Name: Linda Yollis (@lindayollis | Mrs. Yollis’ Classroom Blog)
School: Elementary School, Los Angeles
Current title: third grade teacher
Selected accolades: Edublog’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2010), Edublogs’s Best Class Blog-First Runner-up (2009/2010), Digital Voice Award 2009 ~ Los Angeles County • Best Elementary Project
What is your role at your school?
I am a third grade teacher and member of a learning community that includes students, faculty, families, and educators from around the world.
What is the best part of your job?
The best part of my job is helping students get excited about learning. It’s gratifying to see students spend their free time contributing comments or revisiting their learning via our classroom blog after school hours.
From where do you draw professional inspiration? How do you stay connected and grow as an educator?
Twitter.
Following like-minded educators on Twitter provides me with inspiration and incredible professional support. Professional development is no longer something that my district provides for me. I now seek out information that is relevant to my specific needs, and I do it on my own timetable.
I’m also connected to several educational bloggers, and we inspire one another all year. Through the comment section of our blogs and collaborative projects, the growth never ends!
For a teacher looking to use technology to connect with students, enhance learning or embrace 21st century skills, where do you suggest one begin?
A classroom blog is a great place to start.
It is critical in today’s world that students learn how to be positive members of an online community and learn early about the importance of creating a quality digital footprint. Students have an opportunity to develop and create an online presence; having an authentic global audience for writing has proven to be a real motivator for them.
After teaching all my students the necessary skills and “netiquette” for maintaining a blog, I allow students to earn their own individual blogs. When a student has earned his/her own blog, I meet with the parents and they become the blog administrators. That way, the parents become true partners with their child as they work together to embrace the new 21st century skills.
- Click here to create a class blog in two minutes!
- Educational Blogging is a wiki that contains the steps and lessons I used as I started my classroom blog, including lessons on the important skill of teaching students how to comment.
- Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom (by Kathleen Morris) is another great resource for tech integration and blogging.
What skill(s) do you feel are most important for today’s students to explore in academic settings (tech or non-tech related)?
The amount of information available today is overwhelming. Students need to be taught how to search through information and make judgments about what is factual and relevant.
In addition, children need to learn how to navigate websites like blogs and wikis, how to use/create hyperlinks, and how to create digital images and movies that enhance learning. Collaborating with global partners, fostering individual creativity, and keeping up with Twitter are just a few of the new skills that I am learning right along with my third grade students.
Dear Mr. De Haan,
We love the post with the interview of Mrs. Yollis. Mrs. Yollis is capable of many things, and she teaches us most of them. She is an enthusiastic, passionate teacher who is very interested in how kids learn.
One of the reasons that we love Mrs. Yollis is because she teaches us a lot of blogging skills including these things:
1. Give attribution if you use someone’s work. Be sure you have their permission!
2. Read through the recent comments so you don’t repeat what someone else just said.
3. Proofread your comments before publishing so people will understand what you mean.
4. She taught us how to read the post before writing the comment, so your comment is not out-of-the-blue or off-topic.
5. Never publish a comment that is not checked by a parent.
We have done so many different things that we did not do in second grade like blogging on the computer. We used to just use a paper and pencil instead of the Internet or Word.
We love Mrs. Yollis so much!
Warmly,
Lindsay, Grace, and Iman
P.S. We did this comment in Word, and our readability statistic was 6.3.
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Dear Mr. De Haan,
This is Hannah, Ileanna, and Adia from Mrs. Yollis’ third grade class in California. That was very thoughtful of you to interview Mrs. Yollis.
We have mastered many digital citizenship skills through blogging. We would like to share them with you:
1. We have learned from our blog mascot, Panda, that you should not use more than one exclamation mark in a sentence. If you would like to show your excitement, use more words, not more exclamation marks.
2. This semester, our class learned that it is not right to plagiarize. Plagiarizing is when you copy and paste someone’s writing or pictures, taking credit for it without permission. We recently had an incident about that subject, and we created a video for it. Here is the link: Copyrighting Video
3. Always proofread a comment before you submit it. Then when you want to get a job when you’re older, and your boss types your name in Google, you’ll be proud of your digital footprint!
4. Last, you should never write a comment with any personal information about you, your family, or your friends. For example, you should never compose a comment about where and when you are leaving your house. Also, don’t write your last name if you are a child, and most importantly, do not write your address or email address on a blog.
We hope that you enjoyed our sublime tips!
Have a tremendous, magnificent, and delightful afternoon!
Sincerely,
Hannah, Ileanna, and Adia
P.S. You have a wonderful teacher blog, and we had a glorious time commenting. Our radical readability statistic was 8.3!
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