from a CUE session with Vicki Davis – coolcatteacher

Cool Cat teacher

Here are my notes on Vicki’s 10 habits of bloggers that win.

(See her web site www.coolcatteacher.com for her presentation)

1. if you mention it, hyperlink it – no dead text
2. have a tempting title – marketing yourself – they have a voice – gives kids opportunities to be leaders in a new way
3. write it and cut in half – less is more, great business habit – limit word count (diet) to make them do higher order thinking about what is important – exceptions – how to then be specific and give example, pictures

• www.classtools.net kids make video games as a study guide
• www.toondoo.com they can make cartoons to demonstrate learning (note – I have used this since then and the kids love it! slm 5/09)
• www.animoto.com cool videos to make it interesting and engaging

4. write first and format second: – unless you have RSS feed off your blog – don’t save then edit

• Headings – it is ok to have a paragraph that is one sentence – for blogs even if not in LA. Short are better than longer paragraphs.
• bullets
• quotations
• italics sparingly
• don’t be a hyperlink tease – no underlined text – rude, bad netiquette
• white space

5. Paint a picture – use photo or graphics – non-verbal communication allow them cell phone access. They can do this with .ning take pix and email them to their blog. Take 4 pictures that best represent you…put on wiki or blog
6. before you bag it, tag it www.librarything.com (bigger means more hits on list of tags) give an assignment tag so that I can find all the ones for that task
7. After you post it, ping it www.pingomatic.com tells public searches that your updated your blog what is your digital footprint? By the time they grad from HS they will need a footprint as part of their portfolio youth voices etc to allow blogging outside of the classroom but inside the world. Link to the author of a book and they may email or blog back!
8. Never throw anything away! Don’t ever delete old posts. Archive it.
9. comment on the articles to you write and hyperlink to your article www.technorati.com
10. Teach them how to make meaningful comments!!!!

We had a beautiful Earth Day celebration and ‘ribbon cutting’ for our garden. It was a great day with a lot of learning. We had worms, ladybugs, gardening tools and even chickens!
Our Garden

Results

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If you have a public bathroom, you need these! Check out http://thesecomefromtrees.blogspot.com/ to do your part to reduce consumption and save a tree! 

California native plant event

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saratoga-t-shirt-order-form-2009

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