Exclamation marks!!! and CAPITAL LETTERS

Today, before exploring some class blogs in Canada and the US, we talked about the differences between communicating face-to-face versus on-line (via messaging, 'newsfeeds' and blog posts). We watched a video and considered why and how using capital letters and too many exclamation marks might be misinterpreted by our friends.

Our voices, our facial expressions and our body language were some of the reasons we agreed make emotions easier to 'read' in-person.

How do you think this might change in the future?

Cloud Talk

Term 2 has just begun at BIS, Phuket and we have a new set of students taking part in our after school blogging activity. There was so much to talk about and investigate today...we tinkered on Edmodo in our newly formed group, we visited our class blog for the first time and we even had time to comment on another class blog in England. You can see our Cloud Talk comment here: http://davyhulme.primaryblogger.co.uk/topic/angry-birds-art-on-the-ipad/

But, before we visited the blogs we brainstormed some ideas about blogging and shared our thoughts on Wallwisher:

Created with Wallwisher

What do you think a blog is?

Please read our blog guidelines and leave a comment below:

Loy Krathong in Thailand

In school last week we celebrated Loy Krathong, the Thai Celebration of Light. It is a fun day to celebrate because we get to make Krathongs, which are floating flower boats. A krathong is made out of banana leaves and flowers we add candles and incense. When we float our krathong we make a wish and send all of our bad luck away.

This week the children have created their own word clouds to write about Loy Krathong...Please visit our kidblog site, have a look at everyone's fantastic word clouds and add a comment: http://kidblog.org/MsMelaniesClass/


Loy krathong on PhotoPeach

When I'm an adult...

I recently came across a question posted on Twitter by educational author Will Richardson:

Needless to say it got me thinking...why not ask the children in my class?

So in order to create a quick and easy activity, I changed the wording a bit and asked the kids to complete the sentence and post it to their Kidblogs:

"When I'm an adult I will write..."

Have a look at our ideas for yourself on our Kidblog link: http://kidblog.org/MsMelaniesClass/


What kinds of things do you think you will need to write when you're an adult?

This week we found a classroom in Canada who had sent out a survey via Twitter in order to collect data for a graphing unit--We took some time reading through and answering the questions...what a fabulous idea! Thanks to Ms. Horst's class for sharing and we look forward to seeing the results on your blog:

http://kidblog.org/MsHorsts1-2FIClass/

Maybe we should create our own survey to send around the world?

Kidblog

Today we logged into Kidblog and personalized our own blogs. After exploring the 'dashboard' and tinkering to see where various links took us we spent some time selecting avatars and finding blog themes.

With over 12 themes to choose from, students were able to test out different looks and hone in on one background that appealed to their sense of style and personality. They've also added some information to their new blogs explaining the reasoning behind their selections.

Why not have a look for yourself? To find our individual blogs go to the "Cloud Talk" link under the Kidblog logo on the right side of this page. Please feel free to add a comment...

Welcome to our school quad blogging friends.
Today we took  pictures of our school in Phuket, Thailand to show you around.  We think our school is special because it is very big and there are lots of buildings.  We are lucky to have so much green space and interesting play areas.  Our school has a fantastic swim team called Flying Fish who compete with others school in Asia such as Singapore and Malaysia.  We look forward to hearing from you!



BIS Tour on PhotoPeach