Blogging-+Notes+and+Ideas

toc

media type="custom" key="864479"media type="custom" key="864485" Stopped Here: **http://tinyurl.com/4wsdn8******** =**Big Starting Points**=

=**Images & Handouts**=
 * http://beyond-school.org/2007/10/31/visionary-classroom-blogging/**
 * http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=170** **"Sustained Blogging in the Classroom" from the 2007 K12 Online Conference**
 * **http://www.bretagdesigns.com/technologist/?p=352**** A Blogger looks at Fifty**
 * **http://youthplans.wikispaces.com/Curriculum** **Blogging Curriculum**

=**History**=
 * **http://www.sharingmachine.com/ubersearch/ubersearch.php?search=blog&searchtype%5B%5D=title**** Cartoons about blogging
 * http://www.flickr.com/photos/jutecht/421933925/**** Blogs as conversations
 * http://www.scribd.com/doc/2039312/The-Ripple-Effect-Reflection-Sheet** **The Ripple Effect Handout from the post, http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2008/02/04/towards-reflective-blogtalk/******
 * **http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/4Cs_large.jpg**** Participation Online- The 4 C's
 * http://www.weblogcartoons.com/**** Cartoons about blogging, social applications, and technology
 * http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003881.html** **History of My Blog by Hugh Mcleod**

=**Titles**=
 * **http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2006/05/what_exactly_is_a_blog_anyway.html**** Loosey-goosey history of blogs. Fodder for an introduction. I don't like the rationales- too simplistic.**

=Comments=
 * **http://www.bretagdesigns.com/technologist/?p=454****

=**Law**=
 * http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-comment-like-king-or-queen.html****
 * http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2006/09/11/profdev/** **There is nothing here about the impact that the story had on me as a person - I remain emotionally detached, unwilling to comment on the experience of reading Vanessa’s story. Implicit in this comment is the suggestion that I “know best” - I focus on literary devices, on Vanessa’s technical expertise as a writer. The comment sounds as if I had composed it while looking at a rubric.**
 * **http://www.bretagdesigns.com/technologist/?cat=13**** Throughout the study, Felix notes that reading blogs as well as commenting on blogs are important: “reading and commenting on a student’s blog posting contributed to increase understanding of each other” (p. 3). Thus, it is important to scaffold the blogging process with students as well as teachers new to the process. In doing so, the philosophy behind blogging becomes clearer for the “new” blogger instead of it becoming merely a writing assignment or add-on instead of a potentially transformative practice.**
 * **http://web.archive.org/web/20061208151514/http://anne.teachesme.com/2005/03/30**** Can you protect your students from every inappropriate remark that might be said to them? No! But you can teach them that an inappropriate remark is not a reflection on their work but a reflection on some other person. We have an easy solution. We can just delete it and move on. We have other things to focus on, things that are more important and more worth our time.
 * http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/remote_access/2008/06/classroom-blogging---the-year-in-stats.html**** Interesting post that gives a statistical comparison between the number of posts that are made and the number of comments received. Long Tail...
 * http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2008/02/blogging-tips-authenticity-transparency.html** **Recently, someone accused me privately of not publishing their comment. As I told them, I publish all related (non spam) comments 100% of the time. If it contains profanity, [|I will rephrase.] But I believe for my authenticity to be "real," that I should welcome dissent. If they take the time to dissent, I should take the time to respond - I think it is good practice for bloggers to comment on their own blogs and I do it all of the time!**
 * **http://lifehacker.com/software/top/special-lifehackers-guide-to-weblog-comments-126654.php****
 * http://commentchallenge.wikispaces.com/31+Day+Comment+Challenge+Activities**
 * http://commentchallenge.wikispaces.com/

