Just last week a teacher @ work came into my classroom and noticed our "How many hits on our class blog?" poster that we have been using for at least the past two months. She instantly wanted to do this in her class too .... something I'd not yet considered as the idea didn't seem too innovative or new to me.
So I thought I'd make a mention of it here for any of you that also might find it useful!
It's not technologically flash, but it IS particularly useful if your students don't have a lot of access to computers on a daily basis
(like in my classroom - we only have one class computer to use daily).
(like in my classroom - we only have one class computer to use daily).
How to motivate your class' blogging: one simple way
In my classroom each week students take on jobs around the classroom, we call them "responsibilities"... and one of these is the "Hit Counter Monitors".
These two children are in charge of monitoring the hit counter twice a day (once in morning at start of school, once in afternoon just before end of school) for the entire week.
So for their job they have to log onto the blog and check our hit counter in the sidebar. Then they use the numerals to make the number on our chart so the whole class can see. (see this example from just before we got 2,000 hits a month or so ago)
Every 2,000 hits we have a big class party so the class is very eager to see the numbers of hits climb.
Each morning we examine our new number and work out how many more hits we need until we reach our target by adding in parts up to the nearest 10, then 100 etc (see me sneaking in a bit of maths there!). At the moment we are trying to make it until 4,000 to reach our next class party.
For my class, this is a brilliant motivator for our blogging, (along with all the marvelous comments we get) on a daily basis where not all students have access to the computer at school on that particular day - it helps them to still stay in touch with the happenings.
... it shows these 6 & 7 year olds that people ARE actually visiting and reading their work... that they ARE reaching a real life audience and that their learning, thoughts and experiences really IS valued!
If you think this might be beneficial in your class, you can download a PDF copy of the poster I use and the numbers to stick on from below.
Download "How Many Hits on our Class Blog?" poster
Download "Numbers for How Many Hits" poster
Download "How Many Hits on our Class Blog?" poster
Download "Numbers for How Many Hits" poster
I love this because it reinforces their understanding of place value. So many of my kids struggle with numbers over 100. What a perfect way to get them personally invested in understanding place value and number concepts.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!!
Very cool! I really like this as well because it might get the kids working on their parents to jump on to get the numbers up - more ways to encourage parents to go look at it.
ReplyDeleteHey there Rachel!
ReplyDeleteLong time no hear! How are you, my friend?
I absolutely concur with 'organized chaos' and their place value comment.
Some of my new, wee 7 & 8 year olds this year have some ENP foundations missing possibly due to the fact that ENP/ANP hadn't been rolled out to their previous school!
Love your concept and it will be duly employed in my classroom toute suite! (if only I could download it! - Seem to tell me 'no shared files'. Maybe I am missing something here! or you only had 100copies to go around and I missed out ... lol!) Do I need to log on to box.net to access your shared files, in other words?
Take care and many thanks for all your awesome ideas that you so freely share with us all! :)
Chrys
Hi Rach!
ReplyDeleteI have just seen the light!
I clicked on your 'Rachels Files Box' and downloaded the 'How many hits + numbers' from there. Your link for this at the bottom of your post don't appear to be working! My prob? Quite likely - but you may want to check it out!
By the way, are you blogging with your class this year? If so, may I please have your address as our blog has a link to 'Our Friends in Nelson' and you guyz are IT!
Again, many thanks -
Chrys x
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI love this idea! I like that the “Hit Counter Monitors” is a great responsibility and that it motivates your students so much. Another idea I liked was that you incorporate math into figuring out how many more hits are needed until the next class party. I also like that the idea that showing 6 & 7 year olds that people do read their work because it shows them at an earlier age that their work is appreciated. When I was younger I was just told that my work is read, but I never had any proof which is what a lot of students need.
I also think that this could work at the middle school and high school level with journal entries. Some creative writing teachers have their students write with paper and pen, but then students think “Who is actually going to read this.” By using the internet and having a ‘hit counter’ it shows students that their work is read.
Bridget Hood