The Look

Waller's image never fails to make me smile. The little boy in the photograph was an orphan and he had just been given a new pair of shoes by the Red Cross. His six-year-old look of pure joy gives ME a momentary feeling of pure joy every time I look at it.

It is because I get a kick out of trying to capture the joy of six-year-olds (in order to share it with families) that I am taking this course. And I am here because of Sam, my formerly six-year-old nephew.

Sam visited Maine last July and the first thing he wanted to show me was his classroom blog. He laughed as he logged on to share his part in all of the cool things they did in first grade. First stop was a podcast where he had made a blooper and so his teacher, Mrs. Rogers, had titled his reading "Sam's Blooper". Hearing him giggle with his teacher as he misread a word was and still is unforgetable. That's when I knew it was time to let go of my classroom website and create something more alive--something that would breathe and somehow enable me to share the short, joyful bursts of learning energy that are a part of every day in first grade.

I have listed Sam's teacher's blogs because they are my inspiration. They have given me a simple format to use as my template and as I become more confident I borrow new elements. Someday I will post a comment on her latest site to thank her for her unknowing role in my education.

We've been asked to list two blogs from the "Moving Forward List" and explain why we chose them and how we might use them for personal learning.

As I mentioned earlier, I am drawn to simple formats and therefore my biggest decision is to determine how much action my blog can handle without overwhelming the viewer. In visiting KinderKids' and Kathy Cassidy's blog, I immediately started to wonder about the following:

*What is it that makes each blog seem so alive?
*Is everything posted on the fly or do teachers get together and map out what is to be shared?
*How often is news posted?
*What sites are used for managing classroom images?
*Is there a balance between the various subjects?
*How is student work archived?
*Does each video or slideshow have one picture of everyone?
*How does each teacher convince parents to sign off on posting images on the web?
*What is said to a family that does not want to be part of a classroom blog?
*Does the school have a community of bloggers that the viewer can link to?
*Does the look of the blog evolve or is it rather like a Hogwarts newspaper template complete with moving images?

My next learning step will be to take the list of image sharing sites that I've compiled from Alice's suggestions, Ms. Knee's and Ms. Cassidy's blogs and become more familiar with what each has to offer. Once I understand how to navigate the sites, I'll figure out which type of image sharing works best for the parts of our first grade day where we'd like to capture that pure joy of six-year-old learning.