Special Assignment: Mr. McClung's World

Mr. McClung's World is the perfect example of how I would like to construct my future class blog.

In the Mr. McClung tab of the blog Mr. McClung mentions that he is a lover of music and if you look at the left hand side of the blog you will find a song of the week. I am not much of a music lover, but I would probably put the score of my favorite sports teams games as well as the scores for the teams from the school I teach at.

I would say that Mr. McClung is a very dedicated teacher. It takes time to create a blog with as much information as this one. Mr. McClung is the kind of teacher I would like to be. He seems to really take an interest in what he is doing and in the life of his students.

The first thing that struck me in Mr. McClung's Class Rules is "Stay Positive." I am a glass half full(metaphor) kind of guy, and this is what I want all of my students to do. I was also impressed by the gestures and responses he requires of his students. It must be a fun class. I feel that it is paramount to learning to keep the students entertained. This is an innovative way to keep the kids awake and I am really interested in trying some of these methods in the future.

The first thing under the heading of "Everyone Needs", in the Syllabus tab, is a daily planner. This is important for the students to have. This will help them keep tabs on what they have to get done and when they need to have it done by. Mr. McClung outlines his penalties for late work under this same heading. This is closeto the penalties we have for our work in EDM310, except we will probably be worse off if we are late with our work.

Under Welcome Mr. McClung outlines what he is doing with his class blog. I hope to do much the same thing with my classes in the future. I will probably post links to current events and other "cool" stuff that may interest the students.

The first link I checked out under Useful Links, was to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. I was interested in looking at this site because I am a history buff. I found links to articles about the Third Riech and Concentration Camps among several others. I have already bookmarked them on delicious.

I also looked at the link World War II Propaganda. Again this interests me because I love history. It is a shoot off form the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website. It show some of the propaganda that the Nazi's employed during WWII.

These sites would be useful in a history class to give students a starting place for research papers. I am sure these are on the list of useful links so Mr. McClung's students can easily find information that will make their assignments easier.

In the post Internet Safety Mr. McClung sets out some guidelines for his students to follow to help keep them safe from online predators. I am not able to think of anything that I would add. I really like the idea of giving the students a generic email address to give when one is required.

In our C4K assignment last week I was assigned a video from the talent show. I took a look at some of the other videos on the blog and found some really good videos of kids describing certain events that they had been learning in class. I really like this use of technology. The students can use videos made by their peers to continue learning necessary information.

The chat button on the right hand side of the blog is neat. I think it would be nice to be able to chat with people who are looking at my blog while I am on the computer.

Mr. McClung's blog would be useful to parents in that it will allow them to keep tabs on when their kids have assignments due. I know for a fact my mom would have loved to have this tool in order to make sure I did all my homework on time. Administrators could use this blog to show off the learning that their students are accomplishing. I am sure Mr. McClung's principal is very happy to show off this site, or if he hasn't he should it is amazing.

This blog differs from the others I have looked at in that is so in depth. It seems that nothing happens in class that is not on this blog. I don't see where Mr. McClung gets the time, but I am glad he does. I am sure his students appreciate his hard work.