Anne is readying some new Web log related projects that involve literature. I love her rationale for the site:

Prior to this project, pairs of students journaled on spiral notebooks. Each pair benefited from their partner’s writings and responses but EduBlogs encourage discussion and interaction from many participants, not just a select few. They provide a way to build a website quickly and easily. Multiple software programs are not needed. Best of all, EduBlogs create a dynamic learning environment that encourages active engagement by both teacher and student. Students and teachers can become active participants on the Internet.

The best part is Anne is going to chronicle her practice at her “Literacy & Technology Instructor’s EduBlog.” If you want to teach with them, you have to use them, and this is a great example that I’ll be following closely.

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The more I think about this Web log as Website concept, the more appealing it gets. I’ve been “drilling down” the idea more and more, and one thing I’ve noticed is that in some corner of my brain I am constantly asking whether the content all these ideas might generate is useful to the school community. That goes back to the knowledge management aspect of this…the ability to define and manage all the good stuff that we do. And it also goes back to the publishing piece of this and the concept of audience. I want the teachers and students and others who create content for the site to be driven by meeting the needs of the audience, whomever that may be.

But last night, I had what I would call an epiphany. Why should we limit the creation of content to just a school or local audience? Why shouldn’t our content be for a wider audience? I started thinking what if, say, the environmental group had it’s own Web log on the site. And what if, as a way of developing their own mastery of environmental issues, they decided to post an environmental tip of the day for students. Things they could do in their own lives to make the world a better place. Now, of course, this site will offer RSS feeds, which will allow ANYONE to subscribe. Hmmm…

How about this…once we get all these Manila sites up and running, we’re going to create an index page for feeds from our site. We’ll include a “Mom’s First Aggregator” description of what all the RSS stuff is. We’ll include a link to Bloglines and instructions of how to set all of it up. We’ll promote our feeds within the school community and to parents and local officials, etc. But we’ll also promote them elsewhere. I know I wrote about this before, but I’m loving the idea of blogumns written by student and staff and maybe parent blogumnists. Think of it! Here ya’ go! Digital paper! As much as you want! And audience! As much as you want! Real world stuff, not just school Website stuff. And isn’t that what constructivist teaching is all about?

In keeping with the previous post, this is another “just too cool” tool, this one for use with RSS. While there are many unique little RSS feeds you can build with the stuff on this page (track a UPS package, for instance) my favorite is the Google News one. I just added the keyword of my choice to the URL provided and pasted the whole thing into my Bloglines Reader. Now any time the “politics” shows up in the top stories, it’s delivered to my screen. I just wish I had some packages to track! (via cogdogblog)
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Lila Efimova has been compiling some add-on tools for Web log use including tracking and site statistics. It’s pretty amazing how quickly people are starting to drill down into the data that Web logs are producing, everything from creating neighborhoods of sites based on content to auto-RSS discovery to visual representations of your Web log universe. Most of this is just for fun/vanity type stuff. But what I am most struck by is the nuance in what all of these different yet basically similar services offer. Fascinating to watch, if you ask me.
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It was bound to happen…some of my former students have turned into serious bloggers. I just want to say that no matter what they’re writing about, they’re writing, and this is a good thing. Very cool!

With some gentle prodding, my wife has added an RSS feed to her company’s “Software Tip of the Day” at Nerdybooks. Considering that more and more people are starting to become really passionate about this stuff, I think anyone who produces semi-daily content who doesn’t have an RSS feed will be woefully behind the curve. (And that includes schools and teachers…) And the more people start thinking about this stuff, the better it’s going to get. Somewhere in my aggregator this morning I read about efforts to get NPR audio into a feed. And there was another post that I read recently that went through some thoroughly mind-boggling uses of RSS (like sending out a message when you get low on milk.) Now if only it could cut my grass…
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The links to the links in a soon to be published article (“Web Logs in the English Classroom: More Than Just Chat”) I wrote for English Journal are up. Not a big deal for anyone but me, I know. But having read EJ for most of my teaching career as THE journal of my profession, it’s pretty cool to be getting published there. As a journalism major, I’ve always thought of myself as a writer, but I was never a writer that practiced the craft very consistently until this Web log was born a couple of years ago. Despite the fact that most of the posts here are short and not very well developed, there is no doubt that the consistent practice of writing for publication has improved my developed writing immeasurably. In fact, for the first time ever, I actually look forward to the more serious writing. Getting accepted by EJ is a big part of that, I know, but that would never of happened without this space. It’s nice to know that I wasn’t lying all those years I told my Expos Comp. students that the only way to get better at writing is to write and publish. I just wish I still had them around so I could share these examples of the truth in that statement.

Update: Links fixed.

Phil Wolff takes a humorous look at what might be around the corner…let’s hope he’s wrong…

Just installed the RSS Explorer tool bar (via Lockergnome) and I like it a lot already. It will search for an XML feed when I’m on a site and then with a click it will subscribe it to BlogLines or a bunch of other aggregators. It even has a link to check whether or not your feed validates.

On a side note, more and more people are catching on to RSS. Surfing the Net with Kids now has one:

“It’s a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. RSS avoids the dual problems of spam and spam filters because you do not need to divulge your email address to anyone (no more spam) and only you control your list of subscriptions (sidestepping spam filters entirely.) ” (via Scripting News)

Chris Pirillo has been evangelizing about this lately, and it’s another selling point to people (read: parents and teachers) to give it a try.
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As we talk more and more about expanding the use of Web logs here, we also talk more and more about the potential risks of allowing students to publish online for an open or even restricted Internet audience. Specifically, we’re asking who is liable if a student publishes content that harrasses or offends a reader? Even with a signed AUP that warns against such behavior, what would be the consequences for the school if something like that slips through?

