So, if you had an hour in front of your full faculty to do a show and tell of some cool sites/tools out there, what would you show? We have a staff in-service on September 23, and I’ve got that hour. I’m thinking:

One thing I seem to be noticing more and more of is teachers who are blogging about their working lives. And it seems like there is a burgeoning support network out there that is pretty cool. Hipteacher has been on my blogroll for awhile. But all of a sudden I’ve run accross Mz. Smlph, First Year Teacher, Catherine Grimm, The Flaming Cheeto…

Sheesh…maybe there really are “a few hundred thousand” educators blogging out there.

And if you haven’t already done so, join the Educational Bloggers group at Flickr.

So much to see, read, write, share, hear, experience together these days, huh?

Some of the usual suspects (and a few not so usual) are blogging the T+L2 conference in Denver this week. Should be a good source of information about what the hot topics are in ed tech. And, what’s a blog without a feed? Right now, go to Bloglines, do not pass go, paste that puppy in and start getting the timely updates.

I’ll be doing a 2 1/2 hour workshop with Kevin Jarrett at the From My Classroom to Yours conference at Richard Stockton College tomorrow. I’m hoping to finally meet Ken Tompkins who was a big help in getting me up and running with Manila. With all the good workshop stuff coming out of late, I think after this it’s going to be time for a major upgrade of what we’re doing, which is basically a overview-hands on with MoTime. Hopefully, we’ll be bringing about 25 teacher bloggers into to the fold…
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In reference to Hipteacher (mentioned here a couple of days ago,) Jeremy asks:

Young, independent and creative, with good taste in music and no fear of using technology, she makes you wonder how education will be transformed if we see a whole generation of teachers like her roll through the system.

Well, I guess that’s not really a question, but you get the point. What happens when student teachers suddenly have a whole host of pseudo blog mentors out there whose experiences they can read about and learn from? And with no fear…really? At the snail’s pace of education, I’ll be feet up on the beach by then. But even so, I’ll still be a part of the conversation if I so choose.

Ran into this site through my referers and I liked what I saw, especially the tagline “one redheaded girl’s journey into the world of public education” and the following post:

I am supposed to be writing a paper about the results of my “study” using blogs to teach descriptive writing. I designed and taught the unit and now I have mountains of student essays and comments on their blogs and student feedback from the end of the unit. Deep inside my brain, I even have a semi-theory about how and why things worked.

But I can’t find decent theory about using blogs in stuffy academic journals. Plenty of teachers out there use blogs in the classroom. Have any of them published theory/results/other academic junk? Probably. So, where are you???

So far, the only articles I’ve found deal with using those crazy “word processors” and new-fangled, and potentially immoral, “electronic mail.”

I do not consider 1987 relevant to my study.

Sounds like the type of teacher I would have liked. I wonder if she ever wrote up her study. (And I can’t wait to tell Miss Higgins that she’s been blogrolled!)

Well, here’s a first. One of our English teachers who has been using Weblogs behind closed doors for his creative writing classes told me that one of his PIPs (Personal Improvement Program) for next year is to incorporate blogging (noun AND verb) into his Media Literacy classes! He really wants to explore the use of Weblogs as a research tool, but he’s also interested in seeing what happens when students read, think, synthesize, write, respond and read some more in terms of pushing their understanding of the topic. We talked briefly today about how regular blogging and responding to other’s blogging might just serve to help students make learning more relevant and therefore more meaningful. (Don’t tease me…) And we talked about how with this particular class, at least, there is an opportunity to write about an area in which they are interested, maybe even passionate about like gender issues, violence, politics…whatever. This might be a great opportunity to do some action research. We’re going to get together over the summer to formalize it a bit more, but I’m really psyched that he took the initiative to make this a part of his professional development plan.

Key is, as Robert Scoble says, is that passion part.

Lately people have been asking me “how or when does weblogging and/or syndication go mainstream?” It goes mainstream when everyone in society gets passionate about something. If someone isn’t passionate about SOMETHING they won’t get weblogs. Hence, the numbers of weblog authors and readers will remain small, when compared to overall society. (Via Dave Winer)

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There is going to be a EdBlogging Panel at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas in March, and I’ve been asked to see if I can drum up some blogging teachers who might want to be a part of the panel. The expected audience is 40 or so middle school teachers who will be hoping to get ideas about classroom use of Weblogs. If you are attending SXSW, live around Austin, or want to submit a case study that could be presented in your absence, just add a comment to this message.

Nancy Peralta is about to start blogvangelism:

In just two days (well, really 42 hours and 2 minutes) I’ll teach my first professional development course on blogging–The Reading-Writing Connection: Internet Publishing made SIMPLE with Weblogs. I teach in the second largest district in the nation, and as far as I know this will be the first blogging course offered. I wonder what will happen.

