Blog Day

Do you want to be a famous blogger?

2009-05-12T15:32:00.000+02:00

This cartoon is by Dave Walker. You can see more of his work at http://www.weblogcartoons.com/
and find out how to post his cartoons in your own blog.

Media literacy or communiation skills?

2008-11-08T15:23:00.001+01:00

This video, from Edutopia, is titled "Visual Acuity: From Consumers to Critics and Creators - Critical-thinking skills -- and fluency in multimedia production -- are integral to media literacy".

"Filmmaker and George Lucas Educational Foundation chairman George Lucas thinks it's time to change "English" class into "Communication" class, where students learn the grammatical rules of graphic arts, film, and music along with English grammar. "It shouldn't be taught as some esoteric, arty thing. Communication skills should be taught as very practical tools that you use to sell and influence people, to get your point across -- especially in this age, where kids are, more and more, using multimedia."
Until then, teachers will spend less than an hour each school day teaching "English," leaving students to their own devices -- cell phones, TVs, iPods, PlayStations, and laptops -- to enjoy their eight-hour independent-learning adventure in the fun house of digital media."

Institutions vs. collaboration

2008-11-06T06:33:00.001+01:00

Watch this older (July 2005) TED Talks video: Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. collaboration and think about the use (and support) of ICT in schools as you listen...

"In this prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning."

Animoto

2008-10-28T05:30:00.004+01:00

Animoto is a great way to make static images more interesting. Upload or connect to the images, choose or upload the music, and Animoto creates the video. See Animoto for Education.

2008-10-25T09:33:00.000+02:00

Marisa de Dios created this presentation on how blogging can be a motivating teaching tool in and out of the classroom:

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by eoimarisa

Bloging resources

2008-10-12T08:22:00.003+02:00

I've been preparing resources for a few workshops this fall. Two 90 minute sessions for our school's pedagogical in-service day: one on "Working in a Cloud" and one on "Blogs, Nings and Wikis" - the wiki is here. Another is a weekend workshop for classroom bloggers - that wiki is at this link. A third one, telling the story of one classroom blog's birth and growth is still in development.

Embedding sound files in your blog

2008-08-17T15:35:00.008+02:00

There are many sites on the web to help you embed simple mp3 player on your blog.

This code creates a generic low-key looking QuickTime file player: Be sure to add the enclosure tags
<> the beginning and the end of this code

embed src="http://www.YOUR FILE'S LOCATION.html" autoplay="false" width="160"
height="176" href="http://www.YOUR FILE'S LOCATION" target="myself"
controller="true" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"

You can see a sample here (the two small videos in the middle column)


This code from Odeo.com plays a flash file:

<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.odeo.com/flash/audio_player_standard_gray.swf"
quality="high" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" 
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
flashvars="valid_sample_rate=true&external_url=http://keepps.tripod.com/2i/noise.mp3"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
height="52" width="300">embed><br />

like this:






(The links, of course, would be your own!)

This page at Oreilly Digital Media will send you on to a very confusing page, with choices of several skins for an mp3 player for your blog.  You can build a play list of music from around the web, or upload your own.

A registration at podOmatic gives you a podcast page to show off your podcasts, and embed code for a player, and the choice of recording straight onto the site or uploading a file from your computer.
Here's a sample podOmatic podcast:


    


This silent video shows how to paste in the code on a Blogger post.


Tutorial: Embed Audio In Blogspot


Blogger Help gives instructions about how to embed the player, and suggests sites to host your files

html and scripts

2008-05-10T09:04:00.009+02:00

"Scripts" are "files that initiate routines like generating Web pages dynamically in response to user input." (link) I have added 3 scripts to the body of this blog:

The script highlighted in pink allows Apture editing function to be available within the page, the one in green allows Odiogo to "read" each post outloud and the one highlighted in blue connects the blog to Google Analytics, so that I can track readership statistics.

