Intel has been running some tech workshops with teachers and they’re using an MT Web log to chronicle their efforts. Looks like the Tulsa workshop is just starting, but the Plymouth one has some interesting content to click through. There are some really interesting ideas for Web log use in the 7/10 entries. Some excerpts:

The BloggerCon Local Host Committee met last night to dicuss the October panel, and here are their notes on the education section:

Education

We need to make it uplifting
Ideas for speakers
–Professor from Wellesley who’s been working with Biz
–Jessica’s friend at library school using blogs
–Dan Gillmor’s students
Different aspects of education, students and teachers – why use blogs?
In this generation, it’s not just “I went to class and had a blog” – they have blogs anyway
Should we use under-18 bloggers? Under-21?
People don’t realize they need blogs, and people who want them don’t realize they can get them (MIT)
It takes courage to blog!!
Homeschoolers & blogs – blogs will be the new way for us to be educated?
Use technography – how will we know blogs are a success in education?
How about librarians on the educ panel? Instead of educ panel?
How do we get people excited about librarians?
Liz Donovan of Miami Herald, NPR librarian, etc

I don’t know if the details include any k-12 panelists, but aren’t there enough Best Practice examples of Web logs in high school and elementary schools to justify a piece of the program? I know there is a lot to be discussed concerning theory and such, but if people want to see the real potential of Web logs in education, show them in action.
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I’ll be sitting down with our Social Studies supervisor and a teacher in the department next week to discuss an expansive collaboration between our Holocaust and Human Behavior classes and student groups in Cracow and Prague. The project will run from September through May and will feature teleconferencing and other technologies, and has ties to Rutgers University as well. But the focus point for the project will be a Web log that we set up and serve here at my school. Right now, I’m thinking it could model some of the really great project Web logs that Middlebury has run, most notably the 9/11 Web log that Eric Davis put together last year. It’s such an extensive compilation and study of the event, which is probably close to what these students will be aiming toward.

I know I’ve said this before, but this is where I see a real power of Web logs in schools. They provide such and easy and, in most cases, cost effective way of breaking down the geographic barriers that we have and allowing many more people into the conversation. Anne was thinking out loud some similar thoughts yesterday in working with ESL kids. (BTW, Anne, I have the ESL teacher in my Web log workshop next week…) She says “I do know that I want to make sure that they have an audience who will respond to what they are writing – another class or a group of volunteers that I can gather together.” Because of the Web log, she may have one here if she wants it.

At any rate, I can’t wait to see how this U.S.-European collaboration will turn out.
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Sarah points to Redpaper.com where everyone can be a reporter and sell their copy. Interesting that it’s funded by Adobe, and that this is a for-profit venture. Still, the concept is interesting, but I’m not sure it beats a whole bunch of RSS feeds to free copy from people you know and trust…
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Last week I heard an NPR segment with David Weinberger about Wikis, and to be honest, until then, I hadn’t been able to wrap my brain around the concept in an educational sense. When I presented last week with Sarah on Weblogs as Journalism, we took a look at Wikipedia, and we started thinking about the possibilites of this “social software” as many are calling it in terms of reporting. When you think about it, it’s a potentially great tool for community journalism, and really speaks to Dan Gillmor’s “my readers know more than I do” philosophy.

Yesterday, Pat pointed me to Ken Tompkins’ Wiki site Weblog Kitchen. I hadn’t really spent any time there, but it’s a pretty cool undertaking. He poses the same question I’ve been asking about Wikis: “A visitor (or, perhaps, a vandal) asks, “why can I edit this?” The answer is simple: this is an open space where many researchers work together.” Nice…and some interesting applications for teaching, I think. I’m thinking that this fall when I get my journalism kids back I’m going to have them produce a wiki story or two, collaborative efforts on topics of interest that will eventually be published in the school paper under all of their bylines. Also, I’m thinking about trying a far-flung collaboration with this. Imagine if two classes from both coasts and divergent backgrounds worked on a wiki story about the inequities of school funding (or something like that.)

It could be done in a Web log, I know, and the “vandal” may be more inclined to strike on the high school level, but the concept of working together to create a piece of work for a common good in a totally open forum does have it’s appeal. Any potential collaborators out there?
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Nice to be back up and posting again after such a long absence. It was really frustrating trying to navigate the server issues, and we’re still not done trying to bring the rest of my sites back to life on our local server. But as with anything else, there is a bright side to all of this. First, I’ve been forced to get a lot more comfortable with Frontier, and it’s starting to make a bit more sense to me. I’m not as afraid to dig into it…not sure if that is a good or a bad thing, but at least I feel like I have a better handle on how to maintain it.

Second, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a reminder every now and then that things can break, and that nothing in technology is perfect…far from it. In there is the reminder as well that technology is not the most important thing in life. While at first I was literally depressed at the problems that were occurring, when I finally gave myself up to the fact that there was nothing I could do about it and started focusing on other important aspects of my life, it was very freeing. After cranking out content on this site for about a year and a half on a pretty consistent basis, it has become a part of my routine. And I still value and enjoy the process of blogging…the reading, thinking, sharing, reflecting process that I think is so important to my own learning and to my students’ learning. This site is something I am very proud of.

But I’m also attached to my kids and my wife and my place and my friends who have sometimes taken a back seat to all of this. And my forced exile did much to ground me in that very important side of my life. So…it’s nice to be back at it with a bit of perspective. Now that I’m off of the school server, I’m going to add back the “Personal” Department and seek a bit more balance. But there is still so much thinking and work to be done regarding Web logs…balance might still be hard to achieve.
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A tech admin person who I met at NECC sent me this link to the Fort Lee schools in NJ. Looks like they are using a Web log format as their homepage. Can’t really tell what software it’s built with or if it’s homegrown, but it looks like it’s been updated since last September. I’ve added it to the list of models to look at.

If you’re reading this that means my migration over to Weblogger.com is complete and I’m up an running…FINALLY. I’ll be at Middlebury presenting “Web Logs as Journalism” with Sarah tomorrow and then camping for a few days. Look for regular posts again next week. Oh Happy Day!