Newbie asking questions
I have decided this year to learn how to blog as well as use my new smartboard in my middle school classroom. So I have lots of questions such as can I add pages to my blog for each of my students so they can blog as well or am I better to have them post comments instead? If you have any great suggestions for using the smartboard, please mention these as well particularly if they relate to Australian curriculum.
Good start Sis – now you just need to learn the basics
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My advice to any educator consider using blogging with students is to first become effective as a blogger themselves. As you learn more you will have a greater understanding of what blogging is about, how to blog effectively and how you can use it with your students. So congratulations on starting your blog, and well done for adding your Clustrmap! The most important aspect of blogging is the conversations – interacting with other people through which you get “food for thought” and this is where the learning happens. A comment a reader makes, or a post a blogger writes makes you think about issues differently than you have considered. This is ideally what you want your students to gain from blogging.
Konrad Glogwoski from Canada has been using blogging with students for several years. He has lots of excellent posts on his thoughts on blogging with students – here are just some worth reading Conversation with Pre-Service Teachers – The Set Curriculum, Conversation with Pre-Service Teachers – Teacher as Learner and How to grow a blog.
Interesting question about using pages with students – not sure that you can but will investigate.
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I recommend starting out with one blog – your blog – and inviting your students to comment on your posts. As the blog takes off, and you feel more comfortable with this public medium, then you will probably want to venture into Learnerblogs and create one for each student.
Good luck with your projects and welcome to the blogosphere,
Gail (from California USA)
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Thank you so much Gail and Sue for your comments and suggestions regarding blogging. It is certainly a steep learning curve especially as I want to be ready to introduce it to students when they go back to school in February. I have done more professional reading in this past week than I have probably done in the last year at work.
Gail, I would be interested in looking at the teacher manual you have put together on blogging that you mentioned on Edublogger.
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Hi Sue,
I added a link to the manual in my side bar under resources. Hey, I think I see my “dot” on your clustr map
Gail
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Hey … congratulations on taking the plunge!
It is a bit of a roller-coaster ride, but so much fun and well worth the effort
I agree entirely with Sue that learning in blogs comes through comments that others leave … it really does make you reflect deeply at times, and that is always good learning, and sometimes people share good links and resources that are really valuable.
I also agree it is good to start out with your own blog and build from there … having ‘walked the walk’ yourself is invaluable experience when it comes to guiding your students .
This link has a wealth of good ideas for having students write in blogs, and also covers some of the administration issues that can arise.(Use the arrows on the left of the screen to work your way through the materials)
http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/blog/blogbasics.cfm
Have fun
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Gail,
Thanks for that link to the manual. I have just finished reading it and learnt a lot about using the dashboard – I wondered why I wasn’t seeing icons when in the write mode – I hadn’t clicked on visual editor – now I can post more easily.
One thing that you haven’t mentioned though is changing the time clock. My first few posts were written in west coast USA time I think rather than my Aussie timezone.
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Thanks for the feedback, Sue. I’ll check out the time clock thing.
Gail
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G’day Ros – Do you know what the rules are for using blogs in schools in Tassie? I have read up a bit in the ecentre about sharepoints and the student freeway, but found them a bit burdensome and certainly not as easy as using edublogs.
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hey thanks for the comment although im not sure i know you, lol nyway i think ur blog looks awsome! keep up the good work and i hope that you find it easier to use. lol cya
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