=**Teacher Actions**=
 * **http://www.tubetorial.com/blogger-law-101/******

=Essential Questions & Characteristics=
 * **http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2006/06/29/progressive-discourse/**** I used my own blog to link to many entries, to show my students the connections between many individual posts. I suggested electronic and print resources. I talked about their work in class. We discussed individual entries.
 * http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2006/09/11/profdev/**** (Avoid) This current-traditional approach presumes that the student learns best to write perspicaciously by following the precepts of the instructor, delivered no matter how idiosyncratically through the //fourfold feedback//. What this approach engenders, however, is not emulation of the instructor, but rather a sense of distance from one’s own text. In the current-traditional classroom, writing is not so much to be read as to be evaluated; the effectiveness of any text lies not in the power of persuasion and description, but in its ability to trigger highly conventionalized responses from professional graders. (Barker, T & Kemp, F., 1990).
 * http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2006/09/11/profdev/** **It was crucial, then, to stop using my teacherly voice and learn to enter the community as a co-participant. Of course, as I found out, it is virtually impossible to outgrow the teacherly voice.**
 * **http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2008/02/04/towards-reflective-blogtalk/**** In order to engage in truly reflective thought about their work, students must also have opportunities to analyze who they are as bloggers and writers. They must have opportunities to look critically at their own work and see how they fit into the class blogosphere. Recently, I developed a handout that helps students accomplish just that. The [|Ripple Effect Sheet] is designed to encourage students to become aware of the class blogosphere, of other writers, of entries that define the environment in which they write, and of their own contributions to that environment.**
 * **http://www.bretagdesigns.com/technologist/?p=544**** One in particular is through partnerships with universities and their pre-service teachers, which I’ve seen first hand as a masterful way of adding another source of constructive feedback on student writing.
 * http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604374**** In each new class that I start blogging with, we spend one whole period talking about the difference between a compliment and a comment. I make my students read Vicki Davis's "How to Comment like a King (or Queen!)" (see sidebar below). We discuss the meaning of a comment, and whenever there is a good one left by someone, we talk about it in the classroom.
 * http://eduspaces.net/csessums/weblog/10943.html** **Blogging can serve the learning process in the following ways**
 * **Modeling: the teacher “puts his/her mind on display”**
 * **Coaching: teachers observe students performance of a task, offering feedback**
 * **Scaffolding: helping a student complete a task slightly more difficult than the student is capable of completing on his/her own.**
 * **Articulating: drawing students out dialogically, helping to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge**
 * **Reflecting: debriefing, replaying and discussion after an activity**
 * **Exploring: students tackle new areas on their own**
 * **http://thinkingstick.wikispaces.com/Sustained+Blogging** **Create a network of reading examples for students (see http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=41233 )**
 * **http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2008/02/blogging-tips-authenticity-transparency.html** Encourage student voice (but within reason- not personal but voice).-WK** Have a voice! It is so much about VOICE. This is my first blogging lesson:
 * Students draw a colored chip (I use poker chips to do this) -- Each chip has a character -- I use Davy Jones, Will Turner, and the sailors on the ship as my three choices.
 * I show [|the Kraken attack] from Pirates of the Carribean.
 * I teach my students how to embed the video into their blog. (We use a private ning now.) I also talk about HTMl and what it is.
 * Then, I have them write AS THAT PERSON. After we're done, we talk about VOICE. Emotion. Imagery. Feeling, and what makes a good blog post.

