My "Why?" on Blogging

My blogging journey began while I was studying abroad. A blog was the perfect way to share my experiences in London with family members back in Missouri. Since then, my blog has experienced a bit of growth and evolved with my life as I've grown up. Believe or it not... my life has changed a bit since the summer of 2008. :)

I'm always encouraging others to blog and jump in on the blogging community because there are so many benefits to being part of this inter-web network.  In almost every conversation I have with a friend about blogging, I (almost) always get the response, "No one will want to read what I have to say!" or "I don't have anything to blog about!".  My response is..... you're looking at it all wrong! 

Simon Sinek says, "People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it." 

Perhaps my "whys" will give you the little push you need to jump on in and start a blog:

First.... I look at my blog as as a reflective journal of my teaching practices, journal of our home renovating experiences, and an opportunity to share life experiences.  Sure, it's great when people read my blog and interact with me via comments or conversation, but it's also great having an online journal that has collected many memories over several years. 

Secondly... The connections!! Through blogging, I have had the opportunity to connect with teachers around the country. Kudos to my friend Abby for making this neat graphic illustrating connections made with my blog. I've swapped many emails with teachers in Missouri and other states about teaching ideas and my life is richer because of it. 

Next... The tone, style, and flow of my blog is completely up to me. Perhaps I've written one too many college papers where I've been criticized for not writing "professionally".  (Fact! This has happened!) I like to use my blog as an opportunity to write like I speak to others. I want readers to feel like they're having a conversation with me instead of reading my term paper. 

Most importantly... My blog is an opportunity to lead by example. I choose to use my blog as a source of optimism, positivity, and a breath of fresh air. Of course my life is not always sunshine and roses... we all have our bad days. However, I choose to share what makes me happy in an effort to spread good vibes to others. The internet is filled with so much negativity, trolls, and hate... why not use my voice for a positive purpose?

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I would love to hear you WHY! Why do you choose to blog and share your journey online? 

In the meantime.... you should check out my super talented and creative friends and their blogs:

Abby @ The Occasions Closet 

Mary @ Full and Merry 

To Seesaw or Not to Seesaw?

This year, we are 1:1 in 5th grade with iPads. One of the apps my students have come to know is Seesaw. We were using Kidblog until it was no longer a free service. This bummed me out for a solid two days. However, I'm moved on and living life just fine without it. 

Read more about all that Seesaw offers here. 

One of the features I really like on the website are the Activity Ideas in the Teacher Resource bank. These gave me an idea of how to get started using Seesaw.  

Here are some Pros and Cons of using Seesaw:

(Please note these are all my opinions based on my experience as a classroom teacher)

The positives:

• All posts require approval. These gave me an opportunity to review all posts before they were viewed by my students. 
• Parents can login and view posts, comment on posts, and see what their kids are blogging about. I had several parents leave comments, like posts, and view content each day.
• Seesaw sends a "This Week in Review". You can see the traffic on your site, parent visits, student logins, etc. 
• Students can upload pictures, record video, draw something, add links from the internet, etc. The feature we used the most was "Note". 
• Students can upload a picture and annotate on top of the picture. This is great for labeling diagrams or working through math problems.

A few Cons:

• In the "Note" section (where we blogged) there are no formatting tools.  They couldn't change the size, make proper headings, officially indent, etc. 
• If they don't finish an activity and they log off.. Poof! It's gone. (This has been our experience..)

My Wishes for Seesaw (is anybody reading this?):

• Give students an opportunity to upload a photo and type text with it. Similar to Kidblog or another blogging platform.
• Add formatting features in the Note section so we can take our publishing up a notch. 
• Save drafts! Please let us save. Sometimes we have to take breaks with projects on our iPads and don't always finish in one setting. 
• Let us save! Sometimes we want to keep the work we publish on Seesaw. It would be GREAT to be able to save those things to our camera roll for future portfolios. 

To wrap it up, I'm a big fan of everything that Seesaw offers. I think you should jump on board and give it a whirl.

P.S. Some of "My Wishes" may actually be a reality on the app... and I may have not figured them out yet. :)

Livin' Life Half Full

Good morning! Have we met? I'm Jordon, formally known as "The Messy One". Before I continue, I must confess that just because my blog name is changing does not mean my "messy ways" have gone by the wayside. You can still find me happily living a messy life only with more emphasis on a positive attitude.

I knew my blog was in need of a facelift after chatting with my students about blogging. I was sharing with them my personal blog and felt that the name of my blog should do a better job of reflecting who I really am. 

So, allow myself to introduce... myself. 

My name is Richie Cunningham and this is my wife... Oprah.

I'm Jordon. 

I like to enjoy the positive things in life. 

I like to see each opportunity from a "glass is half full" perspective. 

My blog will (continue to) be a journey through life's adventures in the classroom, home, and kitchen. 

Nice to meet you, dear readers.

Have a wonderful Monday!

Let's Blog, Folks!

Do you blog with your students? I can officially say we're bloggers now! Last week, I gave my students the task of identifying one scientist, inventor, or discovery to research and write and informational blog post on. I'll be honest, when I FIRST introduced the project you could hear crickets in the room. Even after a few failed attempts at pumping them up... I still heard crickets. I'm fairly certain the only thing they heard me say was "research". 

As a class, we used the blogging platform KidBlog.org. I created an account (for free) and entered all of my students. The great part about KidBlog - you must have a password to read ALL of the posts. You can see the title of the blog, but in order to read anything a password must be entered.

The first question I had to tackle was, "what is blogging?". I relied on my good friends, Tim and Moby to do that for me. In their short BrainPOP, they hit the big ideas of a weblog being an online journal. They even go as far to describe different purposes for blogging. Perfect jumpstart for our project. 

Click here to take you to the BrainPOP about blogging. The best news is that it's FREE!

After giving my students the rundown on blogging and KidBlog, I gave both of my science classes this task: 

You will research the biography of one famous scientist and inventor. Determine the nature of their work, ethnic background, gender, and area of study. In a typed blog post, you will describe how their work contributed to science and technology. 

In 5th grade, we have several GLEs regarding the impact of science, technology, and human activity. I was (and still am!) confident that this project was a successful one to cover those areas. 

On our first day of class, I had my kids identify who they wanted to research. We started small and gathered resources. If you would like a copy of our research page, email me! [jordon.furnell@gmail.com]. I love sharing resources!

Each day of class, we spent about a week on this, I gave a mini lesson on different features of blogging.  One day, I showed them how to edit and publish their blog. On Friday, our mini lesson was about inserting an image into the blog. For the most part, students really got the hang of things. While I was explaining our blog, I even had a student leave me comment that said, "okey dokey." Clearly, he had things figured out. 

Do you blog with your students? What types of things do you blog about? What other social media outlets do you use? I would love to expand our blogging outside of science and biographies. Share your ideas!