I know that there are many measures we can take to try to make sure this doesn’t occur. Manila gives us a great deal of flexibility in terms of how restrictive we want to be. But it becomes a question of how much do we trust our students, how much do they benefit from audience, and how much extra work do we create for our teachers and ourselves.

We could make it so only teachers can approve student posts to Web logs. But with 25 students in a class, this would no doubt become more work than it’s worth. We could have notifications of posts sent to teachers for review so they can act quickly to take down problem posts. We could restrict the sites to “Editor’s Only” so that only invited guests could see and interact with the content. We can set various editoral levels for students so that they can’t mess with the settings. But we all realize that for all of those measures, the possiblity of abuse still exists.

I’m wondering if some sort of guidelines are out there anywhere to inform these conversations. I’ve done a cursory search, but haven’t found what I’m looking for. If anyone has suggestions or thoughts, please add.
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As an English teacher who has focused on writing for 20 years in the classroom, there’s no doubt that what first got me interested in Web logs was their obvious effect on the process of writing instruction; instant audience, true collaborative space, archived drafting for easy reflection, and more. This digital paper that Pat has spoken of for the past couple of years represents an incredible step forward in what teachers and students can do in the classroom (provided, of course, they have access to it.) I may have blinders on here, but I really believe that in five years if not less, many schools will be providing Web logs to students as vehicles to create some amazing electronic portfolios of work that involve all disciplines, many mediums, and many audiences. I’ve mentioned often my vision for Web logs here at my school, one that I think we are moving toward making a reality as each day passes (though change is not swift.) But nowhere is it the potential bigger than in teaching writing simply because of the obvious nature of the technology.

This article, also in the Times today, reports on some innovative and creative new ways that Internet technologies are being used in classrooms. But, as Eric Baumgartner says,

The Times writes about web publishing as a means to motivate students to write, but misses the boat on the use of weblog technology to support the process.

I agree. The article mentions Web logs as Wikis as something students do after school, but all of the three or four disparate technologies mentioned in the article (e-mail exchanges, online publishing, mentoring, etc.) can be achieved through this one technology. Even better, teachers can do even more in terms of discussions and feedback and publishing, depending on what software they choose. I’m convinced that in due time Web logs will get their notice. But I have to admit it’s kinda fun playing with this before too many other kids get in the sandbox.

Still, Web logs and students mentioned in TWO different articles in the New York Times on the same day? What could it mean????

UPDATE: Just got the latest Technology and Learning magazine, and guess what? A whole page for “Education Web Logs”. I feel faint.

UPDATE #2 Just noticed a third NYT article connecting schools and Web logs:

And, although the trend toward teachers’ Web sites is still in its infancy, it is already being chased by its logical successor, the Weblog. Unlike Web pages, blogs can easily be updated without rebuilding the whole page, and teachers can structure them so that students or parents and other outsiders have free rein to create their own content on all or part of the blog.

Gasp. Oxygen…
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From today’s NY Times: Can Johnny Blog?

This may be the year that school blogs come into their own. A school blog is simply a Weblog – an online blend of diary, links and commentary – that is used by teachers and students.

Blogs seem to be a natural way for teachers to maintain a class Web page and for students to handle research projects. One site for classroom blogs, schoolblogs.com, lists more than 1,200 worldwide, up from 800 a year ago. And new blog sites for teachers have sprung up, like the Educational Bloggers Network (www.ebn.weblogger.com).

One of the trendsetters among educators is Will Richardson, supervisor of instructional technology at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J., who made use of blogs in his journalism and English classes last year to foster discussion and collaboration as well as to showcase students’ work.

Students in his class on modern American literature, for instance, created a blog to study the novel “The Secret Life of Bees” (weblogs.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/bees) by Sue Monk Kidd. The author posted a 2,300-word message, and a group of parents read along and contributed their thoughts. Other Web users also happened upon it.

“The whole collaborative aspect blogs bring to the classroom is what I took away from my experience last year,” Mr. Richardson said. For this academic year, he is planning a collaborative blog with students in Krakow and Prague to study the Holocaust. Mr. Richardson’s efforts are chronicled – where else? – on his Weblog (www.weblogg-ed.com).

Pretty cool! Another little nudge to the tipping point…

I got another e-mail from Michael Bazeley who points to a high school journalism workshop that produced this very cool looking Web log newspaper using Moveable Type. It’s somewhat similar to the Newswire site we did last year, but I like the somewhat funky feel to the page. Nice and clean. The neat thing is that they added audio clips to the stories, first using Audblog but now self-served. Some of them are pretty rough, but the concept is pretty cool. We’ve been having some discussions here about incorporating the same into some Web log projects we’re developing. Anyway, nice site, and nice use of MT. I love seeing all of these sites just for the ideas they generate. Very cool.
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Maureen Dowd on how politicians are throwing blogs against the wall to see what sticks. Apparently, not much. (BTW, I used my aggregated URL to make sure the link will stay up past the two week free period.)
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Got an e-mail from Michael Bazeley who is a parent/webmaster at a California elementary school, and he’s got a request that I’ll post here with his permission:

Being a big fan of the blogging movement, I’ve been scratching my head for some time wondering how blogs could be used by the teachers at our school. I can see how blog tools are useful for secondary school students and teachers. But is there any added value for a second-grade teacher?

Any K-6 teachers want to chime in?