Room 227’s Blog

Social change. Mass Collaboration. Teamwork.  That is what today was all about.

According to Blog Action Day’s  website,

…the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue.

By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes  the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue.

Out of this discussion naturally flow ideas, advice, plans, and action. In 2007 on the theme of the Environment, we saw bloggers running environmental experiments, detailing innovative ideas on creating sustainable practices, and focusing their audience’s attention on organizations and companies promoting green agendas. In 2008 we covered the theme of Poverty, and similarly focused the blogging community’s energies around discussing the wide breadth of the issue from many perspectives and identifying innovative and unexpected solutions. This year we aim to do the same for Climate Change, an issue that threatens us all.

Cigarette butts is my topic for today. I know, I know. It seems a bit bizarre when talking about climate change.  But, I guess I’m really talking about caring for the only planet we inhabit: Mother Earth.  So, what does a cigarette butt have to do with the planet you ask?  Everything, in my opinion.  As my friends and family know, I think smoking is a very bad, disgusting habit.  Apart from the millions of smokers in the world, blowing toxins into the already much polluted air, I then often see  these same people tossing their cigarette butts thoughtlessly onto the ground.

A cigarette butt seems like such a small, insignificant piece of trash, but this is the problem.  I can’t even imagine if we collected all these butts and put them in a pile, how large that pile might be!  A butt here, a candy wrapper there…they may be small, but they still contribute mighty damage to our planet. An article from bigmelt.com suggests some interesting points such as:

The energy used by highway cleanup crews creates even more emissions, polluting the air and aggravating the global warming problem.

Litter can pose great danger to wildlife as well as water and soil.

So, think before you toss. Let’s clean up our act starting today. It’s never too late to break some bad habits.

Hi Everyone,

Parent/Teacher Conferences have just ended and I heard such terrific feedback regarding students in Room 227 enjoying blogging.  It’s really exciting to hear such positive feedback from parents because it tells me my students are engaged in learning and eager to break out of the 4 walls that make our classroom and communicate with a wider audience–the world!

Our students are still learning about what the blog says about them.  Recently, we had a discussion about having too many widgets and too many distractions on the blog.  We have to think ‘what does our blog say about us?’  Do you really want  Santa Claus flying across your screen when someone visits your blog site?  Probably not.  Do you want music blaring at you when you visit someone’s site?  These are important questions when you are designing your blog.

So, that brings me to the questions of the day:  Why do you blog? What is it about blogging you like? How does it benefit you?

As we learned from Mr.Utecht, the word blog comes from the words Web Log.  So, essentially, it’s a journal on the web.  The content and the words you write are the key ingredients to a good blog–and should be what brings your global audience to your site time and time again.  You may just be distracting or scaring away your audience if you add too many widgets or unrelated items.  Think about what you want your readers to focus on and that should help you decide whether or not a certain widget or theme is a good choice.

Happy Blogging,

Miss B.