Using Blogger For Online Teaching

I’ve thought many times about writing about how I use Blogger for my classroom. With the coronavirus outbreak, it seems like a perfect time to do this. Like many of you, my district has called off classes for two weeks and who knows if it will go longer. I will still be able to give my students the things they need through Blogger. I’m really grateful that I started using this free platform.

I’ve been on spring break for a week. The week before spring break, we lost our school internet and the school website and all of the systems that we use. I’m in a huge district, so how could this happen? I still was able to use many of my tools because my campus has a second internet since we are connected to a college campus. I was still able to use my Blogspot! I started using Google Classroom at the beginning of the year to see what all of the fuss was about and I found it too restricting. I have too many things in my personal Google Drive and it was a pain to go back and forth between my personal Google Drive and the school Google Drive. I still love Google Forms and Google Slides etc., but I use them through Blogger which is a free blog publishing service by Google. If you have a gmail, then you have access to Blogger!

Here’s how to get to Blogger… Open a tab in Google Chrome. (You need to be signed in to your gmail.) In the top left part of the page you opened, you will see the waffle I highlighted. Click that waffle and you will see lots of stuff you can use. You may need to use the slide bar to find Blogger. Blogger has a funny looking B with an orange background. Click it! Follow the directions to set up the blog. The best thing to do if you are unsure of how to do the set up is to go watch a YouTube video. When I set mine up, I just fumbled my way through it. Don’t worry about a custom domain. You have to pay for domain names, so stick with the name that blogger has you create.

Go check out my Blogspot if you’d like an example. I’m giving you a chance to check it out so that you can use my ideas. It’s been recently updated, so it does not look exactly like the picture below. Here’s the link: https://mrshamitersclass.blogspot.com/.

Now that you have this platform, you just need to give your students the link. I teach 3 different subjects. I could have a Blogspot for each subject, but I thought it would be easiest to have just one. I usually like to give assignments in the sidebar using “pages” and make announcements to all classes on the main section of the blog which is called the “posts”. I’m not always consistent on that, but students know to look in both places. I also have started using a Google Calendar which is another way to attach lessons and/or quizzes and tests.

My purpose for giving my fellow math teachers access to my Blogspot is because I want to help. Even if you do not want to create your own Blogspot, then feel free to rummage through mine and find things you need. Also, I will be posting lessons for my students starting tomorrow.

While I’m at it, I have a free item to give you. A perfect tool during this time of distance learning is Boom Learning. Click here to get my free Domain and Range Practice Boom Cards. If you’ve never used Boom Cards, you can add a new platform to your list of online tools! You will not regret it. They are easy to use and self-checking.

We will all get through this crazy time. Teachers are the toughest people I know. Be strong for your students. They look to us, so we must remain in control and be good examples for our students. I wish you well and please let me know if I can help you any further.