Blog Reviews - Assignment #6

http://mannardi.edublogs.org/ - this site is from a teacher in Australia. I thought it had a lot of useful information for teachers and students. It has many links for learning resources and pages dedicated to just teachers, literacy, and technology fun. The student blog links are also interesting to view to see what you could do with students. I think her links on the side of her page could maybe be better sorted or organized in a better way.

http://portableradio.edublogs.org/ - this site posts student produced podcasts. There are lots of helpful links to get started for teachers. It has everything from getting started to adding music. They also have links to other classroom blogs. I think the overall blog is a bit busy though. It seems overwhelming to find the resources at first glance.

http://missblessings.edublogs.org/ - this is a 4th grade class site. It's very simple and straight forward, which I like. On the right side of the blog are categories of topics within in the site, which I found to be useful. There are lots of pictures and simple text as well. I think as a class site, it serves its purpose well.

http://asktheauthor.edublogs.org/ - this is role playing blog site from a classroom. The students pretend to be an author and write posts. It's an interesting idea for a blog. I think the site is pretty simple and not too busy. However, adding some visuals or even pictures of the authors would be nice.

http://mistea.edublogs.org/ - this is a teacher's site from New Zealand. Even though this site has a lot of information and links, it's organized very nicely and it doesn't look too overwhelming.  The links on the right are clearly labeled and sorted into different categories. Her posts are easy to read and include appropriate visuals and places to comment. The only things I think are lacking are additional pages. She has a lot of links that could be on separate pages. Also some of her widgets seem unnecessary - like the  weather, time, and live traffic feed.

Assignment #5 - Mrs. Wu's Favorite Things

Cooking: Food is something I enjoy eating and making. I enjoy finding new recipes. Most of the time I use the Food Network site. It gives you access to thousands of recipes from the Food Network chefs. My favorite chefs are Giada, Tyler Florence, and Bobby Flay. For Korean foods, I like to use Maangchi. She is a Korean lady who uploads videos of her cooking the foods step by step. Living away from my parents makes it difficult to learn the recipes of foods I grew up eating, so this site is very helpful when I want a taste of home cooking.

Traveling: My husband and I enjoy traveling. We enjoy trying new foods and seeing new sights. However, travel takes lots of planning and we always like to be prepared. When we went to Barcelona last year, we borrowed a few books, but we liked using Tripadvisor. We liked being able to read people's reviews of restaurants, sights, and find helpful hints and tips to make the trip more enjoyable. We also use sites like Sidestep to find cheap flights because it compares fares to almost all the major airlines and lets you see the different combination of dates and prices to help make your decision.

Crafting: Given a free Saturday or day off, I also enjoy hand making something like a greeting card for someone. I have a collection of stamps, paper, and other embellishments. I like being able to make something for someone and give it to them. I am always looking for ideas. I find ideas on retail sites like Papersource or other blog sites like Controlling My Chaos. They inspire me and give me ideas for new projects. 

Assignment #4 - Food Webs

In Science, our class learned about food chains and food webs. We began by learning about simple food chains and what they are. Students read in their texts about what makes a food chain. Then we talked about examples of food chains that students knew of. I provided visuals on the board and arrows were also drawn to show the feeding relationships. I found a video clip on the internet that also taught the concepts and showed them this.

After that, we practiced making food chains with the food cards and arrows shown below. Students were to make simple food chains with at least three to four organisms using the information provided on the cards. They were to start with a producer and then find a primary and secondary consumer.

The next day, we moved on to food webs and talked about they represent all the feeding relationships within an ecosystem. The students then spent time using the cards and arrows to build a food web trying to use all the cards and arrows. The groups that sorted the organisms by food group (producers and type of consumers) were more successful at completing and displaying a more organized food web. Overall, they all showed understanding of food chains and food webs.