Installing the scripts is similar to embedding a video: the web page which hosts the service provides you with a bit of code to copy, and then paste into the html page for your blog. After that, each time your page is opened by a reader, it calls the service from the web site, and (in this blog's case) the Odiogo icon appears above each post, the Apture popup media addtions begin to function for each post, and Google Analytics is recording the data about the page viewing. The widgets in the side bar also call functions. The 3rd party and the graphic widgets slow the loading time, too.

The more media embedded in the page, the slower it becomes. The more sites and services it draws on, the more slowly the page takes shape in the browser window. It's for you to decide whether or not it's worth it.

If you visit a page that has a widget, or an effect you're interested in, go to View>Page source in your browser and search for the java scripts. You can usually identify the source of the effect within the script.

PowerPoint in a blog

2008-04-26T10:33:00.007+02:00

There are several ways to show a presentation within a blog. Here are five ways to move the presentation from a computer to the web:

1. This post at Full Circle is interesting not just because of the method described (which the author found originally at Digital Inspiration, but because of the great conversation which developed under the post. Be sure to read to the end of the comments. The Digital Inspiration post includes a very good "how to do it" section with screen shots.

2. Another method is to use a site such as SlideShare. I've used this sample in my post on this blog about adding slide shows. Any of the tools described in that post could be used for PowerPoint slides. Export the presentation as individual jpeg images - then your presentation has really become a "slide show".

3. If your presentation involves audio files, or animation transitions which you want available in the blog, you might consider reworking the presentation with iMovie or MovieMaker.

PowerPoint presentations can be exported as a movie, but the picture resolution is very low - designed for TV, not computer screens. Better to export each slide as a .jpg file, and then import them into the movie making software. Add transitions and audio files. Export the movie at " CD" or "iPod" compression.

Here is a SlideShare about exporting video from iMovie.

| View | Upload your own

The next step is to upload your video to a hosting site such as YouTube, GoogleVideo, TeacherTube, Veoh, Metacafe or a ning. There are 62 video hosting sites listed on this page!. That site will generate the code you need to be able to embed it to your blog!

Here's a video from YouTube that describes the steps, and demonstrates the end product.

4. Easier, but still work beyond creating the original presentation, is VoiceThread. Upload the jpg files of your slides, turn on the microphone and "give" your presentation. VoiceThread generates the code you need to embed the your creation on a web page or blog.

Here's a sample by Mike Hasley, made for his TOK class:

Before you move a PowerPoint presentation to VoiceThread, go to the VoiceThread site and search with "PowerPoint" as the key word. You'll be shown many VoiceThreads which began life as presentations. Watch a few, and you'll notice (just as with a PowerPoint presentation itself) design styles which communicate well. The VoiceThread screen is a bit more square than a computer screen, so words at the edges of slides tend to get lost. Too many words, or bullet points, tend not to get read Clear simple graphics tend to be more powerful. And clear, rehearsed audio tends to be better understood!

5. Google Docs has added a feature to its Presentations. You can create a presentation in Google Docs, or upload one created in PowerPoint. Then click the "Publish" tab in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. The embed code will show - copy and paste into your blog or web page, adjusting the dimensions. Here's a sample using a PowerPoint presentation I had downloaded from Wikispaces Help for K12 Teachers(Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 License.), which I uploaded into my Google Docs, "published" and pasted the code here.

adding slide shows to your blog

2008-04-17T08:26:00.008+02:00

To add a single photo somewhere in the text, follow this Blogger help page.

To add slide shows: The process itself is always the same: tell the generator where to get the photos (usually needs your flickr user name, the name or address of the photo set) maybe a bit of tweaking about size, color of boarder, or some such. Then the generator shows you a sample, and a paragraph of code to paste into the "html" tab side of your blog-writing window.

Here's are some samples from several different generator sites:

If you have a Google account, you have access to a Picasa Web Albums account, too. Single photos you place on Blogger blogs are automatically added the Picasa account associated with that login. You can upload photos directly to the Picasa Web Albums site, and then create a slide show from them to embed on your blog.

There are 3 size choices: The small Picasa slide show fits well in a blog side bar:

If it's to go in the main column, it can be bigger (about 400 px to 450 wide, 300 to 400 high) There are 4 other size choices, up to 800 px.

