Mabry Middle School orchestra teacher, Mr. Chris Doemel's, orchestra portal for all things orchestra! His blog includes recordings of student performances, demonstrations about proper instrumental technique, rhythmic patter recordings, links to music-related articles on Wikipedia, programs from local orchestra concerts, video podcasts encouraging rising 6th grade students to join orchestra, and much more. He even is posting about his family travels in Germany for summer vacation.

The blog tagline reads, "Hello. Speaking of History is a podcast and blog maintained by an 8th grade American History teacher in Missouri who attempts to use technology to enhance the curriculum. Teaching about George, Thomas and Abe using the latest technology."

A snippet from a recent summer vacation post, "Hello. Today my wife and I spent an enjoyable day in Springfield, Illinois visiting various Lincoln historical sites. Lucky for us, many of the Lincoln sites are within walking distance of each other in downtown Springfield. This podcast is a description of the Lincoln sites we visited and our own personal reflections on the items and places we saw. We discuss the Lincoln Home site, the Old Illinois Capitol Building, the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices and the Lincoln Ledger. We also visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library but that will be featured on a future podcast."

"This weblog is meant to be a resource for students in my 6th and 7th grade English classes at Silver Springs International Middle School in Silver Springs, Maryland.

All external links from my blog have been carefully chosen. However, external sites can change without notice. Please notify me if you come across any such links. You can contact me at georgemayo@mac.com.

My former students at Brandon Middle School in Virginia Beach, VA. can access their past online work and projects from my homepage, mrmayo.org. I have added a new section in my sidebar on my homepage for past student work."

And a snippet from an interesting post, "We've sold 83 copies of our new book, Stories From the Past. We've had over 1,000 hits to our Lulu Book Page in the last 4 weeks. Soon, the book will be available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders. Here's a few of the write-ups we've recieved about our book online:
Weblogg-ed.com
Our School Webpage
Excursions in Education
Publish Me!
Teaching With Technology
U Tech Tips
This afternoon a teacher at SSIMS stopped me in the hall and said she had received her copy of Stories From the Past yesterday in the mail. When I asked her what she thought, she smiled, and said it was amazing. Have you ordered your copy yet?

Bike to work Friday!"

This Mabry Middle School science teacher's blog features some really excellent video podcasts created by student as a review strategy for their end of units of study.

A snippet from a post about an upcoming overnight field trip to Jekyll Island, "I am so excited about our trip to Jekyll Island because we are going to have a blast! Don't forget, be in Mabry's front parking lot by 5:30 AM on your day of departure. Do not park on the curb, as this is where the busses will pull up for loading. Remember Ms. Larkin's three most important items NOT TO FORGET: linens (bedding and towels), rain gear, and extra shoes!

Have you hugged and thanked your parents for allowing you to go on this amazing trip?"

Pictures from Field Day, Field Day Do's and Don'ts, Score Cards for each of the Field Day events...this blog keeps the students and community informed about what is going on in the PE department.

Middle Grade students published their writing in different genre to this Language Arts class blog. They have written about themselves; final thoughts, reflections, and opinions on the novel Mississippi Trial 1955; personal reflections on various gifts of life described in the book The Ultimate Gift; and Reflections: entries on thoughts and experiences.

Here is a post from 2006, just before this blog ended. "I have a student, Danielle, who has an older brother, Rob, serving in Iraq with the Army. The class wanted to do something special for Danielle and her brother. We decided to write letters. I took a group photo of the class and then printed that photo on paper to use as stationary. Rob received the letters and was thrilled to get news from home and to learn more about his sister's classmates. I then had the opportunity presented to me for the students to try podcasting. We wrote messages to Rob and this morning the students podcasted their messages. I was very pleased and proud of the messages the students wrote. Listening to the students read their messages allowed me to hear the pride and respect that my 8th graders have for Rob. My hope is for Rob to also hear the pride that my students have for him and his fellow military servicemen and women."

Welcome to Brandon's Online Magazine, a collection of weblogs and podcasts written by Mr. Mayo's students at Brandon Middle School in Virginia Beach, VA.,( during the 2005 - 2006 school year.) The last post to this blog reads, "Thanks for checking out Brandon's Online Magazine. Unfortunately, the magazine is over. I have relocated from Virginia Beach to Washington, DC. I plan to leave the online magazine up indefinitely, out of respect to all the students who put so much time and effort into their pages.

The students involved in this magazine have done some great writing. It was fun to be a part of this project. I hope to create a new version of an online magazine at the next school I work for. BYE for now.

Mr. Mayo"

From the site, "This page is for my math classes at Cedar Ridge Middle School in Decatur, Alabama and features posts like: Integer Fun!, Geometry, Algebra, ARMT - Number and Operation, Transformations, The Flu Has Attacked the Simpsons!!!, Alatoba…Today’s the day!, and Extra Credit Problem 5. Links include things like: Math Doodles, Mathematical Musings, Mrs. Glosser's Math Goodies, National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, and Seventh Grade Math Wiki.

I have a wiki that I use for lesson planning that is organized by the Alabama Course of Study content standards. Other teachers are welcome to edit this wiki. It is a work in progress, so check back for updates. I have also created a class wiki for students to edit as they learn about different mathematical topics."

This snippet from a recent post, "You are going to be eight-graders next year, so I am asking you to think about your experiences in science from this year and give advice to the seventh graders coming in next year. Be sure to include as many details as you can to help them be successful. Try to make your entry interesting by adding voice to your writing."

I must confess being partial to this school website as I set it all up in August, 2005. MabryOnline is actually a collection of over 100 blogs. Even what appears to be the homepage is a blog. The site served as the schools complete web presence from August, 2005 until July, 2007. During that time the site served up over 30,000,000 files to users all over the world. The site is no longer the official web presence for the school but remains up as an example of best practices for the profession.

The site contains hundreds of digital media files created by the students, teachers, and administration at the school. After seeing the students' work, visitors came from around the world to meet with the students at Mabry to learn how they too could replicate these accomplishments in their own school settings.

Click this link or the picture above to visit this source.

Podcast Central is a collection of over 100 podcasts made by the students, teachers, and administration of Mabry Middle School. This blog serves as an excellent resource for exploring the many different ways podcasts can be used in the school setting and posted in a blog as well as at the iTunes store.

Click this link or the picture at the top to visit the Podcast Central blog.

You may also click on this link or the picture on the bottom to go to Podcast Central at the iTunes Store. To view and download the free podcasts on the iTunes Store, you must have iTunes installed on your computer. iTunes is a free download that runs on both Windows and Mac.

From the information page of Ms. Mercer's Computer Lab Class blog: "This is blog is to support learning on the Internet at our school. You can find assignments for Ms. Mercer’s Computer Lab class, and links to activities and resources.

Goals of this blog are to help you explore the Internet and the themes and subjects you are studying in your classroom. A blog is different than Web pages, because you don’t just read what’s on the blog, but you get to add to the page, by writing comments."

The blog uses slideshare to go over the rules, what a blog is, and information about the Acceptable Use Policy.