Blogging@Lunch

Blogging@Lunch

As I do not teach in the primary school this year, and as we have been involved in a number of projects, our dedicated blogging class time has been greatly reduced this year. Access to computers is another problem, so much so, that we need to look into a 1:1 laptop school program.

To encourage students to continue blogging, a Blogging@Lunch option was given to students at lunchtime today.

Despite cold, wintry weather over the last few days, we had a lovely sunny day today. Despite the fine weather, a number of students came in to the computer lab, to take advantage of the opportunity. There was a range of age groups represented, from  newbie 8 year olds through to 14 year olds. This was really pleasing. Students checked their comments, responded to these comments or wrote posts. Therefore, the activity will continue on Tuesdays.

What I need to teach students in order to blog

Rationale for student blogs:- To give students a platform to connect, communicate and collaborate with an authentic  audience that includes students, teachers, parents, local community and a global community.

Blogging is a tool that allows students to make their work look good, shows what they have learned and achieved, gives voice to their ideas and opinions, provides a space for journal entries,  allows  an area for reflection and a platform for digital portfolios. (See my 20 reasons for students to blog post)

To create student blogs, the following essential content and topics will be covered in my classes.

• Appropriate user names, passwords and blog url
• Writing posts and pages
• Using  the dashboard and managing  posts
• How to categorise and tag post entries (for personal and search engine purposes)
• How to write reflective and descriptive journal entries
• Appropriate content for  school based online blogs
• How to instigate and maintain conversations, using comments
• How to comment appropriately on blog posts,  email  thank you replies  to people who comment on their blogs
• Appropriate behaviours including plagiarism, cyber safety and digital citizenship
• The use of widgets in the sidebar eg  website links, categories, clustrmaps, feedjit,
• How to use their blog for reflective purposes.
• How to insert images
• Resizing images using eg irfanview etc

Worthwhile content

• Introduce various web2.0 tools to give an attractive appearance and rich content eg toondoo, wordle, slideshare etc
• How to use and create avatars, vokis etc
• How to add hyperlinks
• Addition of further widgets for effect eg weather pixie, slideshare widgets etc
• How to embed web2.0 tools by using the resultant code
• Work that  reflects their own personal identity and learning styles
• How to add  or link multimedia content including podcasts, digital stories and movies
• How to add MS Powerpoint and other MS Office docs (for PC schools) etc eg www.slideshare.net, scribd etc

Features of a good quality student blog….

This word cloud was created using wordle

 The first part of this post is my answer to what are the……

 Features of a good quality student blog

1. Good structure and layout, with appealing design and  theme
2. Regularly uploaded and updated posts (should be at least once a week), showing  intellectual quality.
3. Evidence of proof reading for accuracy, reliability and completeness.
4. Appropriate language, bearing in mind digital citizenship status
5. Posts of varying lengths with interestingly written content and work that reflects the best of student’s ability.
6. A range of topics for the posts – could include curricular and non curricular activities.Use of essential and interesting sidebar widgets eg categories, search option, blogroll, links.
7. A clustrmap and/or feedjit map and feeds Others may include weather pixie, a clock, feature slideshare presentations and  flickr etc  animated widgets, where appropriate.
8. Presence of hyperlinks to give a richer depth allowing for further research, showing a degree of expertise on the topic
9. A header with appropriate titles and images that relect something about the author eg a panoramic image showcasing where you live, interests, school pursuits etc.
10. Addition of voluntary and student self-directed posts, showing personality of and ownership by student.
11. Links to frequently used resources, class blog and teacher blogs
12. Evidence of reflections
13. Evidence of comments and conversations
14. Blogroll of fellow bloggers – either in-house or global
15. Frequent use of images and photos (preferably self taken), including graphs, wordle, clipart, cartoons, tag galaxy etc These should be ofappropriate format and size
16. Addition of a number of pages, including ‘about me’, extra curricula activity involvement, my digital stories, photography, global projects etc
17. Variety of multi media including voicethreads,  slideshare, podcasts, digital movies etc
18. Appropriate acknowledgement of any copyright or creative commons materials used.
19. User documentation instructing  the readers of the blog, to complete the same task. Eg how to add a tag galaxy.
20. Full development of the  blog as a digital portfolio.

fRoM tHe StUdEnTs……

I asked my students to answer the same question and the points below summarize their answers……..