=**Reasons for Blogging**=
 * http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/archives/476** **I think that these same questions, reworded only slightly, can also be used to examine and evaluate the blog writings of others, other classmates, and other blog content being used for learning.**
 * **What did the blogger read before writing? ( http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/assessing-blog-posts/ ) Yee Haw! Blogging starts with reading, and I read David’s post, which leads me to blogging. (I read some other stuff, too. See below.) And I think an even more interesting question to add is “What was your process of reading?” In the previous post about Net Neutrality, I worked between three or four different readings to assemble the ideas contained in the posts. There was nothing linear about it, which is another aspect of reading/writing literacy in hypertext environments that really interests me.**
 * **What was important about the blog entry? ( http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/assessing-blog-posts/ ) I think the importance here is the deconstruction of the process and the inherent reflection that goes with it. Sometimes blogging is work, and it’s when I’m crafting a post (as opposed to writing it) that I know I’m involved in some real learning. As a blogger/learner, it’s crucial that I recognize and understand the decisions I make about what to write (based on feel and audience), how to write it, and when to publish it.**
 * **What were both sides of the issue? ( http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/assessing-blog-posts/ ) Well, some feel whatever you do in your blog is blogging. As is well known, I disagree. I do think this reflective assessment about the blogging can point to the power of reading, thinking, synthesizing, writing and reading some more.**
 * **What do you know, believe, or want to do after reading the blog? ( http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/assessing-blog-posts/ ) I would add learn to that list. And I would also move this up to second in the list (if we are looking at this as process.) The audience aspect of blogging is central to the task, and if we’re not aware of what our purpose is, we won’t communicate it well. This is the Donald Murray school of anticipating the readers questions, responses, reactions.**
 * **What else needs to be said? ( http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/assessing-blog-posts/ ) I’m not sure this question works for me, because I’d hope that if I had more to say I would say it. What about //What have you learned from the process?// or //How will you find out more?//**
 * **http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2005/8/8/getting-blogging-help.html**** THE education tech guru and fellow ISTE board member Kathy Schrock, creator of the blog Kathy Schrock’s [|Kaffeeklatsch], shared some tips (that I have tried in this newsletter) including:**
 * **Decide on your purpose and state it up front for the users. I saw the WHY BLUE SKUNK, but some others may miss it.**
 * **Don’t just list resources: provide an overview for us**
 * **Make sure your hyperlinks are clickable in the text**
 * **End some with a question that will encourage comments and commentary, which I know you love to do, haircut non-withstanding**
 * **Bloggers Cafe, Learning and Leading Magazine (ISTE), "Lighting Lamps" by Doug Johnson:**
 * **Write assuming your boss is reading.**
 * **Gripe globally, praise locally.**
 * **Write for edited publications.**
 * **Write out of goodness.**
 * **http://www.bretagdesigns.com/technologist/?p=544**** What teens felt motivated them to write and how they believed schools could improve writing instruction:
 * Choice
 * Opportunity for Creativity
 * High Expectations/Challenge from Adults
 * Audience
 * Interesting Curricula
 * In-class time
 * Computer-based writing tools
 * Feedback
 * Begin by reading blogs, a variety, and build blogging around this. Steps:
 * http://www.bretagdesigns.com/technologist/?p=349**** Setup a class feed reader — I suggest using [|Google Reader]and create a course page on iGoogle
 * Add a mixture of blogs into Google Reader: professional, academic, school (all grade levels including [|collegiate]), personal, etc. In fact, show students how to find [|subscriptions to blogs] and work through this process
 * As part of the class environment, have your reader open each day and point out new blog articles and discuss selection of pieces to read. Also, the discussion of [|RSS]becomes critical!
 * Read some of these articles aloud with the class. Discuss the article’s content and also talk about it from a structural perspective.
 * As a class, cultivate students discussion over these articles and formulate class or small group responses that are submitted as comments to the blogs.
 * [|SSR 2.0?] –> Well worth reeading, listening and [|watching]
 * http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/03/ten-habits-of-bloggers-that-win.html** **Ten Habits of Bloggers that Win:**
 * **If you mention it, hyperlink it.**
 * **Get a good title! It is poor netiquette to title an e-mail "Hi." Likewise, whether your blog is read or not depends greatly on your title.**
 * **Write and then cut in half!**
 * **Write and then format.**
 * **Draw a picture!**
 * **Before you bag it, tag it!**
 * **After you post it, ping it!**
 * **Make sure you set your pages to archive.**
 * **Comment on articles you quote and hyperlink to your article.**
 * **http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_part_2.htm**** Guidelines for beginning bloggers:**
 * **Link. The heart of blogging is linking...linking and commenting. Connecting and communicating - the purpose of the Internet.**
 * **Experiment. Developing a writing style is an evolutionary process. Try different approaches and formats until you find one that fits your message, audience, and personal motivations.**
 * **Use life and your experiences as your "idea generation" file.**
 * **Get an opinion. Then express it.**
 * **http://web.archive.org/web/20061208151514/http://anne.teachesme.com/2005/03/30**** Together with the students we made a plan of action for how we would handle it.
 * We would not respond to the irresponsible commenters. We would ignore them.
 * The student would report any inappropriate comments to the teacher.
 * The teachers would delete inappropriate comments, if they found them first but would discuss the matter with the owner of the blog and with the group, if appropriate.
 * We agreed that it was unfortunate that the commenter had not used common sense and we would try to set good examples on our blogs.
 * http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2006/05/advice_for_student_bloggers.php**** Never link to something you haven't read. While it isn't your job to police the Internet, when you link to something, you should make sure it is something that you really want to be associated with. If a link contains material that might be creepy or make some people uncomfortable, you should probably try a different source.
 * http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2006/01/challenging_students.php#more** **Students need to be constantly challenged. Not a lesson should go by in which the teacher does not say "Prove it", "Who says?" or "So what?"! Questioning is essential to effective colloborative, reflective writing. -WK See Questioning Toolkit: http://questioning.org/Q7/toolkit.html******

