Let me just say that I feel incredibly fortunate to have been invited to be a part of Intel CEO Craig Barrett’s keynote speech this morning at NECC. It was an amazingly fun experience for me and my student who was on stage with me, and it was also without question the best opportunity I’ve had yet to sing the praises of Weblogs in the classroom. Over 800 people attended the session, and I’ve had dozens of people come up to me throughout the day wanting to know more about we’ve been doing and how to do it. To top it off Intel produced just a great video about Weblogs at our school which really captured the essence of the potential of the technology. It was just an honor to be a part of it.

On some level, I’m still amazed that our little “secret” finally seems to be showing up on a lot of radar screens. Anne’s session was well attended, and there were at least five other blog learning opportunities. There’s a birds of a feather in a couple of hours that we’ll be blogging I’m sure. Expectations for a serious blogging lineup in Philadelphia for next year’s NECC are already high.

I can’t wait.

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Web Logs for Schools and Educators

 

Proposal—This is an e-book that we sell through eBN, Lockergnome, TechLearning, etc. Pdf. Format. If we can sell a print version, great.

 

Chapter 1–Intro to Web logs

·        What is a Web log?

·        History of Web logs

·        How are Web logs used in schools?

o       Classroom Portal

o       Digital Portfolio

o       Online Filing Cabinet

o       Collaborative Space

o       Web site

o       Communication Tool

o       Knowledge Management

o       Mentoring

·        How Web logs work

 

Chapter 2–Theory and rationale for classroom use

·         Why Web logs?

§         Digital paper

§         Medium of choice for students

§         Audience

§         Ownership

§         Archive of learning

§         Active participant

·        Improving your practice

§         Reflective journal

§         <o:p> </o:p>

 

Chapter 3–Best practices/ Teacher stories

·        Project descriptions by teachers K-12

·        College

 

Chapter 4– Designing and implementing Web logs in the classroom

·        Collaborations

·        Class portals

·        Electronic portfolios

·        Electronic filing cabinets

·        Key tips for use

o       Designing discussion questions to prevent copying of ideas

·        Use as a way to Connect with parents

 

Chapter 5– Privacy and safety issues

·        Identifying students

·        Editorial permissions

·        Publishing

·        Copyright

·        Legal liability

·        Cheating and plagiarism

·        CIPA COPPA

 

Chapter 6—Web logs in other contexts

·        Professional development (Pam)

·        Web site

·        Class, school, district portfolio

·        Knowledge management

·        Professional collaboration

 

Chapter 7—Web Log as Website

·        Process

 

Chapter 8—Web logs and RSS

·        What is RSS?

·        Using RSS effectively

·        Overview of tools

 

Chapter 9—Moblogging, audblogging, videoblogging and more

·        Including multimedia

 

Chapter 10—Software and hardware considerations

·        Overview of most popular software programs

·        Hosting options

·        Hardware requirements

·        Technical Support

 

Chapter 11—Moveable Type

·        Features

·        Basic use

·        Examples

 

Chapter 12—Manila

·        Features

·        Basic use

·        Examples

 

Chapter 13—Blogger and other free hosting

 

Chapter 14—Resources

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We’re underway here at Xavier University with about 30 captive teachers who are hopefully learning about Weblogs and their use in the classroom. It’s really great to be together with Anne , Tim, Tom and Steve doing “blogvangelism” again. I know that many of us talk about the virtual community and friendships, but one of the best things about all of this has been getting to know these quality people who are sincerely interested in students and learning. Very cool.

Anne’s showing her Lit Circles blog and we’ve been talking about the use of “Nom de Blog” as one person put it. The security issues are always the stickiest to get through with all of this, and we’ve also talked about how to set up collaborations with other schools and students. I really think that is where the power of all of this lies, just in connecting teachers and students together.

Tom’s been talking about the wonders of RSS, and even more importantly, how to read Weblogs. It’s an interesting idea that I don’think about very much any more, but definitely something that is important to understand when you start to create your own space.

