My Week in Review Mar 14th

Student Perspective

• Edublogs revamped their site on the weekend, which caused a few frustrations with problems in formatting and themes. Most students have them back to their original format
• Loved being able to add an avatar into the sidebar and attaching to comments
• Edublogs now grabs clustr map codes as a widget option. Some great new features.
• Many grade 6 students enrolled in the Australian video hosting website for students at http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache/ It is hoped they can grab video code from here to embed in their blog posts. Will trial this week!
• Find it helps to give students a check list to ensure they have covered all requirements for the term. (might use it weekly as well)
• Jess McCulloch conducts a weekly voxpop which is recorded onto an ipod and made into a podcast. One week, the question was “what makes a good teacher”. So my yr 9/10s all completed that post.

 Personal perspective

•  I loved being host for “a day in a sentence’ for a week. It was the first time that it had travelled overseas and it was great to see the Aussie input.  Kevin is the usual host. www.voicethread.com was the tool used and it was great to see a variety of written, audio and even video comments. Those without VT accounts, wrote comments on the post. A great excercise and thanks Kevin.
• completed 2nd online PD for Quest Atlantis. Had to do a bit of homework before session, to complete two quests in order to gain a q-pod and an avatar of my own. At least, I no longer look like a clone!
• Attended the teach  intel online conference with Andrew Douch on podcasting and web2.0, John Pearce on wikis and blogs and Louise Robinson one Kambrya College builds on Intel teach. Great sessions! 

Student blog of the week goes to http://rose.globalstudent.org.au/ This is a special girl in year 8 who attends special school three days a week and comes to my IT classes for one of the two possible sessions. She has no aide when with me and has worked quite independently and with sheer determination and enjoyment. Look what potential blogging has for her.

It is with disappointment that I name my blog post of the week. It has to go to http://alupton.edublogs.org. This is one that needs acting upon. I have closely followed Al Upton on twitter and through his class blog with the grade 3 mini legends. He has been able to secure experienced educationalists to be personal mentors for these students and their blogging has been of great interest to me.

So it was with horrified amazement that I learnt that his education department had asked him to close the blog. Read his post be clicking on the above link.

Blogging is a powerful learning tool and I do hope that Al Upton is soon allowed to continue globally, his great work.