Unbelievable Blog Entries

The past couple days have been a couple of the most satisfying of my teaching career. Thursday evening I had the pleasure of evaluating some of the most impressive blog entries my students have ever published. Today I taught over 40 teachers how to use blogs in the classroom at a district inservice. Both were a joy for me, but it was my students' blog entries that gave me the greater sense of fulfillment.

Students completed the entries as part of a contest. The winners get to make the trip to Columbus with me to the eTech Ohio State Technology Conference to set up a student display. Students were allowed to write about whatever they wanted for their entries and I think this is why they were of such high quality.

So below are the five winning entries. They have gone outside of the normal research report--filled with text and static images--and added video clips from YouTube and Metacafe.

• Icy Times with Penguins
• Eight Wins, Eight Losses, Eight Arrests
• The Cincinnati Bengals
• Hubble Space Telescope
• Nancy Drew
  

Unfortunately, even though my students were able to track down some great videos, they will not be viewed at school. The videos are blocked because YouTube and Metacafe don't make it through our filters. To me, this is what Will is talking about when he says "...everything that could go right". These kids have learned to "leverage the tools", and judging by the blog entries above, the results are tremendous.


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