From year 9/10

• good theme – eyecatching and colour
• managed regularly and be kept up to date. People should make a post at least once a week
• have good and/or interesting information in it and have comments on it..
•  a bit of creative thought and care put into the making of it..
• pictures
• People expressing their thoughts

See flurogreen (year 9) for a great post on this topic

Grade 6 students were a lot more explicit with their answer to this question:-

• Good work with lots of posts – at least one a week. You should explain your posts. Appropriate posts of what is happening at the time.
• A few widgets eg clustrmap, feedjit – it makes you feel really good because people around the world are looking at you!
• Some good games
• Something that involves people (interactivity) eg polls, quizes
• Getting comments from people all over the globe
• Catergories so you can write about different topics.
• Colourful, exiting things on your sidebar.
• Lots of pictures. Eg pets, you, house. Have pictures of what is around you or what is happening at that time.
• A catchy name, if somone typed Princess peaches blog there’s a pretty good chance that blog will come up.
• Experiment with new things (Flag counter, voki’s stuff like that) Make your blog look fantastic!!!!!

AND YOU SHOULD ENJOY HAVING A BLOG 

See a great posts by jess, skippy 

Best tool for online student publishing

Blogging, blogging, blogging..

So, was my reply to a query on classroom2.0 recently about the best tool for online student publishing. The lively discussion has centred primarily around blogs, wikis and nings but I would like to justify in this post, the use of blogging as the number 1 tool.

A student blog is a far more personal interactive website than any of the others. It may be used for journal entries and for publishing school work across many subject areas. It becomes the student’s own webpage, a page that will not be lost in lockers, school bags, left in the classroom, on the table, forgotten about etc.

Students love to have their own space and love to make it look good. On their personal blogs, they can feature and publish:-

• their class work eg English stories (chacha, year 7) LOTE sample 1 (voki by fluorgreen, year 9)  sample 2 (Shezza yr8), home economics (leecie yr 10) and school work in general (skippy, grade 6)
• Display work eg MS Office documents (Jade, year 8 student)
• Spreadsheet work
• art work eg sample 1 (Che grade 5) and sample 2 (Tadfish, year
• digital storytelling
• podcasts
• photography (yr 7 honka) and
• mind mapping (grade 6 skippy)
• Show extracurricula activities eg school camps sample 1 and sample 2
• Record outside school involvement
• reflections (yr 9 flurogreen)
• work students just want to publish sample by  grade 6 student

The list could go on, but publishing by this means gives parents, grandparents and other teachers’ access. It allows students to connect, communicate and collaborate with the globe. What greater audience could students have for their work. Comments allow feedback, communication, reflection etc/

The power of blogging

Sue Waters has requested responses to her post on helping her to inspire future teachers. Thanks Sue, and this is part of my response to your request.

The different technologies used in my classrooms are as follows:-

• Blogging – globalstudent, a campus of edublogs
• Live blogging - coveritlive
• Google apps – word, sheet, forms, reader, earth, street etc
• Podcasting – audacity, sony acid, podomatic, iTunes
• Digital storytelling with MS Moviemaker or Sony Vegas Movie Studio
• Skype – videoconferencing
• virtual classroom with discovere
• Wikis with wikispaces

 This post will concentrate on blogging, the one that I love using most of all. Our school features the following:-

• School home blog page with links to staff, subject and class blogs
• Class blogs- grade prep to year 9
• Students blogs from grades 4-8 and majority of years 9 and 10 (see links to all from my globalteacher blog site on RHS sidebar) See  great examples of a  year 9 and year 6 student blog.
• Two personal blogs -documenting my journey for both personal reflection and to share with other teachers and  the other on my journey to share with my students, lesson plans, extras for when I am absent, reflections, filing cabinet, resources etc

As I teach grades 2 to 12 information technology, I try to give the students a prompt for each lesson  or each week, to keep the blogs active.Many web2.0 tools are used eg Images, digital movies, voicethread, wordle, cartoon making. Befunky is used to manipulate photos and images to disguise students, to keep the blogs interesting and dynamic. Students love their work to look good. Much use is made of irfanview and MS Paint to resize and rename photos for uploading into blogs. Teachers across subject areas are now encouraging students to use their blogs as a showcase and a powerful, interactive tool for writing, recording, reflecting, reporting and assessment.

