Miss W. and her Smartboard

Well we are now in the month of August and beginning our study on China and the Olympic Games.  But this week we have had students presenting their work on sumo wrestling that they have researched throughout this term.  Most decided to present using a powerpoint even after being reminded that this meant:

• the powerpoint was just used in the background as a reminder
• you don’t have lots of words on a slide
• you will have to give a talk in front of your classmates relating to the powerpoint

Students took out extra words, found more diagrams, wrote their notes on cue cards and for their first efforts, did a great job.  Presentation afternoon and out came the video camera -  the battery was not fully charged.

“Can we use our phones?”  Go for it. So we had about four budding camerapersons videoing the events. 

I was so proud of students who got up to present in front of the class for the first time this year; a student with a teacher aide organizing an interview as part of the presentation and another student whose powerpoint was run completely from the Smartboard without any help from me. 

But this is now where I have no idea what to do next.

“Do you know how to download from your phones?”  Cords were brought to school and hopefully tomorrow the talks will be downloaded. 

But readers, what do you suggest we do next?  How can we get these videos or powerpoints on the students’ own blogs?  Firstly, we will need parent permission, then do we use slideshare for the actual powerpoint?  But what about the videos? 

Logged in this evening to Twitter and there she was - Sue Waters asking us to write a post or comment about blogging and what it means to us.  She also invited us to join in an Open PD session via Ustream or Skype but this was going to be 7am my time in Tasmania.  I might make it but …….if I don’t, here are some answers to her questions.

Where you blog and how long you have been blogging for?

I have been blogging since January this year.  I have a personal blog which you are reading now but since February I have also been teaching students using a class blog.  A few of them have earned the right to have their own blogs in the last couple of weeks.

Why you blog? How does it benefit you or your work?

I blog about my experiences using Web 2.0 tools which are new to me this year. This includes blogging, smartboards and using wikis.  I have also been using teachertube and as Sue knows I have tried a Skype conversation with a little success. The students are definitely more on task when being allowed to blog, and those students with their own blogs are continuously sending me emails during the evening asking about other things they can add to their blogs or posts.  So far at work, blogging has not had much benefit for other staff as they don’t seem to have the time to do it especially if, as a teacher, you are moderating the students’ blogs.

How blogging has helped your students and how long have you been blogging with students (if applicable)

Blogging has helped the students to improve their written literacy skills and has allowed them to tell their classmates and visitors to their blogs more about the things that interest them out of school hours.

Why you feel blogging is important ?

I feel blogging is important for 21st century students because it can be a safe way to start building a network especially for the tween years and early teens.  As long as the teacher is prepared to put in the effort and keep overall control of the experience, students can gradually be allowed more and more freedom within their blogs.  It is also a way for students to see there is a wider world than just that of the town or state they live in, and that other students around the world have similar interests to them.

What are the 3 most important tips you would share with a new blogger?

Blog for yourself first and get used to writing posts with links.

Read and comment on lots of other blogs - easy way is read comments on Edublogger and Edublogs and visit the blogs of those people - make a comment on their blog and lo and behold they come and visit your blog.

If working with students, be prepared to have a large load in the beginning with a class blog - then as students show they can be responsible internet and blogging users, allow them their own blog but with you or their parents as co-moderators.

According to my clustrmap statistics, I am now batting over 1000 visitors to this personal blog.  I have only been blogging for about two months but I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge.  It was easy during the summer holidays to get on and write a post every couple of days about the steep learning curve I was going through.  But now I am back at work, I am only making about one post per week. 

I am also administering a class blog which moved from learnerblogs to edublogs a few weeks ago.  In a bit over a month blogging there, we have had about 500 visitors and the students love looking at the clustrmaps as well.  I have now added Feedjit to both the personal and class blogs to make it easier for the students to see where people are coming into and out of our blog.

But despite the large number of visitors, only about one person in thirty actually makes a comment on a post.  I must admit that I too, only comment in some adult blogs that I read.  But when I visit a teacher’s blog that has student blogs attached, I try to write in at least two or three of the student blogs and also ask permission from the teacher to add their blog to our class blogroll.  This is certainly widening the horizons of my students and I know the thrill on my students’ faces when they get a comment from somewhere overseas - for us that means anywhere out of Tasmania.

How do I know which blogs to comment on?  Firstly I look at those teachers on edublogs home page and I try to visit three blogs per day that I haven’t been to before.  I also look in the edublogger and edublogs blog to see which people I haven’t yet visited.  I also have about 15 subscriptions to blogs of people I enjoy reading and they often mention websites or other bloggers in their posts.  In fact, it is all just one big social network that seems to keep growing all the time.

January 2008

• learning to use a smartboard
• convert videos using Zamzar
• using del.icio.us to tag pages
• learning to blog and make comments in others

February 2008

• learning how to use a wiki
• teaching students to blog
• teaching students to use wikis
• creating class and student blogs

March 2008

• using twitter
• joining Skype - but still can’t get the microphone on the headsets to work - hope my school techie will help
• taking part in an online discussion through Elluminate

WOW!!  Time for a break to let all this information sink into this little grey head.

