Teachable moments!

My combined year 11 and 12 class had just logged on to their computers when one of the students asked whether I had seen the Kony video. Intrigued, I asked for more information, then decided to forget the planned lesson and let the class watch it.

How opportune it was as the students are studying online communities, their purpose and functionality etc! The documentary is gripping and is powerful viewing. It makes for some wonderful discussion points for IT in general, including the power of social networking and online communities, demonstrates some fine visual data, gripping viewing and a challenge. The documentary, uploaded yesterday, shares the atrocious work of Kony in Uganda and his role in murder, child soldiers, rapes and the slave trade. The aim is to catch him before the end of the year.

Here is the link to the video in vimeo. At the beginning of the day 1 million people had watched the video in youtube. By the end of the day 4 million, the next day, 30 million. It has gone viral.

Twitter displayed it as  the top trending topic for the day. #stopkony

Have you watched this video? What would your comments be?

Getting organised for the start of a new school year

Determined to continue experimenting as much as possible with online tools and technology to engage students and empower their learning, I feel that one of the key factors to success will be organisation, appropriate online presence and developing individual name brands. It is easy to get ‘lost’ with the resources, tasks that need to be completed and student work (and I am naturally a disorganised person!) With this in light, the first few days will be spent getting students setup. Here is what will be done:-

From my (the teacher) perspective

1. Register each student from my classes, (excepting the preps) with  an individual global2 blog. (our Education Department campus of edublogs)
2. Setup my own class blog as an example for students eg add my timetable, links to resources etc
3. Make sure my google calendar is updated
4. Update my google reader for RSS feeds
5. Use netvibes to organize my digital life, classes and teaching See Overview on netvibes and blog post for the Flat Classroom Certified Teacher course
6. Survey students to ascertain their use of technology and online spaces.
7. Update my class blog, adding in links for new student blogs and editing the year levels that students are in.

The student perspective:

1. Type up a timetable in MS Word or Excel, add it to a page on each student’s blog
2. Add links on the sidebar to regularly used sites and useful resources
3. Setup folders for each subject on computer desktop and network
4. Setup  an igoogle page for organisational startups eg google mail, calendar, RSS feeds with google reader, appropriate gadgets, customization See some tips from thurs3
5. Create a google calendar and add to igoogle page

10 Things you should know about Blog Comments

By murcha | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

The third challenge in the Advanced Student Blogging Activity looked at comments on blogs. Here are 1o Things you should know about comments. (They are not in any particular order.)

1. They are highly motivational
2. Comments can create conversations and therefore learning
3. They are a vital point of contact or connection: as blogging provides a global presence, people who wish to learn more about you, connect with you or just communicate can easily do so via comments
4. Care needs to be taken with comments – use proper English, be positive, use appropriate language. Remember that some readers may need to use a translator.
5. Always reply to someone who comments on your blog post, read what they are blogging about and ask a question where possible to keep the conversation going
6. Actively encourage comments by asking a question(s) in your blog post
7. Ensure you moderate comments to keep spammers and unwanted bodies at bay.
8. Allow at least 10 mins per week to comment on others’ blog posts
9. Whenever you read a blog post, please consider commenting to let the blogger know that you have visited – even if it is just to say “Thanks for posting”
10. You can be updated on further comments added to a particular blog post,  by subscribing to the comment feed.

Some Further reading:-

• How to comment on a Blog – a Beginners’ Guide
• Teaching Quality Commenting
• 10 Techniques to get more comments

What would you add to the list of things you should know about blogging?

10 things You Should Know About Class Blogs

Class Blogs are great! They can have real ‘class’! A class blog is created by a teacher and is often used as a platform for sharing class activities, writings, thoughts, reflections etc Here are 10 things you should know about them!

Please note: this post is in response to the first challenge in the 30 Day Blogging with Students

1. They are the best starting point for blogging with students.
2. Class blogs allow the teachers and students to learn together – how posts work, how comments work, how digital citizenship works, netiquette, appropriate digital footprints etc
3. As the teacher can have full control, any difficulties and issues that might arise can be quickly dealt with.
4. Students can gain their apprenticeship in blogging with a class blog, before getting a license to start their own blog.
5. Once the teacher is ready for students to add posts directly they can be added in as editors  or another type of user.
6. Teachable moments will arise, including blog titles, post content, commenting, adding appropriate comments, behaviour online, cyber safety, plaguarism etc.
7. Class blogs a are a great platform for connection with parents, staff and the general community
8. Pages on class blogs can feature many resources eg pages on cybersafety page, parent information page, timetable, homework etcA platform to ‘house’ links to most commonly used resources on a blog roll will allow quick access to online sites.
9. Develops into a ‘brag bag’ or digital portfolio of a class’s year .
10. Can become immersed in the classroom as a near complete learning management system, complete with lesson instructions, tutorials, resources, podcasts, reflections, feedback etc. It is available 24/7/365 for revision, lesson planning and more.

Do you have a class blog? What would you say is important to note about a class blog?

Adding Legs to my Blog (alias “Walking you through my sidebar!”

Add Bling to a Blog

Challenge #7 of Kick Start Your Blog looked at the use of widgets in a blog and the possibility of adding some bling! The sidebar(s) of a blog may need a spring clean and mine certainly did and still does. Here is what I did in the spring clean! Let me walk you through my side bar.

