Hello Teachers!

Welcome! Thanks for visiting Zuma’s Paw Prints.

We hope that you visit this section of the website often! The K-9 journalists will have many articles for you and your students. Reading articles will help you and your students understand the race and other topics of interest.

TO LEARN FACTS ABOUT ZUMA: Click the menu item, Who am I?  Zuma! You will learn all about Zuma in this article so you and your students will know all you need to know to enjoy the blog and the articles.

Why does Zuma have a journalist team?

Our main goal is to provide you and your students with more news covering many different topics and written at several different reading levels. We encourage you to select the K-9 reporter that best meets your needs and read that reporters articles. As time permits and as your students ability allows, read articles by the other K-9 reporters, too.

Hints to help you, Please note the journalist assignments.

Sanka W. Dog: Writes for the higher reader, provides more indepth details, encourages students to go above and beyond in learning and research. (6th- adult) To read all of the articles by Sanka W. Dog click the K-9 Reporter Sanka menu item link. (Blog Categories)

Gypsy: Writes for the middle level reader (3th-6th/7th) or the average reader. Articles provide a great amount of detail and information, and encourages students to go above and beyond in reading and learning. To read all of the articles by Gypsy, click the above K-9 Reporter Gypsy menu item link. (Blog Categories)

Libby: Writes for the lower readers. Shorter articles or general details. Often Libby’s topics are expanded upon by other reporters in other articles. To read all of the articles by Libby, click the above K-9 Reporter Libby menu link. (Blog Categories)
Zuma: Editor and “Lead” journalist. Zuma writes general articles and maintains the ‘action’ of the blog. To read all of Zuma’s articles, click the above Zuma menu link.

To read more about all of the K-9 reporters, click under Zuma’s Pages: Meet the Reporters.

What do Teachers and Classrooms do at the Blog?

First — you read. Read the articles that best meet the student needs by having students read independently or by you reading the articles to the students.

Second: Discuss the information formally or informally, as a class, by small groups, or have students respond/reflect in journals to the information they read or hear in the articles.

Third: Respond in an appropriate manner considering your students and the educational needs or standards you are working on during your school day. Your response may be within your classroom setting, taking notes, creating a class chart, or verbal discussions. You can also leave comments for ANY of the reporters by clicking the Comment link at the bottom of the article. (In the gray rectangular box) You can send email to Zuma and the other reporters but remember, leaving comments at the blog is the BEST and PREFERRED way to communicate with the reporters. It will take a lot longer to hear back by email. (zuma@iditarod.com)

What else do teachers need to know?

Comments: Remember, comments are comments, which can include questions. Not every comment will get a response, however, because some comments stand alone and don’t require a reply. (Example: I really enjoyed reading the article about the 2009 Sign up! I can’t wait to read more information and follow the race!)

Remind students to NOT put their last name or any identifying information in their blog comment. Doing this will slow down our ability to post comments.

TEACHERS should encourage students to not just read articles, but to read posted comments, too. The comments and the responses to comments provide additional information for everyone! Sometimes a student can find an answer to the question he or she has by reading the comment section following the articles.

It is also helpful if as teacher, you guide students to put their comments or questions with the article that the comment or question relates to because this helps the reporters get back to the person making the comment and helps students find a response to a question they post.

Questions: Guide students to ask good questions. Repeating a same question someone else already asked may mean the comment or question may not get posted. Students will then need to read through blog comments and responses to find the answer to something they want to know.

Something you should know is: Some questions or blog comments MIGHT inspire a reporter to write a whole article about the topic. Wouldn’t it be awesome if YOUR questions was so awesome that we just had to write about it? Start thinking! I know you can come up with lots of good ideas!

COMMENT SECTION OF THE BLOG: Remind students to put their comments or questions beneath the article they wish to comment on or ask a question about and to then go back to the same article another day to find any response. Remind students that they will not see their comment posted right away because all comments must be approved by Zuma to keep the site safe.

Remind students to use appropriate language and their best writing skills so reporters and other readers can read their comments and questions. Inappropriate language, comments we don’t understand, or a whole bunch of punctuation marks won’t make it to the blog comment section. The same question asked over and over won’t make it either.

AND we get so many comments that say, “You’re so cute!” or something like that. We probably won’t approve comments that only say that and don’t discuss the article or ask a question. We know we are cute dogs. Libby thinks she’s the cutest of course! We hope that the comments you make on the blog help others learn about the race and other interesting topics. We do enjoy the compliments, don’t get me wrong! (Especially Libby!!!)

How often will you find new articles?

During the race: We plan on providing daily coverage from one or more of the reporters. This means, we MIGHT have more than one article in a day, but remember, you don not need to read ALL of the articles, just the ones you want.

During the school year: We plan on having a minimum of 4 articles each month.

During the summer: We plan on having at least an article a month, depending on what is happening in the world of “Iditarod”!

What are the Challenges we face? How can we work together?

First, with technology, we know that not all schools allow blogs. We have discovered that most schools that block blogs have been able to request that Zuma’s Paw Prints and Jon Little’s Blog (Eye on the Trail) be unblocked. If you can only read this at home and not at school, talk to your technology department or your administration.)

LOTS of email: This is a GOOD problem! Thanks for all the email Zuma gets especially during the race. Keep in mind, however, Zuma is just ONE reporter with one set of paws and a big keyboard. It is much faster to answer questions that are on the blog than in the email. If you can— blog first— if you can’t blog and choose to email, please be patient. We have put an automatic response on the email so you’ll know we’ve heard from you. It may take some time to get to your specific and important email, but the email will be answered. Therefore, if you choose to email, you might want to send a group email instead of an email from each student, combining questions students can’t find answers to at the website, to speed up the return email process. Your email is important to us! Thanks for your understanding.

OUR MISSION

The change from regular articles on the website— to the blog is an answer we’ve formulated after reading the comments from teachers and from surveys. It was an administrative decision given to us to better our communications and time management. What are teachers telling us? We’ve been asked to provide reading material geared for different reading abilities. We’ve been asked to provide better communications with classrooms. We’ve been asked to build our readership. We’ve been asked to appear ‘more 21st century in technology’ and be more prompt at providing information for readers. We’ve been asked to provide new articles for our readers— more often during the school year and to continue regular articles during the race.

We are dedicated to meeting the goals that have been developed after listening to our readers.

Why do we need changes, rules, and guidelines for the blog?

The change from articles to the blog was a necessary website and readership change. The rules and guidelines we’ve developed are designed to keep the site safe and interesting for all of our readers. This is a collaboration zone and an on line learning environment. It is a place to read, read, read, and have fun, fun, fun! It is a place to learn all about Iditarod, sled dogs, mushing, and Alaska.

We look forward to sharing the race with you!

Zuma, Sanka w. Dog, Gypsy, and Libby