And now Steve is getting ready to help the participants set up their own sites. Clarity has developed and “one-click” type of setup so that most of the parts of the Weblog are automatically populated after you answer some preliminary questions. So, if all goes well, in a couple of minutes there will be 30 more teachers blogging. The crusade continues…

Click to see the full size pics.

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ISTE President Jan Van Dam referenced the growth of Weblogs during her introductory remarks this afternoon. She cited the Dean campaign, the bloggers role in the release of the casket draped coffins of soldiers in Iraq and other blogging milestones while alluding to the importance of preparing students to be active participants in the world around them. And while keynote Malcolm Gladwell didn’t mention Weblogs per se, he spoke of the importance of social power and “connectors” who initiate change while referring to the theme of his book The Tipping Point. Some intersting parallels to what has been happening in the Weblog world.

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Check out some of the introductions of teachers in our Monday workshop at NCC. It looks like a really enthusiastic and somewhat blog savvy crowd that should make for a great session. Stay tuned tomorrow morning as I’m sure someone will be blogging it.
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We’re off to New Orleans for four days of NECC and one day of all play. Dropping the kids off with grandma in Atlanta during an hour layover (Murphy willing) and then into town tonight.

There looks to be a lot of good workshops that I’m hoping to get to, aside from the blogging fare. With any luck, I’ll be blogging some of it here and at the NECC blog.

Sigh…

A huge win for the educational market is the ability to manage comments in a comprehensive way, with a filter or by allowing a site manager to queue all comments for approval. Plus it has the ability to password protect individual pages.

I get really frustrated sometimes by a) my inability (time and skills) to play around with other blogging software packages and b) by how close Manila comes to being the no-brainer choice for education. Problem is, until it builds in some of the functionality Bryan refers to above, it won’t. I know UserLand isn’t in this just for the education market (however big or small that may be,) but whatever educators finally end up adopting HAS TO HAVE the security and preview functionality to appease an ever more skittish group of administrators and parents (at least at my school, which I’m starting to think is leading the way in that department.)

Problem (?) is I feel like I’m pretty much married to Manila for at least the next couple of years…

Nancy Peralta might have the first Weblog as health hazard claim:

Let me start by stating, once again, that I absolutely love blogging! I think that’s my problem–that I love it so much I’ve jumped right in with reckless abandon. And now I’m paying the price for it–I’ve developed a pinched nerve running down my left leg from prolonged sitting!!! My reason for sharing this information is not to scare anyone away from blogging but to remind everyone to work ergonomically.

Ouch! We need to find Nancy a way to blog more safely! Feel better soon!

So as an experiment in idea organization, I’ve started Furling my own posts into departments with related posts and stories. Just trying to see if it might not be an effective way of keeping track of the threads. At some point, I know it’s a lost cause, but…

(via Colin, via Seb) At the Media Ecology Association conference last week, Alex Halavais spoke about the difference between blogging as an academic activity and blogging as an activity carried out by academics. I think that’s a pretty interesting distinction, and it starts me thinking again about blogging as genre and the potential benefits of teaching students (and teachers) how to do it.

I consider this an academic activity. I learn from it. I read, think, respond, and in doing so, when the blogging is good, I clarify my thinking, allowing me to reflect upon it in more concrete ways, which in turn produces more learning. Lately, I find myself digging back into these posts more and more (which has led me to consider ways in which I might categorize or organize these thoughts even more effectively.) The amount of writing and thinking I’ve chronicled here just floors me sometimes. Not that any or most of it is especially ground breaking…just the sheer size of it. In just under two years in this space (not including previous spaces) there have been almost 2000 posts. That’s amazing to me.

According to Colin, Alex also said we should be thinking at the level of community or network rather than individual blogs. A lot of my time these days is spent thinking about that, not only in the context of the school community/network but in terms of the community itself. I’m sure I’ll be writing much more about this newest endeavor, but THE big question I’m asking right now is how can we use Weblogs and the Internet to help the physical community feel even more connected and involved. We’ve talked a lot about efforts to build community around shared interests despite being in many geographic locations. What happens when the virtual community IS also the physical community? More later on that, I’m sure…
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