Evaluating an Award-Winning Blog

“Ms. Cassidy’s Classroom Blog” (http://mscassidysclass.edublogs.org) is an adorable blog giving insight into the daily life of six-year-olds attending school in Canada. Ms. Cassidy uses her blog to update readers on her students’ progress throughout the school year as well as different lessons she has taught. She uses a neat blog-site called edublogs that is designed for teachers and students alike. Her students even have their own blogs attached to Ms. Cassidy’s main page, that consists of an image of the child that the child drew him or herself, specific topics or subjects that the student wants to learn about or improve upon, and a little bio that contains a few sentences about the child.

One of the strengths of Ms. Cassidy’s blog, is the amount of photos she uses that she captured throughout her lesson. The posts themselves are fairly short and sweet, only containing a few sentences or a phrase detailing what the kids were doing in the photo. In the event that she has an excess of photos, she has created YouTube videos of the collection to post. This is a really neat way to actually show parents what their child is doing or working on, rather than just writing a few paragraphs. In addition, the students can see the work they’re doing and be encouraged and proud of themselves!

(http://mscassidysclass.edublogs.org/2016/06/13/more-reading/) 

Another awesome feature of the blog is Ms. Cassidy’s sidebar on the right side of her homepage. Here, she has links to all of her students’ blogs that were mentioned earlier as well as her class Twitter and links for parents! This is such a cool way to offer alternatives to parents for faster updates or to simply connect different forms of social media.

I’ve been really impressed with Ms. Cassidy’s blog and her ability to use it to her students’ advantage rather than just her own. She really showcases her students’ hard work and as a student I can imagine it would be really empowering to see that on a teacher’s blog. In addition, I love that she uses a lot of photos and videos to show this. And, her ability to connect with other social media platforms shows how easily you can showcase a classroom and your work in the world of technology. These qualities are definitely features that I would love to use in my classroom blog one day!