December 14th. Please lodge your votes! Only one vote per IP address is allowed to keep things honest. You can lodge a vote in all categories. ************* This blog, Integrating Technology […]
After Effects of the Ugandan Global Project
As I have previously blogged about, the Ugandan Global Project involved six grade two and three classes working together to raise money for a Ugandan School. We raised $20,000 and all students students involved in the project developed enormously both on an academic and personal level. Click here to read part one explaining the project. […]
Getting Parents Involved in Blogging
Note: since writing this post, I have created a more detailed guide to helping parents connect with your class blog. Find it here on the Teacher Blogging Challenge site. *************** One of the many benefits of having a class blog is the strengthening of home-school relationships. A class blog can provide a virtual window into […]
Could You Teach Without Technology?
In November last year I wrote a blog post about how I was missing my interactive whiteboard (IWB). My projector had broken and I was without it for all of Term Four. My classroom program suddenly became less authentic, less personalised and less engaging for both the students and myself. Ironically, the same thing has […]