Big Huge Labs has a page of "Flickr Toys" The slide show is down the left side in the middle of the list. The slideshow opens on a page of it own - a link is created for you to embed on the blog.

Dumpr has some neat "effects" for just one photo. I've used the museum view a lot.

Blogger Templates creates a huge slide show - you might want to reduce the width to 400 px (and the height in ratio). It will draw photos from user, set or group ID.

PictoBrowser:

Flickr Slide Show Generator:

Splashr

Move your mouse over the cube to control its speed and direction.

Not exactly a slide show, but an interesting way to show 6 pictures.

FlickrSLIDR will draw photos from user, set of group ID.

Created with Paul's flickrSLiDR.

Scrapblog isn't really a "slide show", but it's an interesting way to present images.

The same can be said for PhotoShakr Wait for the pictures to load and flip over, then move them around with your mouse.

and Tabblo

Create text to speech for your blog

2008-04-15T19:42:00.006+02:00

I was reading a post at "So much to learn, so little time"
and clicked on the little "listen now" button at the top of the post. An mp3 player opened up, and a pretty decent robotic voice read the blog post to me. I clicked on through, to the OdioGo page, and found this description of the product:

Turn readers into listeners, and transform your blog into a high quality, ad-supporting broadcast that can vastly expand your audience reach!

Automatic podcast generation
“Near-human” quality text-to-speech
Listen Button feature deployed in next to no time for WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, BlogEngine.NET and Terapad platforms
Detailed download statistics
Make money from embedded ads
Learn More | FREE Sign Up

So I signed up, and the Odiogo button on this blog is the result. What a great tool for blogs intended for students who might not be the best readers in the world, or for those who need phonemic help with their reading, or for those who are just learning English, or for those who love to click on buttons (they'll take in the information twice!)

The "subscribe with Odigo" button is towards the end of the side panel, and the little "listen now" button has appeared at the top of all the posts.

"Reading" your book online

2008-02-14T11:25:00.015+01:00

There are several web tools that enable on line viewing of pdf documents.

At issuu.com, after a free sign up, upload a .pdf document, and then embed it in a blog or web page. Online, you will be able to turn the pages of the book, with flash animation. Here's a sample I made for one of my ICT blogs (the page size for printing is A5, so the book looks small onscreen, too. Click through to issuu.com to see it full screen.):

A similar service is Scribd which allows you to embed a pdf document with iPaper ("iPaper is a document format designed for the Internet. Built by Scribd, iPaper is a fast and light alternative to PDF and is viewable in almost any web browser"). In this format, one scrolls down the document vertically. Here is the same book on Scribd:

At SlideShare, pages of a presentation or a pdf document can be displayed by scrolling horizontally:

| View | Upload your own

Another web site, tabblo.com, creates flash books out of individual jpegs, Individual photos can be associated as a book or a poster.You can order the printed book, save the pdf to print yourself, or embed a flash version in a blog or webpage.

This is a tabblo version of the same book.

See my Tabblo

(On a Mac, I created the book in Comic Life, then exported it to iPhoto (so that it would turn into .jpegs, but all the pages would still be associated and in order) then "printed" the iPhoto album, and saved as a .pdf file.)

Bloggers to learn from...

2008-02-10T10:56:00.000+01:00

David Warlick has a wiki called Social Networking for Teachers with a page named Bloggers to Learn From:
"We frequently hear from teachers, "How do I learn to do this Web 2.0 stuff? What are the steps?" The very best answer that I can think to give is to read blogs. It's how I learned. But there are a lot more good bloggers out there today and finding them is a challenge."

Check the page and the growing list of educational bloggers (and incidentally have a look at the wiki structure).

If you are interested in whole-class blogs...

2008-02-10T08:10:00.001+01:00

If you want to create a class blog to which all the students can contribute, but which you control, read this post by Kim Cofino at her blog, Always Learning -

» Students as Contributors on Edublogs: the Quick and Easy Way always learning

She gives precise instructions for creating a class blog on Edublogs (or Learnerblogs) so that you create

* Individual student log ins WITHOUT individual e-mail accounts.