=Quotes=
 * **http://anne.teachesme.com/2007/01/17/rationale-for-educational-blogging/****
 * http://writingteacher.blogspot.com/2006/09/summary-of-cmap.html**** Research-based rationale

=**Types**=
 * http://weblogg-ed.com/2004/blogging-vs-posting/** **In the three-plus years that I’ve been keeping this blog, I’ve read tens of thousands pieces of writing from thousands of other bloggers, and with each one I’m mining it for something to use in my practice or to write about. Ironically, it’s one of the biggest changes in my process since I started blogging, this reading for ideas that I do. I never used to read to write. Now that’s almost all I do. And the writing identifies and clarifies the learning. That’s really what the good blogging is here, a learning log.** Part of the process is reading for ideas which makes it as much about reading as writing and forming words. -WK
 * **http://weblogg-ed.com/category/on-my-mind/**** I think that dream brought to light another aspect of why I blog. Not just to reflect. Not just to learn. But in some small way to leave a trail for those who come after me. I certainly can’t predict to what extent those people might find any of this relevant or compelling or useful, but I know I would love to have the chance to dig through the work of my own mother, to learn about her more deeply, to understand who she was and what she stood for. If nothing else, my kids will have that opportunity.**
 * **http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/04/cat-blogging.html**** Writers who do not reveal something of themselves (and their pets, if their pets are important to them) are giving us only half the equation. They are presenting statements and asking us to accept them as objective fact. There is no reason why we should do this, and indeed, even some reason to be suspicious of such an approach. **-Don't be too personal w/ elementary kids. -WK**
 * http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2006/09/11/profdev/**** I’ve learned from my study that, in a blogging classroom, students learn when they are allowed the freedom to use their blogs in order to write themselves into existence as individuals. Of course, a teacher can allow that to happen only if he or she is willing to operate at [|the edge of incompetence], never knowing what the next day or lesson will bring. I haven’t met too many teachers who embrace this sense of uncertainty and enjoy what [|Marie Jasinski] calls “[|facilitating the unpredictable].” We seem to think that it undermines our authority and that we are paid to know and to dispense that knowledge with confidence. Not surprisingly, giving my students the freedom to become independent writers and researchers presented me with an enormous challenge of having to redefine my own presence and my voice in the classroom.
 * http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2007/03/a_problem_with_blogs.php** **The problem with blogs is that it is not about writing, it is about a conversation. If you think of blogs as conversation vehicles, then it becomes easier to understand how blogs can be very powerful in education and the classroom. Too often, educators use blogs as a replacement for journals, when really what blogs should do is extend conversations from within the classroom to a wider audience. Those conversations should then be brought back into the classroom for further discussion. The word ‘blog’ might be short for Web Log, but the power of blogs is not in the writing, it is in the thoughts, the comments, and the conversation that they can start, sustain, and take into a million different directions.**
 * **http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2008/02/04/towards-reflective-blogtalk/**** Blogging is not about choosing a topic and writing responses for the rest of the term. It is about meaningful, thoughtful engagement with ideas.**
 * **http://www.bretagdesigns.com/technologist/?p=349**** If you really want blogging to be transformative and you want it to sustain itself as a powerful piece of the classroom environment, it starts with reading blogs and learning about the philosophy of this genre: critical reading, connecting and synthesizing ideas, communicating publicly, creating, contributing, community linking and building, and moving cyclically.
 * http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2005/06/12/48/**** What this means to me is that grading blogs (especially at the elementary level) has to be a very holistic process that focuses not only on the quality of their work but also on the extent to which their work reflects the context in which they work. I think that student bloggers should be recognized for writing as part of a larger community of inquirers. Some of my most successful writers are those who are aware of what their friends are writing about and who participate in conversations with other bloggers in their class.
 * http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2007/03/are_bloggers_storytellers_for.php#more** **A journalist writes to capture a moment in time. A blogger writes to start a conversation. I am taking great liberty in comparing myself to a journalist when I say this, I write in my blogs because I want to carry on a conversation about a topic of interest. My blogs are invitations to join in the discussion or to have the discussion with peers, or continue the discussion in the comments.**
 * **http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2006/12/18/shining-lights-finding-nuggets-adding-tools/**** I think more teachers in our schools need to be specifically teaching students how to write effectively with hyperlinks, because hyperlinked writing is the most powerful form of writing that has ever existed. The ability to connect your ideas with words, thoughts, images, sounds or videos created by others is unbelievably powerful. This is the real power of blogging, in my opinion.**
 * **http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/archives/280**** Stop talking about integrating technology into the curriculum, and start talking about integrating the curriculum into an information-driven, technology-rich, rapidly changing world.
 * http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2006/01/challenging_students.php#more**** In fact, unless you take the time and trouble to make sure that they know how to ask the right questions, exposing them to blogs, wikis and all the rest of it is actually likely to **disempower** them by providing them with information overload. Presumably that's kind of the opposite to what you really want to achieve....
 * http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/teacher-bloggers-not-blogging-says-me/** **Ok, so here’s my beef, again. Blogs are powerful communication tools. Blogs are powerful publishing tools. But //blogging// (the verb) is still much more than that to me. Blogging, as in reading and thinking and reflecting and then writing, is connecting and learning, neither of which are discussed in the article. (And maybe they weren’t meant to be, I know) I’m not knocking what Tim or his teachers are doing, I think it’s great. But I’m just asking the question: how are his teachers modeling the use of blogs //to learn// not just to teach?**

