Blogging safely in the big wide world

What do you think should be the main points I put forward in this workshop?

I would like it to be a practical workshop but am not sure if there is wifi capability at the venue (will check it out this weekend), so will firstly use an off line powerpoint presentation, and hopefully bring some students from my class last year to also participate.

I would like to include other ways of communicating online with examples such as skype, flatclassroom and 1001tales.  Do you know any links to other great examples of collaboration across the world?

Yesterday I sent out a tweet about this and received some links from Anne Mirtschin and John Pearce.

As blogging often is seen as negative, I would like the conference participants to actually get in there and start writing comments on blogs belonging to students to find out how easy it can be to get started.  Do you have any resources for how to make blogging more positive for ‘unsure about technology’ teachers? 

If you have any links for AUP policies regarding blogging, nings and wikis, that might also be handy to use at this workshop.

The reason my fellow teacher convinced me to write the proposal was that I am currently running a student blogging challenge with about 800 students and classes from 13 countries of the world participating.  I ran a similar event in third term last year and had a similar response.  From the first challenge, students asked for a blog to be created and run by their classes and teachers.  Thus was born ‘Bringing us together’.

Original image: ‘How to Design a School Website That People Will Actually Use‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/83955435@N00/299768611
by: Judy Baxter

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

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

 The Smartboard has not been installed yet, so my lessons on Internet safety that I had put together with Ros will have to wait a few days. But this does allow time for discussions about what the students already know.  I decided to use a lot of the cartoon clips from Cyberquoll which was developed by the Australian government.  Some great worksheets and follow up activities including storyboarding - I’ll see what the students come up with as a way to create a video.

A very wide range of ability levels in my class this year – I was about to give away some of my teacher reference books for lower ability and younger students but I have had to drag them out again to use this year. The students have worked well for two days – been helpful towards each other, polite and courteous, a few chatterers but overall a great start to their year.

I spoke to the principal about using blogs in the room and as long as I had parent permission, separate from the school’s computer user agreement, then it was OK for me to use them.  Some other teachers have asked me about blogging and will be interested in the way students use them and the difference in their attitude towards writing this year. I gave the students a brief introduction to our blog pages just before I gave them the notice they would have to bring back to class; their keenness is shown in that I have had 20 replies to my blogging notice, while only seven replies are back about school computer use.

My niece and nephew spent a day setting up the classroom last week.  They do this every year and it only costs me a bit of money and lunch at the “Golden Arches”. Desks and chairs are set up, posters and pictures put up around the walls of the room, card kits used in the room are sorted into the correct order and all the teacher equipment for the five grade 6/7 classes are sorted and sent to the teachers’ rooms – blu tac, scissors, cardboard, pens, textas etc. Those necessities for everyday life in the classroom.

As part of our agreement with the Education Department we have to do professional development for at least one day before school goes back.  This year there is a big push on using the “First Steps” program which originated in Western Australia nearly 20 years ago.  It has been updated and revised and is a great program for reading and writing.  We looked at the writing program in our PD day and it reminded me of my years teaching in the primary school – charts in the room, creating word lists, describing the steps for writing a great piece of work – then I looked around my middle school class – there were the charts and the steps for good spelling and writing.  Once a primary teacher, always a primary teacher!! Despite having taught through to grade 9, I always have charts and posters on the walls of my room.