* Individual student contributors to the blog WITHOUT their own blog.

* All posts approved by the blog administrator before posting.

Visual communication tools online (and free)

2008-02-09T08:43:00.001+01:00

Visual Communication And Video Publishing - Selected Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Picnic Feb04 08 - Robin Good's Latest News

"Need to use Photoshop but it costs too much? Want to edit some pictures online without having to download and install a new software? Need to record a video of your screen and upload it to all major video sharing services with one click?"

In this post Robin Good describes and links to his selection of web tools:
GIMPshop: Open-source Photoshop-alike image editor allows you to modify all of your pictures as if you were using Photoshop
FotoFlexer: Online image editor lets you create albums, upload pictures, and edit them online
Image Magik: Batch convert, edit and add effects to all of your images for free
uTIPu: Record everything on your screen, add a voice narration and share the video with everyone
Hey!Spread: Upload all of your videos to major video hosting services from one place
Ript: Create collections and collages of images easily without knowing anything about image editing
Button Generator: Create personalized Web 2.0 buttons with no image editing knowledge
Color Schemer Online: Provide HEX or RGB value of a color and create perfectly matching color combinations

Working with images

2008-02-03T08:43:00.001+01:00

Here is some basic image vocabulary that will help you understand the process of adding images to digital documents:

Pixels: pixels are image elements. The individual dots that are used to display an image on a digital screen. The higher the resolution, the more pixels.

Resolution: refers to the number of pixels or dots in an image. The more pixels within the image, the higher the quality of the image. Read more about it here at Wikipedia.

Dpi: means "dots per inch", and is used to measure the resolution of a printer. Dpi is sometimes used to describe the input resolution of a scanner, but "ppi" is the more accurate term.

High-resolution images will:

Have a large file size
Be high in quality
Take longer to work with
Suitable for printing

Low-resolution images will:

Have a small file size
Be poor in quality
Be fast to work with
Suitable for screen

Image file size: file size (of any kind of file) is measured in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes. (8 bits = 1 byte, 1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes = 1 megabyte, 1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte) and is determined by the content, and amount of detail, of a file. A file with a very large picture will be heavy; a short plain text file with little formatting will be light.

Image File Formats: common formats are

.psd - (Photoshop Document) The only file format which supports multi-layered images. PSD's are large files, and can only be read by Photoshop software.

.jpeg (or .jpg) - (Joint Photographic Experts Group) A very connmon file type for images. .jpegs have a shrunken a file size, but can also lose data when compressed from other file types, for instance from a .psd file.

.gif - A file format used for graphics as opposed to photographic images, .gifs have a maximum of 256 colours whereas .jpegs can have 16 million colours.

.tiff - (Tagged Image File Format) A common format that is used for saving a bitmapped image, such as a scan or a screen shot. A .tiff image can be colour separated and can contain colour management profiles. Used for magazine, high quality images and can be compressed without image degradation, unlike a .jpg image.

.bmp - Large file, standard windows format, not compressed

Types of Graphics: There ar 2 types of graphics

Vector Graphics (lines / circles) Vector graphics are used/created in graphics programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, AutoCAD, AppleWorks Draw, Flash, The Gimp, Seahorse. Vector graphics have layers of images, like a sandwich.

Bitmap Graphics (pixels) Bitmap graphics are used/created in Paint programs such as Adobe Photoshop, AppleWorks Paint, Splosh, ArtRage, KidsPix. Bitmap graphics are flat, like a piece of paper that has been drawn on. You can't remove or rearrange a part of the drawing without disturbing the rest.

Images for the web

You only need to know about 2 image file formats for the web, .jpg and .gif.

.jpg = for photographs (16 million colours)
.gif = for limited colour graphics e.g. logos (up to 256 colours)

It is very important that your images are small in file size. Web images should always be 60 dpi and preferably under 30 kilobytes. The bigger the file size, the longer the web page will take to load.

Monitors have low resolution (c. 72 dpi) -images of any better resolution are wasted, make your pages heavier, and slower to load. use images that are of a greater resolution. This is why images printed from web pages are not usually satisfactory as prints - they do not seem very precise, and why an image cannot be made bigger that it is in reality - the pixels are stretching!