Being a virtual newbie to blogging (only started personally in January 2008 and with students February 2008), I wondered how safe was it going to be to introduce blogging to students.  No-one else in my school had done this before so I was virtually “on my own”.

I looked at the Australian Government website about internet safety, ran lessons and activities for the students about being internet savvy digital citizens then finally decided to have a go at blogging with the consent of parents.  I still have a couple of students who have not brought back that form so they can only make comments on our class blog.  They will not be allowed to write posts or have their own blog.

Then I decided to look at some statistics relating to blogging.  How likely was it that someone would find our class blog or my own personal blog? Technorati seemed to have the most up-to-date data I could find.  WOW!! I was going to be one in 70 million blogs around the world. How would someone ever find our blogs?  That’s like trying to find me in three times the population of Australia.  Miss W, where are you?

Thank goodness I had made my blog using edublogs.  At least I was with a group of like minded people with education as their main interest.  I had been blogging for about a week when I wrote a post about “Why has nobody commented?”  Suddenly, bloggers were coming into my blog.  Sue Waters, of the Edublogger fame, had “twittered” about my post.  Now I was being given lots of clues as to how I could build up that network of people who might visit my blog on a regular basis.

I needed to build up a PLN (Personal Learning Network); a group of people who would help answer my queries and guide me in my learning about Web 2.0 technologies that I was using with my students. I joined Classroom 2.0 ning as well as a Smartboard teachers ning.

So back to the main topic: safety in blogging.  Would anyone have found my blog or the class blog if I hadn’t used that network of educationalists who were prepared to share their learning with me?  Maybe we would have been safer just having the other students from our class writing comments.  But the thrill I see in students faces when they realise someone from a grade 8 class in New Zealand has written something in their blog makes it all worthwhile. Blogging is all about writing for an audience and with 21st century students needing to be global students, why should we be limiting them to just their local community?

Last week I asked for students to write a post that I could put in our class blog. Three students replied from my class and I have now posted the first of their attempts.  Choc (nickname) has written a piece about stamp collecting.  She included a great picture but because it was bitmap, it would not upload properly.  In my comment to her I mentioned about finding jpeg images and also about acknowledging her image source.  I hope this is the first of many posts by my students in the class blog and it would be great to have some comments from other educators about ways to improve a post.  This can then help them in future posts and when they get their own blog as well.

I wondered what these were all about.  I had come across a few of them during my reading of many blogs in my early days of blogging eg last month.  I have now been tagged by Kate Olson

The rules are simple.
1. Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
2. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
3. Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
4. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

Exploring the wide world but within the safety of our own backyard.

By introducing my students to blogging, wikis and using the smartboard this month, I feel I am expanding the students’ worlds but doing it so both they and their parents feel they are safe still within their own backyards. 

As I am not on Twitter or Pownce, I will choose five people whose blogs I have enjoyed reading or who have taught me a lot in my month of blogging. 

Sue Waters from The Edublogger who has given me so much help beginning blogging

Al Upton and his minilegends where I found out how to include a photo in this post

Mrs C from Victoria who is helping with comments from her class

Teachers love smartboards for great ideas to use

Frieda Foxworth who always mixes both personal and professional thoughts on her blog

Photo source

Everyday, I come into my blog and check if anyone has written a comment.  None for a couple of days but I notice my clustrmap has a few more dots on it.  So how am I going to get people to read my thoughts and questions and also post a comment?

I know, look at a few other blogs from well known bloggers, see what they are writing about, add a comment to something they have written. 

 Well I started with Sue Waters at Edublogger which I also read daily for her hints on how to improve your blog.  In the comments, I then check out the blogs of those people and today found quite a few.  I began with Cathy Nelson posting about her 2008 goals, keeping your head in the sand and women bloggers.  From there I checked out a few of the other comments and this lead to Kathy Schrock with her list of tech educators and Leslie Fisher with her travels in Australia.  I can see from this I am going to have to add to my blogroll.

Well I can see tomorrow will be another day of reading, writing lessons for my smartboard and updating my blogroll.

Not much time devoted to writing and research today, at least not of the blogging kind. Instead, I have spent about five hours at the Matron’s Cottage of the Cascades Female Factory transcribing conduct records for female convicts arriving in Van Diemen’s Land in 1839 on the ship “Hindostan”. As part of my genealogy, I have found four male and four female convicts in my family. There are many records online for researching convicts sent to Australia. Presently, on SBS TV, they are showing the series “Who do you think you are?” and I found the first Australian episode with Jack Thompson enthralling especially when he found he had a convict in his background. “Australian Royalty”, he exclaimed.

Well today I have spent the last few hours looking through many sites about blogging, but the one I found most helpful was a wikispace http://aquaculturepda.wikispaces.com/blogs . The author of this wikispace is also writing the following blog which I have also found to have some useful tips for a newbie.

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.