Welcome Everyone!!

We have 2 Grade 8 classes who are being invited to join in this blog this semester. One class comes to McQuarrie on Tuesday, the other on Wednesday - a total of 28 students - 25 who were in an Area Class last year, 3 who are new to this 'gig'. We extend a special welcome to the three of you and hope that you feel 'at home' in this crowd very soon! I am thrilled to have ALL of you in my classes this semester - we have 2 WONDERFUL groups!!

For those of you who were in one of my classes last year, this whole 'blogging' thing is not new to you. To give a bit of background to the rest of you.....during May and June last year, we did a 'pilot project' with blogging. After some research, I chose to use Blogger as our host. I did this for a few reasons.....1) Blogger allows me to be administrator and post all entries - students may comment on any post, but cannot create posts of their own. 2) Students can comment with an alias or as 'anonymous' - they are never asked to share their name, e-mail address, or any personal information. 3) There is NO advertising.

On the blog, I tried to incorporate a wide variety of posts for the students: political issues, website evaluations, riddles, puzzles, poetry, book and movie reviews, news, etc. All received comments, some many more than others! Participation was optional; most students wrote comments, some many more than others!!! (We miss you already Postman Craig!) We had some very intense discussions last year about some very important issues - I was so impressed by the students' writing!

After a 2 month trial last year, my strong opinion was that the blogging project was an overwhelming success! Many of the students were highly motivated to participate, the quality of the writing was incredible, the level of thinking was extremely high, and we had no incidences of outside parties joining our blog. I have left last year's blog online for your interest - I invite you to visit and see the kind of work we did - there is a link to the left.

Needless to say - I am excited to get started on this year's blog! Students and parents - you must sign and return the permission letter which will be given out at Open House and will also be available at McQuarrie Online (link to the left). Find the link to our class and you will see the link to the 'blog' letter. I will be making posts at least once a week starting next week! I look forward to getting started!
See you back here soon!