It is easy to resize an convert an image from one file type to another. In the Macs at school you can use Preview or SeaHorse; in a PC you can use Paint or PhotoFiltre.

To resize an image, in a Mac use the export function of iPhoto (or SeaHorse); in a PC use Paint or PhotoFiltre.

Adding images to a blog is like attaching a file to an email. Start at Blogger help to learn how to do it.

More (basic) resources for working with photos at this page.

Our ABC Book of Blogging

2008-02-02T16:21:00.000+01:00

Have a look at from Our ABC Book of Blogging written by a group of fifth grade students from in Conyers, Georgia. The students worked with Ann Davis on a weblog project combining a group of ESL students and their native English-speaking classmates. Students developed their abilities as speakers, listeners, readers, writers, and thinkers using weblogs to write about topics of interest to them. You can view the class weblog at http://anvil.gsu.edu/wrinkles

Widening the lens with a bookshelf

2008-01-06T10:47:00.000+01:00

Extend the view into your classroom/life through your blog by displaying books - books in your library, books you would like to have in your library, and your own/your students reflections about books you've used in class.

I've added 3 sidebar elements to this blog as examples:

LibraryThing lets you catalog books you own. 200 books for free, after that there is a small fee. Enter the ISBN number, and the site will fetch the rest of the information about the book from several databases.
"Enter what you're reading or your whole library—it's an easy, library-quality catalog. LibraryThing also connects you with people who read the same things."
Read more about LibraryThing here . As examples, my library is here; our Pregny Librarian's is here; United World College PYP Library is here. Many public and school libraries use LibraryThing for their catalog.

Amazon.com, besides selling you books, provides you with the ability to create lists: after you create an account, you can create gift and wish lists, then create a widget to display those lists as book covers.

"Schools, libraries, international corporations, and small-business owners alike are all welcome to create a corporate account at Amazon.com."

Shelfari "...was the first social media site focused on books, and will continue to innovate as it brings together the world's readers.

"Our mission is to enhance the experience of reading by connecting readers in meaningful conversations about the published word."

I learned about Shelfari at Classroom 2.0. (The original reference came from this post at the Nieman Enhanced Learning Center blog.)

Build your book shelf by searching for author, title or ISBN. When someone clicks on a book from your shelf, the reviews written by Shelfari members popup. This could be an interesting place to post students' book reports. It is a "social networking" site, but your settings allow you to close it completely, open it only to "friends", or open it to the world.

A Ed.D. study on blogging educators

2007-12-30T10:47:00.000+01:00

Jeff Felix, Superintendent of Bonsall Union School District in Bonsall, CA. has recently graduated from the Ed.D. in the Joint Doctoral program in educational leadership at the University of California San Diego, CalState University San Marcos, and San Diego State University. His thesis, Edublogging: Instruction for the Digital Age Learner, can be downloaded here in full, and here as a summary.

"The study shows that teachers perceive a significant increase in student learning through motivation for assignments and through deeper thought processes. Students seem to enjoy the connectiveness of their work to other subjects and to each other. This collaboration encourages a deeper relationship with their peers and with the teacher." (Felix)

I found this post at the Classroom 2.0 ning forum.

Adding a search result rss feed to the side bar

2007-12-28T19:10:00.000+01:00

If your blog focuses on a particular subject area, would a window onto what others are writing about be helpful to your readers? A news feed (do a Google search for "newsfeed" and look at the 62,000,000 or so results!) or a search feed might be a useful addition to your blog. Here are directions for adding a blog search feed to a Blogger blog. Adding a news feed would be the same, starting with Part Two.

Part one

Decide what search terms you want to use. For my sample (in the side bar at right), I used "dyslexia".
Go to http://blogsearch.google.com, enter your search term.
Scan the results. If you're content, continue. If not, tweak the search terms.
Define the time limits with the links on the left side of the page under "Published".
Click on "Atom" (under "Share") on the left side of the page.
A new web page will open. The first paragraph will give you the url for your search. My sample looked like this: Google Blog Search: dyslexia
Google Blog Search Results: 183 results for dyslexia - showing 1 through 10
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=dyslexia&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=...
Select and copy the long url.

