C4K#9 Mrs. Yollis' Class

Mrs. Yollis is a third grade teacher in Los Angeles, California. Her classroom blog was the 2010 first runner up for Best Classroom Blog and the 2010 winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Edublog Awards. You can see the blog here. Mrs. Yollis Classroom Blog

As you view Mrs. Yollis' class blog, you will see she uses it to educate her students and their parents on the exciting world of blogging. Mrs. Yollis commented that in all of her twenty five years in teaching, she thinks blogging is the best way to teach children to write. I can imagine it is due to the immediate gratification the children get in response to their writing from their family members and peers all over the world. This should be a big motivator for the children to learn to write using proper grammar. After all, the responses will be published for the whole world to see!

The parents of Mrs. Yollis' classroom get involved by reading their children's blogs and publishing comments. The parents can watch instructional video's so they will know proper blogging etiquette. I was quite thrilled to see grandparents blogging as well!

Mrs. Yollis's class follows several classes around the world. She has a time zone page which displays the real time of the different classes they follow. They follow classrooms in Australia, Switzerland and many more around the world. It is very interesting for me to see the differences and similarities of the different countries schools. The children's instructions and activities at their schools vary in comparison to ours here in the states. The Australian's seem to incorporate so many camps and water sports into their school days. I am sure it makes the student's in Mrs. Yollis' classroom quite green with envy like it does myself!

The Yollis classroom blog has many "how to" instructional videos. It gives the first time blogger access to the tools they need to get started right there at their fingertips. That is very intuitive on her part. I think she understands some of the parents may be a little timid, so it makes it easy for anyone to get started and start commenting with the children. This in turn, is rewarding for the children when they get the comments.

I have added Mrs. Yollis' blog to my PLN. I am also subscribing to her RSS feeds and directing them to my google reader. I hope to keep following and learning from her in the future. One day, I look forward to being her peer!