1. About Me My blog did not have an avatar on the sidebar, so I registered for a gravatar, added my photo and wrote a short piece about ambitions and passions. I will link this to may ‘About Me’ page.

2.  Categories This is an essential item on a blog, so that posts of a similar topic can be searched for. Search engines may also pick up on the categories. Maintained my drop down menu for categories. Tags should appear near the categories so that readers interested in more, can quickly choose a tag.

3. RSS Feed – allows interested readers to subscribe to my blog and receive notice of post updates. The “subscribe by email” option is also on the sidebar for those who prefer to receive it by email.

4. Search box: To retrieve blog posts on a particular topic (primarily for personal use)

5. Badges: It is with pride that these are displayed – nominations for the Edublogs Awards 2008, 2010.It is also with pride that I promote the amazing Global Education Conference 2010.

6. Blogroll: this aspect still needs tidying up, as some blogs are idle and there are others  to add. Then follows links to global projects, frequently used resources, blogs that are special to me (family etc) and my other blogs. Horror of all horrors – I had not added the Kick Start Your Blog Challenge to my sidebar. That was quickly rectified. As the blogroll gets longer, I shall consider putting this on a page rather than the sidebar.

7. Widgets: I am still trying to work out what widgets  wordpress will accept but Clustrmaps has been added. This is reset each year. Sometimes, I catch my students looking at my map, working out what countries the dots are from etc.  Geovisite has some great tracking options but cannot be added to wordpress.

8. Meta:- login for the blog. This should be at the bottom of the sidebar as only the blogger needs access to this.

I am not sure whether I need the latest tweets or  my latest post updates. A clock widget would be good so if anyone knows of one for wordpress, I would love you tell me as a comment below.

Class Blog - As my students use this blog, it has more bling but is also in major need of renovation. As our location is changing, I need to redo all my widgets and sidebar.

1. Features most of the above except the blogroll includes links to my student blogs.
2. Digital clock –  to inform our global contacts what
   day it is in Australia and what the current time where we live.
3. A countdown to an important event or to the end of the year
4. Student blog of the week
5. Tags in a word cloud
6. Geovisite tracking and mapping  objects
7. Feedjit traffic feed

What do you see as essential on your sidebar? How does the sidebar on your teacher blog compare to that on a class blog?

 

Adding legs to my blog (alias “Walking you through my sidebar) http://murcha.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/widgets-and-bling-add-legs-to-the-blog/

Down blog’s memory lane! 10 Questions to ask my Blog

This post is being written as part of the first teacherchallenge for advanced bloggers in the Kick Start Your Blog.

1. When did you start posting? June 27th, 2007
2. What was in that first post? I had no idea what a blog was about or what I was to do, I was such a baby, so I started being a journal with random diary entries, documenting my owners’ adventures with the students as they experimented with podcasting and web2.0 tools as part of an Education Department grant.
3. What makes you happy? Getting comments - I love to know that people are actually reading what I share and watching any red dots appear on my clustr map.
4. Any devastating moments? Yes, the first time I lost all the precious re dots on my clustrmap, I was devastated. However, I found out that it is reset each 12 months and the dots started to appear again over time.
5. Who has helped you over the past three years? My blog writer was able to establish a network through twitter, classroom2.0 and she got involved in global projects, providing a potential audience. Adding appropriate tags and categories to posts gets my work into search engines, bringing further readers.
6. How have you matured over the last three years or so? I feel that I have become more than a journal and am developing into a digital portfolio and a platform for reflection.
7. What has been the highlight of your career? Being nominated twice for the Edublogs awards.
8. What frustrates you? Not being updated as much as I would like, knowing that people visit but dont leave comments (I love comments and feedback) and at the moment I need a good ‘spring clean’, dust and makeover (the blogroll needs tidying up, pages need updating, categories are all over the place etc) I do like to appear wel
9. What are your sources of inspiration? – daily events in the classroom, twitter, others’ blog posts, search terms that have brought people to me (found in my stats section), questions people might ask my blogger through emails.
10. Future directions?- would like to tell others more about the tools that are available for effective classroom use and eLearning, ideas for their use etc. I like being connected to many and would like to network further with global colleauges, encouraging the Asian educators to communicate  learn from me, and in turn, I learn from them.

The word cloud below has been created with wordle displaying a visual analysis of this post.

Lost in Hong Kong – technology to the rescue!!

Coming home (to our hotel on Hong Kong Island) from a day in Macau and a visit to the night markets in Kowloon, my feet were swollen, sore and bore massive blisters. My husband led the way taking the subway train from Kowloon to the closest sub station to where we were staying. He promised me that it was only a 10 minute walk home as I was ready to catch a taxi! After 25 mins of going around in circles, getting more confused and starting to get anxious, we did call a cab!

This morning, I was fortunate to be taken on a tour of Renaissance International School - a visionary school with fantastic resources and technology (more to be written later). However, I had to be there at 10:00am, so could take no chances in getting lost, as there was a 15 minute walk to the station and a need to change mtr five times to get from Hong Kong Island to the New Territories. So, my good friend Lorraine Leo reminded me to use my mobile phone to take photos of key landmarks or streets. Instead I used my digital camera to take photos of streets to be used, clocks for timing and subway stations to change at. One single ticket got us there. Here is a snapshot of some of the photos that I took.

landmark icons

Change lines

time cues

Street sign cues

landmarks