Part Two

Open the Blogger Dashboard page with draft.blogger.com "Blogger in Draft" is a version of Blogger with some extra, experimental features available.
Click on the "template" tab of your blog, and then the "add a page element" link.
Choose "Gadget" and click "Add to blog".
On the page that opens, enter "slim rss" in the search bar, and click "search". "Slim RSS Reader" should be the first result. Click "Add".
A window will open with spaces for you to paste in the long url you copied in Part Onee above, give a name to your mini feed reader, select the number of items to be displayed. The default 25 pixels displays one line of text. You might want to change this number to 200 or 300 pixles. Click on "update" next to "Preview" as you work.
When it looks right, click on "save changes".

After the small window closes, click on "Preview" to see how the new element works on our page. Move it to the place in the side bar where you want it, and then click "save changes".

Questions about blogging in the classroom

2007-12-08T19:16:00.000+01:00

Darren Kuropatwa has created this VoiceThread as a public way to answer questions about blogging in the classroom posed to him by April Luemann. He invites us all to add our comments to the VoiceThread.

PageFlakes

2007-10-25T14:02:00.000+02:00

If you're a left brain person, and you don't mind a few extra mouse clicks, you might like using PageFlakes to view blog feeds.

This is a screen shot of my sample page. You can have multiple tabs (just like on a Google Home Page) and you can add as many rss feeds to each page - One for each class? One for each project? One for each subject area? - as you need. The difference is that you can see a thumbnail version of the page, rather than just the title text. Very handy if there are many videos or photos.

What is Pageflakes?

Pageflakes is your personalized homepage on the Web. Your favorite news, weather, sports, entertainment, photos, videos, music, email and much more – all on one page that you can access from anywhere. What's more, you can collaborate on your page with your friends, or publish it to the entire world."

Page themes can be customized and pages can be public, private, or open to a limited group.

Managing blogs (yours and other people's) with Google Reader

2007-10-25T08:18:00.000+02:00

Feed readers are a great tool, for sharing your own interests, creating an information source for your students, or monitoring your students' work. First, read this post on this blog, then read on...

Imagine that you have all 24 students in your class blogging...how are you going to keep up with their posting? By subscribing to it in a feed reader - like Bloglines or Google Reader. Their work will come to you, rather than you having to bookmark each blog page and opening each one(although that is advisable from time to time to check on formatting, colors, etc.)

This screen shot shows my Google Reader page with the Class 2i blogs listed down the column to the left, and the most recent post of the class blog showing at the right.

Another way to view feeds is to create a tab on your Google Home Page. The same feeds from Class 2i are shown in the screen shot at left.

If you have created a blog for a specific event or study unit, you can add feeds to the side bar: on the Space Quest blog, there are news feeds from the Maine Astronomical Society, the European Space Agency, NASA, Redshift Astronomy News, Canadian Astronomy News, etc., and perhaps the most interesting of all , the Blinx video news feed for astronomy. By putting it on one page for students, all this information comes to them.

At eruption, we chose videos showing volcanic eruptions that were happening just when the Year 3 students were studying volcanoes. (Most were from YouTube, so we could not share them them in school without downloading them, but the kids looked at the site at home with their parents, who sent suggestions for other videos and news sites to the teacher!)

I subscribe to a (too) huge number of blogs. As I read, I can mark those I think might interest others in my community with the "share" tag. Those posts will appear on my "Public Page"

Down the right side bar on the page you are reading now, is a "clip" of the same posts, that I've marked "share" as I read through my subscriptions on Google Reader.

Assessment and Evaluation in the Age of Networked Learning

2007-10-24T06:46:00.000+02:00

Here is a thumbnail-sized version of Konrad Glogowski's presentation for the K12 Online Technology Conference, "Assessment and Evaluation in the Age of Networked Learning" (click here to go to a full page version on Blip TV).