=Skills to Teach= =Knowledge To Know=
 * **http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/looking-for-student-blogging/**** “Links with analysis and synthesis that articulates a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked [to] and written [about] with potential audience response in mind.”**
 * **http://weblogg-ed.com/2004/blogging-thoughtsagain/**** Links with analysis and synthesis that articulates a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind. (Real blogging)
 * http://weblogg-ed.com/2004/blogging-thoughtsagain/**** Extended analysis and synthesis over a longer period of time that builds on previous posts, links and comments. (Complex blogging)
 * http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2006/06/29/progressive-discourse/** **Imagine a place where students start with a literary text and then, rather than spend most of their time responding to literature, they are given opportunities to explore the relevance of this text in the world around them. Imagine starting with __The Diary of Anne Frank__ and moving on to World War II, the Holocaust, genocide, human rights issues, and the work of the United Nations.** Text-to-world connections. -WK**
 * http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2007/02/becoming-blogging-maestro-composing.html For my blog, I like to vary the topics to include: specific [|how-to information], [|anecdotal observations], [|big picture observations], [|inspiring thoughts] (see point 4) and [|stuff that is just plain cool]!
 * Setup
 * Post
 * Comment
 * What is a blog?
 * Blog vs Post
 * Blog as a
 * Chronology
 * Basic parts of a blog: post, sidebar, comments, categories, archive
 * How to read online