The Intel Odyssey site has been featureing Web logging educators and despite the obstacles which lay ahead, the whole concept seems to me to be catching on. A series like this helps lend legitimacy to what Helen Turnbull says is “the best tool for integrating technology and literacy that I’ve ever seen.” (My apologies to Helen and to Pam for not including their Intel stories in the previous post…a nice surprise! And by the way, in case anyone is wondering, Pam doesn’t look any different from the way she did in college back in…let’s see, when was that???)

What I’m hoping is that the cause can really get a boost from Intel when we have our conclave at NECC on Monday. I would think that in aligning itself with teachers using Web logs, Intel could a) brand itself with a truly outstanding use of a hot, “new” Internet technology, b) promote some creative and potentially significant uses of technology in the classroom, and c) develop a resource that teachers would come to first when thinking about implementing Web logs. I know there would be some legal hurdles, but with enough disclaimers, if Intel could put up a server barn for educators to use with little or no cost, and then build the best Web logs for educators resource site on the Internet, I think they could “capture the space.” And I know I may be a dreamer, but I still believe the potential here is HUGE. Even though on many fronts the discussion has entered into some more esoteric territory, the basic concept of implementation and use is still to easy to ignore, especially if someone (Intel?) is willing to serve it up. I dunno…seems like a no-brainer to me.

What a great writeup at the Intel Odyssey site on Anne’s efforts to bring Web logs to her students. One of the coolest things for me is to finally see what Anne looks like. It’s really intruiging to me when I meet and see some of the people who I’ve been lucky enough to interact with through their Websites. That’s another reason why I’m looking forward to Monday nights Intel sponsored get together or edu-bloggers at NECC.

The Intel site is a great reservoir for teaching with technology ideas, and I’ve gotten some great ideas for my teachers by reading through some of the archived posts. And the best part is they have an RSS feed.

(By the way, the complimentary piece to our Georgia-NJ connection featuring my students is also up…but I think I’m peeking ahead.)

…using that three-paned Web log approach. What if each student had one of those pages where he/she keeps a learning log in the left hand column, the teacher keeps a response log for that student in the middle, and the student’s parent/guidance counselor/significant educational others add observations to the right hand column? Students get a page like this Day 1 and keep it through their four years in school, and it’s open only to the members. It’s a reflective portfolio log that the student uses to build his public portfolio.

Of course, time is the big issue here. Teachers being asked to monitor and respond to the logs would require a great deal of time. Time for reviewing and responding would have to somehow be built into the process. Still, if I ever do get back to my idea of the four-year Web log/portfolio…

(via Anne via Kairos) This is a really cool three column concept that spurs all sorts of ideas. How about using it for articulation where individual schools can post and compare discipline specific learning objects or lesson plans? Or three different classes all doing side by side discussions of the same book? Or Social Studies classes basically replicating what WatchBlog is doing but on a more local level? Very cool.

And meanwhile Pam is busy making some of her best ideas come true using RSS to build a tool for individualized instruction. It’s a great concept…almost replaces the need for a class homepage when you think about it. Teachers could push content to individual student Web logs en masse or in small groups depending on the department. (And the New Frontier promises a way to file into multiple departments!)

BTW, has anyone upgraded to 9.1b4 yet? I’m waiting ’til most of the bugs are worked out…

Jill Walker does some looking back on her students’ use of Web logs and I’ve been doing the same here, here, and here. I don’t know if I can accurately sum up my experiences this year in just one post, but some things stand out from this first year of Manila.

First, let me say that I am really satisfied with Manila in general despite some initial insecurities. I had very little down time this year, and despite some flakiness from time to time, Frontier seems imminently stable. Now that the New Frontier has been released in beta, I’m confident things are only going to get better and easier. Most if not all of my concerns about privacy and membership seem to have been addressed, and I continue to be impressed by the overall flexibility and strength that Manila offers. I still have much to learn, I know, but I’m feeling like it will be effort well spent at this point.