In his presentation, Konrad talks about"how to develop strategies and tools that engage students in the assessment and evaluation process, and help them stay in control of their learning and their progress." He teaches language arts to 7th and 8th graders in a K-8 school, and uses blogging as a primary medium for developing and recording student understanding.

This presentation helped me focus on the dichotomy which disturbs so many of us in our school. Within our paradigm of PYP-MYP inquiry based learning, we are expected to do microscopic assessments of our students' work and profile. It is the contradiction of the two systems which create havoc with our pedagogy. Although the assessments are based on the conversations over portfolio creation, the portfolio becomes an end in itself, the equivalent of a grade (with no "value" attached), and the effect of "learning stops here" which Konrad describes, kicks in. It amputates the student's growth as learners, and though the curriculum looks like "inquiry", it does all come to an end; students' work is admired, and the portfolio is closed.

I hope the students in Mr. Glogowski's classes know how fortunate they are!

Web sites as graphs

2007-10-22T23:23:00.001+02:00

This image has nothing to do directly with blogging - I just think it is fascinating. It is a graph of a 2 class blog, Read it! Write it!. created at this web site, based on the html tags in the page source. This static picture is interesting, but watching it explode out of an empty white page, growing and twisting like seaweed is intreaguing. Try it with a web page you are familiar with. A great way to show students the nature of web pages, as compared with books.

The graph is explained like this:

What do the colors mean?
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

"Blogging - It Sounds So Easy...."

2007-10-21T18:42:00.000+02:00

Read the comments to this innocent-looking little blog post by Sandi Kitts from CAC (Central Administrative Council of Prairie South School Division #210 (USA)) which I read because of link from Dean Shareski at Ideas and Thoughts.

Sandi writes: "...while I understand the significance of blogging, I keep finding excuses for not building it into my practice...Finally, who the heck cares what one crazy old educator thinks....."

All of the comments are supportive and encouraging. Here are isolated snippets:
"Through these interactions, they have helped me grow professionally in ways that I cannot fully describe."- Vinnie Vrotny

"I try to suggest it to all people in education because it is a way to build networks, get to know people who are like you or unlike you and just realize that the world is filled with so many great people who's lives are dedicated to improving those of the students that enter their schools/classrooms each day and who struggle, like you and me, with the same problems of time, money, management, direction and all those other things that fill the days." - K. Christopherson

" Keep blogging, keep exploring, keep learning -- you are not alone and the work you do online is valued!"- Stephanie Sandifer

"I've been blogging and reading blogs for three years and the process of reading and reflecting has enlarged my boundaries of what education can and should be." - David Jakes

"I can honestly say reading blogs and writing my own is the best professional development I've ever had, and it is personalized to my needs." - Cathy Nelson

Read the post, and all the comments for a window into the blogging world.

“Travel through Space and Time”

2007-10-21T07:23:00.000+02:00

One of the presentations at the K12 Online Technology Conference 2007 is "Travel through Space and Time", which describes an amazing project from Silvia Tolisano, from San José Episcopal Day School in Florida (USA)

"Global awareness is making its way into the educational landscape. We are recognizing that our students are growing up in a “flat world” and cannot afford to live isolated from learning about other languages, cultures, traditions and points of view. The presenter took over 400 students and their teachers along…virtually…as she traveled physically half way around the world to China. Learn how, through the power of web 2.0 tools, she seamlessly combined a blog, podcasts, photos and videos to educate students about cultural universals, while addressing curriculum standards."

The presentation describes the pedagogical (Global Studies)and technical preparations for the trip, and the first trip to China. (The second trip, to Egypt, has just ended. (OCT 07)) After you watch the Conference presentation, read Blog your way through China and SJEDS Travels to Egypt: Creating a portrait of the world.

I as awed not only at the tech aspects of this projects, but the in depth curriculum thought and planning across the year levels of the school. The school community was willing to invest a great deal of time, thought, and resources to create unique opportunities for its students (and teachers). And we can share in the richness of their work!

I've posted this project here as a beautiful example of how a blog can serve learning.