How it has helped the students (and staff)

• Authentic audience – Students are always more motivated when there is an authentic audience eg Steph a young grade 5 student recently and independently put her own post prompt up “I’ll ask the world a question (that’s you) and you answer it  Whats your favorite movie and why?” To the absolute, sheer delight of Steph, she got 20 global comments from USA, Israel, NZ and Aus, which has encouraged her to write frequently and in greater depth and check out this wonderful comment from a teacher in AZ (guess that means Arizona)

Bonnie Keene // Aug 3rd 2008 at 11:44 am

Hi Steph! Congrats on your first question to the world! I’m a 4th grade teacher in Tucson, AZ and I can’t wait to have my new students answer your blog (I think I’ll make it one of their first technology assignments) Before they answer you, I need to give you my answer. I am a total movie freak, so this is a really tough one for me …hmmm….I think I’d have to say The Princess Bride. I’ve seen it so many times over the years, and it still makes me laugh. It’s one of those fun movies that people quote all the time. The book’s great too, btw.

• A yr 10 boy whose work was not fully completed work in the traditional subjects, asked if he could put a piece of his English work onto his blog. After adding feedjit to his sidebar widgets, he found that he had been googled by someone in Paris!!!  Imagine his delight and the motivation this provides for further writing activities.

• Providing a support community in times of grief eg Honka. Class work is often affected by lack of concentration, but feedback like this helps the healing process and eventually the learning process resumes.
• Immediate and powerful exposure to the globe, its cultures and digital citizenship. The students take it in turns to set a post prompt and one from Connecticut asked us:- So my question for you is this:What is your favoite holiday and what are some traditions you have? Most chose Christmas. However, we sometimes get extra students in our class now and our students have little exposure to any other cultures, when an extra student came on board with this comment:-

I wouldn’t really do anything because i don’t celebrate Christmas, after all it IS for Christians and i am Muslim. So I don’t celebrate it, but we could buy trees and do Christmasy things too you know, but my family don’t really. Some Muslims like me decorate the house, have fun with friends and play games have BBQ’s too and play in pools, visit relatives, go amazing places like Cool Parks and Luna Park and Harbour Bridge.
Yes, so there. But as muslims, we have Eid to celebrate, which is a different celebration for a prophet of ours. We do MANY things listed in what i said a few sentences ago. It is SO FUN!!!! Our traditions are go to a religious muslim tower where we pray called “Jamaii”, hard to pronounce i know. We pray or just say prayers at home for god. And some other traditions go visit relatives and eat Arabic or food from our countries (lebanon for me though!).
Alot you have to learn there! Think you’ve learn somethings??

• The blogs can feature multimedia, so students can use images, videos, podcasting rather than writing for classwork.
• Show what they are doing in class.
• Discover hidden talents eg photography
• Keeping parents and grandparents informed – Parents are beginning to make comments and grandparents from the UK often comment on their grandchildren’s blog posts.
• Conversations can start and this is where the real learning and discussion work can begin.
• Pride, improved self esteem, increased confidence as dots appear on their clustr maps and the comments come in.
• Students direct their own learning

Some notes

• The first 5 mins must be kept free, for students to check their clustr maps or feedjit maps and feeds. Students will look up the geographical location of their dots, respond via comments and/or email. This gives them an authentic task when they have a real person to email or respond to.
• Sometimes, they will be encouraged to comment on at least two members of the class’ blogs
• Students will actively go out and seek other student blogs to get dots and comments
• Many will happily post further entries at home and in their spare time.