Blog Post Three

A classroom blog that works: Patterson's Pack
Mrs. Patterson's blog, Patterson's Pack, is a good example of showcasing student's work online. One thing that immediately caught my eye was the professional, yet friendly appearance of the blog. It was easy to navigate and very interactive. She has posted her students' work in a variety of ways, for example she posted pictures, followed by the artist's (the student's) story about the picture. My personal favorite was the posted video that showed a typed poem a student wrote about his father, while I read the poem I also was able to listen to a recording of the author reciting his poem. By displaying the students' work in a variety of ways, Mrs. Patterson had allowed the classroom to enter the home and for the parents to actively participate in the classroom on a daily basis. Although Mrs. Patterson's website has some good elements, it is cluttered. There are many gadgets on the side of the blog. These gadgets are aimed at children and adults. The problem with this is that children might access the adults' gadgets and not know how to properly use them. In addition, some of her gadgets are only for children and may be distracting to adults. Some examples of her gadgets include an electronic pet hamster, Mrs. Patterson's favorite books, a live traffic feed, an electronic tree frog, etc. She can easily fix this by eliminating some of the unnecessary gadgets, or by providing a specific page dedicated to adult gadgets and another page for student gadgets.


A classroom blog that does not work: Denton Dynamo's Discussions
It is clear that Denton Dynamo has put a lot of time and effort into Denton Dynamo's Discussion, the blog for his 5th grade class. Unfortunately the lack of template and design has created a blog that is visually unappealing and hard to read. On the sides of his blog, Denton has listed "Related Links" and "My Classes and Students," these lists use a very small font that requires one to squint at the screen. The length of the list is overwhelming due to the small print. Your eyes cannot focus and pick up key words, instead you are just trying to read any word that is large. Another problem with the blog is the color scheme. Due the lack of template there is a mixture of sky blue, neon yellow, white, red, and blue. The mixture of these colors is not comfortable to look at and it creates a challenging environment for noticing key points or new post. He also uses a variety of fonts in his post. There is not a consistent font or font size throughout the blog and it is hard to follow. Denton Dynamo has spent a lot of time on the design of the blog, but could save time and work by using a pre-made blog template. This would solve all of the issues of fonts, colors, backgrounds, and display.