In practice, I feel that the use of Web logs has improved my teaching in a number of ways. First and foremost it’s expanded my classroom to include far flung participants that have seriously impacted the relevance of what my students have learned. My collaboration with Anne and the guest appearances that authors and journalists made in our Web logs enhanced and validated my curriculum in many ways, and if I have one goal for next year it’s to expand those collaborations even further. Already we’re talking to a school in Krakow, Poland about sharing space for our students, and I’ve got ideas for joint newspapers and magazines and…don’t get me started. And that in itself is another positive effect of Web logs: they have created all sorts of new ways to impart curriculum. They allow me to go beyond the preconceived notions of how to teach and force me to think. That’s good stuff…

Manila has also given me the opportunity to help my students engage a body of work instead of individual pieces in isolation. There has been much written lately on the need and value of reflection, and although I know I can do a better job with it, my students have no doubt benefited from having everything in one place and being able to see their evolution as journalists. It’s nowhere near as easily done with paper. Another goal is to focus that reflection even more next year.

One thing I’m hearing from my students is that many would like to personalize their space more. I seem to recall a thread on this with Sarah a while back, and I think it might be worth taking a day to go over some basic tweaks (pictures, files, etc.) if it means they might be more invested in their spaces. And from a design standpoint, I know I need to think more seriously about a Barbara Ganley-esque format for putting work into the Web log, especially now that Manila has made it easier to add links to the nav column.

Another aspect that I want to think about is the community building that I think was missing in many respects. Despite some attempts to get students cross posting, those attempts were largely unsuccessful. My gut tells me a better way is to continue to try to foster community and collaboration on a smaller group scale. In journalism, that may take the form of four or five student editorial teams sharing space and producing their own publications or zines.

And a final thought is that I’d like to do more blogging with them. I felt uncomfortable offering up this site as a model since I was from time to time sharing my personal thoughts of the world. But now that I’ve taken those thoughts offsite, I think I’ll try to do more of what I’m asking them to do in my own space. Just another great opportunity to write with my writers.

I’m only teaching two nine-week sections next year beginning in November, so my experimentation will be a bit more limited. But I have 16 teachers signed up for training this summer, and a handful more who want to expand the scope of their projects from this year. Couple that with the Big Enchilada of Web logs as Web site, and 2003-2004 is shaping up as a very interesting year.

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Pat’s days at MLK have come to an end, and along with it all of the good Web log work that he’s put in. It’s a shame, but it’s also an opportunity to do even better things at a new place. Best wishes, Pat. Sorry to see your great efforts on the part of some of the neediest kids in SF be cut off. Here’s hoping your new endeavors will be even more successful.
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It’s good to see more and more people thinking about the use of RSS in an educational setting…whenever I start picturing the way it could enhance communication here I get seriously impatient to start work on building it right away. Frankly, as I have said many times before, I think the potential is enormous.

But there are some issues that need to be resolved, the primary one being the best way to deliver the content to teacher/student desktops. I’m sure there are many more well versed than I that could speak to what that might look like. I would think the easiest way would be to create a menu of all the local RSS feeds available from which each user could select relevant topics. But I’m thinking that it might be easier if the feeds dumped right into e-mail rather than a separate reader application. Everyone checks his/her e-mail (just about). Not everyone, I fear, would check out the aggregator. Also, if we used a non-Web based aggregator, the only aggregation happening would be at school as I doubt more than a handful of users would install a second version on a home computer.

I know there were some attempts to include RSS feeds into e-mail being discussed a while back (yeah, I can understand that ;). And I did find a hack for Amphetadesk. I guess that no matter what we’d still have to have some type of separate aggregation software pumping all the stuff to our e-mail boxes. Anyone have any other ideas on this?
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Sarah is did some great onsite blogging for Xplana over the weekend and Tim has set up a site for the same type of thing for those attending NECC. What a great idea if we could get a dozen or so “reporters” to post session notes relevant to Web logs in the classroom. I think we’ve collected over a dozen people who will be sitting down with Intel and chatting during the conference. If you’re going to NECC, you use Web logs with your students, and you haven’t checked in yet, you can add your name to the list.
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A really great thread at Kairos debating/discussing ways to implement Web logs in the classroom. It’s perfect timing for me as I begin to reflect on my own practice this year and take a longer look at the positives and negatives effects on my students. (I’m also looking forward to Joe’s research on his own classes.)