Class Blogmeister Introduction and Initial Setup

2007-10-20T18:04:00.000+02:00

Class Blogmeister Initial Setup

Class Blogmeister Introduction

MAINEducation Technology Conference

2007-10-20T16:21:00.000+02:00

Watch Will Richardson's keynote speech at the MAINEducation 2007 Technology Conference, Oct. 12th, Augusta, ME (USA) "Learning in a 2.0 World".

You can download the MP3 audio version of this talk here ("Bit by Bit" podcast #52), and the wiki is here, with an outline of the talk and links to resources mentioned.

In this keynote, Will describes how

The Web is Challenging Traditional Approaches to How We Learn
The Web is Challenging our Assumptions About Knowledge, Information and Literacy
The Web is Challenging our Assumptions about Classrooms and Teaching

Navigating, Reading and Commenting on a Blog

2007-10-14T11:04:00.000+02:00

This is part 1 of a 3 part series on how to create a blog and use it in the classroom. This how-to video is being used as part of an online staff development course for teachers in a K-12 school district. The blog used in the video is Ed Tech Buzz, and the course it was made for is described here.

There are several more videos at TeacherTube about blogging - "this is a 4 part video which serves to explain to teachers how to make links within their blog. This mini-series is part of a larger series of how-to videos for teachers on how to create and use a blog."
Linking your blog
How to add hyperlinks within the text of your blog posts

Linking your blog - Part 2
How to add links to the sidebar

Linking your blog - Part 3
How to add other page elements to a blog

Linking your blog - Part 4
More about page elements

This video, Technology and Literacy: Perspectives from the Classroom, is a half-hour presentation from the International Reading Association annual convention in Toronto on May 13, 2007. Part of the Preconference Institute: Using Technology to Develop and Extend the Boundaries of Literacy, it was made by 3rd grade teacher Mark Ahlness, in Seattle Washington. His class blog is Mighty Writers 2007-2008

Blogging in the classroom

2007-10-14T10:54:00.000+02:00

Watch this video from It's Elementary

Room 402: Year 6

2007-10-11T05:45:00.000+02:00

Room 402: Year 6 is a blog I've prepared for the Google Account project with Year 6. You might have a look there - very similar to this one.

Blog-meet dates and times - RSVP

2007-10-07T22:59:00.000+02:00

Before we meet...

2007-10-07T22:01:00.000+02:00

For our blog-meet, we'll be using Blogger, and Google Reader, two of the web apps available to you when you have a Google account. (Go here to see the other services - Gmail, Google Docs, etc.) If you don't already have one, get a free Google account before we meet. Choose a user name that is related to your class or subject, if that is the focus of your interest in blogging. For example, I have several accounts, using various combinations of "cdn", "pyp", "ict", "class", etc.

Also, check out some of the blogs listed on the right of this page. Some are old, some are current, some I made for other teachers to use with their classes. The ones with video you'll need to look at away from school, because YouTube is blocked by our firewall.

How to get blogs to come to you

2007-10-07T21:47:00.000+02:00

RSS is "Really Simple Syndication". It's an important part of the picture of blogging in teaching/learning. Watch this video for an explanation. If you'd also like to read a text explanation, go here.

Moving Forward

2007-10-05T11:49:00.000+02:00

Moving Forward is a wiki holding an extensive library of " resources related to K-12 blogging, including good example blogs to show people." General resourcs, how to set up a blog, examples of all sorts of education blogs (blogs by administrators, by teachers for teachers, by teachers for students, by students, etc.)

Why use a blog?

2007-10-05T10:11:00.000+02:00

In a post at Education News, Katrena writes
"Educators know that students write better when they have a real audience, not just a teacher with a red pen. In the past, finding such an audience was a challenge. But with Internet access and some basic software, any student can write for the world to see. Although blogging in schools is still in its infancy, anecdotal evidence suggests that students' interest in, and quantity of writing increases when their work is published online or when it is subject to reader comments."

She outlines 3 reasons why blogs are so popular -
1. Blogs enable anyone to publish information on the Internet.
2. Blogs are a tool that allows publication without technical, editorial, and time constraints.
3. Blogs have become a highly effective way to help students to become better writers.

Read the whole post here, and read the comments, too.