Blackboard 24/7 Learning

My school district uses Blackboard 24/7 Learning and it is required that every teacher or grade level team maintain a page.  My team decided that we would create a 5th grade page.  Our goal for our site is to include links to useful websites, teacher contact information, digital copies of flyers and newsletters, study guides and project details, and quarterly plans.  We have also included a tab for each teacher so they can add any additional information.  My tab includes homework assignments and unit outlines.

I have done a decent job of maintaining my blackboard site for the past few years.  Since I moved to fifth from second grade this year, I made it a goal to utilize more of the tools that blackboard offers such as blogs and discussion boards.  I created discussion boards for my Language Arts class as part of their requirements for book clubs.  Each week I required the students to post one new thread and reply to someone else's thread.  This worked very well and the kids seemed to enjoy it.  I also used the blog tool as a way to allow students to post their thoughts.  I would post a prompt or a question and the students would reply.  It got challenging to read because the strands were so long.  Since we are required to write a lesson plan using blogs, I thought I would create a blog thread for each student and allow them to post their thoughts about something.  My plan right now is to use this blog as a replacement for their reading response journals.  Instead of writing in their journal about the book they are reading, they can post on the blog.  I can then check the blog and respond like I would normally do in their journals. 

Any thoughts on my idea?  Suggestions for improvement?

Here is a screen shot of one of my blog posts.