This has been a crazy, crazy week as school finally begins to wind down. It’s going to be nice to get a breath and get some time to think and reflect more in the days ahead as there has been so much good stuff coming through my aggregator.
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Early returns are coming in from my kids on their Web log use. Anyone interested can follow along here. I haven’t had time to thoroughly read the responses yet, but here’s one that I thought kind of humorous:

I showed my weblog to this girl from North to try to impress her with my vast knowledge of journalism and instructional technology and whatever else I could come up with, and she was pretty impressed. She showed one of her girlfriends and she liked it too. I don’t know if that’s because North doesn’t have technology like that or because I just got her to believe me through excessive talking, but either way, she liked it.

They should all chime in by Monday…

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I got a call from the coordinator of our teachers’ “Academy” this morning asking if she can go over the limit I set on the Web logs training class this summer. So, now instead of 10, I’ve got 16. Looks like people here are getting the idea…

Now, I’m hoping that the new Frontier will be released by the August training date. In fact I hope it gets released soon so we all have a chance to play with the changes and write the documentation.
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Between server issues and ballet recitals, I haven’t had the time to write about my visit with Tim and Joe in NYC on Thursday and Friday. I’ll say again that despite all of the work and idea sharing that goes on in these spaces, there’s nothing like meeting people and talking face to face.

A couple of things struck me about the “gathering,” one which Joe mentions regarding the different worlds in which we operate. My school has more teachers than Joe has students, and when it comes to what my students have to work with, it’s truly and embarrassment of riches. (Tim has a really neat panoramic of Joe’s classroom here.) His students are all ESL kids, but they all seemed to work hard, show respect, and be happy with their opportunity. Not something I can always say about many of my spoiled children. (We joked about the valet parking my students have for thier Lexuses.)

The Web log stuff was secondary to just finding out about Joe’s school and what he has to struggle with. Funding is threatening more than just his server; he has very little tech support either at the school or on a district level. Less than adequate teachers are difficult to get rid of. He’s made the decision to enter a program to become a principal to try to do something more to change things. Tim’s looking for a principalship as well. Both of them would be great choices.

I wish Joe was heading to Seattle at the end of the month for our blogvention meeting at NECC. I’m glad to hear that Anne will be there, and Tim says there will be a pretty large group get together. I’m really looking forward to it.

Here’s a preview (via Anne) about an upcoming series at Intel Innovation Odyssey on some in our circle of Web loggers. And it even has a picture of some of my students hard at work! Anne highlights this excerpt too:

In addition, in the coming months Intel Innovation in Education will be creating new online resources for teachers who want to learn more about using weblogs. Educators interested in this emerging technology can watch for resources that will address how to use weblogs effectively in the classroom, where to find free space for hosting a site, and how to gain access to other useful resources.

Hopefully some of that will spring from our discussions with Intel at NECC.

And somewhat related is that it looks like the mini-blogvention with Joe and Tim will actually occur tomorrow and Friday. I’m really looking forward to meeting Joe, seeing Tim again, and making a visit to Brooklyn to see Web logging kids at work.
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From Phil Windley:

Among the problems cited by educators in teaching critical thinking skills to students are the lack of access to primary sources of information, the inability of students to experiment with thoughts and concepts before committing to them (on a test for example), and the difficulty students have getting multiple, valid outside reviews of what they are thinking. Weblogs are a solution to these problems. Weblogs allow teachers to guide informal classroom activity and to see student’s work before its time for the test or final paper. Students gain a vehicle for creatively experimenting with thoughts and concepts and easily accessing, cataloging and storing outside information related to their interests.

This kind of speaks to this private/public debate and echoes Greg’s desire for the privacy of drafting and experimentation. The more I think about this, the more I’m tending to agree that the messy stuff should probably go on behind closed doors while the public part of the Web log is reserved for finished (for now) products. I think with the incorporation of such access levels in the new Frontier, I am starting to put together a pretty coherent picture of what that will look like. Too bad I won’t be able to implement it until next fall…
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(Via elearningpost) A really comprehensive article on how to build a Web site using a CMS (like Manila). An excerpt that especially resonates:

Previously, JISC web content was produced by a small number of staff, using a centralised model to mount content and make changes. This approach often resulted in internal delays and frustration. The site lacked any automated features to maintain time-limited content such as news and events and, as such, this type of content could not easily be managed.

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