Nancy has been doing great things with Weblogs, so I’m sure she’ll be an inspiration to her class. She’s got a great outline for her class posted, and it looks like we’ll be able to follow along here.

It’s pretty cool to see more and more teachers teaching Weblogs. I have to say I got a chuckle out of this one, though.

I’ve gotten the lucky honor to be the keynote speaker at Internet @ Schools East in Washington, D.C. in March. It’s a smaller sister to the big Computers in Libraries Conference going on at the same time. Both are listed in the same conference program. The I at SE is a single track conference, but from what I understand it’s open to the CIL folk as well. If you’d a told me a couple of years ago that I’d be doing this, I would have laughed you out of the room. It’s obviously a very cool opportunity to do some serious evangelism, but I gotta tell you, the thought is a little nerve-wracking as well. But hey, challenges are what life is all about. I’m pretty psyched, and hopefully I’ll be “stimulating” ;0).

The other scary part is figuring out how to do justice to Web logs and RSS in education in just one hour. The good thing is that I don’t have a lack of material. The bad thing is that I don’t have a lack of material…if you know what I mean. Any suggestions for what to include, and helpful hints (not including pretend the audience is in it’s underwear type stuff) certainly welcomed. And, hopefully, some of the East Coast blog brethren will be in attendance. Maybe we can do a EdBlogger East…hmmm…
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Pat informs that the Saturday night reception at the first EdBlogger confab is on the verge of being black tie which means I’m gonna have to bring my picture phone and figure out how to send shots right into this Web log. (Can you do that in Manila?…If not, I’m sure someone will be starting an EdBlogger Moblog…) Anyway, a little over a week to go, we’ve got 31 signed up and some really good discussions on the agenda. (Good to see that we’re heading toward a much more relaxed schedule…let’s just let the conversations go where they may.) I’ve got about 276 things on my list that I somehow have to check off between now and then, and I gotta get some sleep in there somewhere too. Here’s hoping that by the time the reception rolls around (proably like 10 p.m. EST) I won’t be too tired to enjoy the champagne and caviar…
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Just a reminder, if you haven’t signed up for the EdBlogger get together in SF on the 22nd and 23rd, go do it now. I hear the weather is great in November, and there’s obviously going to be a lot of heavy thinking (and playing) among some new and old friends. We’re still at the beginning of what promises to be an excellent adventure with all of this…the more travelers the better.
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There’s been some interest brewing in New Jersey about Web logs in schools, and tomorrow I get the opportunity to do some evangelizing at the State Association for Educational Technology Fall Conference. I owe the opportunity to Kevin Jarrett who is a new teacher with a lot of Web log enthusiasm at Northfield Community School. He was so kind as to invite me to co-present with him, and we’re going to approach it from a newbie/veteran perspectives. (I still think it’s funny that I’m a “veteran” at this.) We’ve only got an hour to cover all the bases, which more and more isn’t nearly enough. If you’re attending and you’re a reader of this space, please say hello.
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Met with the Social Studies Articulation group yesterday and trained them on how to use the site. I think all of them realize the potential good that can come from doing this, especially in our situation where we draw 700 kids a year from four different sending districts who have little or no conversation with each other about what is taught or how. But in talking with the supervisor here after the meeting, we both agreed that this is going to be a slow trip. The goal is to have 25 such objects by the end of the year. I think that’s optimistic. I could just tell from the people in the group that a) this is still such a new way of doing things that it’s going to take a complete shift in their thinking and process to make it work, b) they see this as something additional to do rather than something important, and c) there is some genuine discomfort with many of them in sharing the work that they do in a public fashion. The last is most interesting to me. I wonder if it’s because it will require a higher standard of work and detail than they are used to, or if it is more a fear of doing something different.

Either way, it’s obvious the teachers and the team members will need to be incentivized. I really love what Alan is doing at Maricopa to get the schools in his system to contribute to his teaching and learning exchange. Forty of the 130 or so posts in my aggregator this morning were from his site as their challenge ended at midnight last night. They’re able to offer some pretty cool software packages to the schools, and I’m wondering if we might not be able to rustle up some similar donations from our software vendors that we can pass through. Or free desserts at the local family restaurant, or something.
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A few more Hunterdon Central Web logs were born yesterday including one for the Chorus and one for the Jr. ROTC. (And Ms. Higgins has really gone to town.) I had eight teachers in my workshop, and more than one of them at some point blurted out something about how easy or how cool or how useful this whole business is. I’ve gotten to the point where I really want to suspend the 45-minute intro on what Web logs are and how their used and the great ways people are already using them. It’d almost be more fun to just let them roll up their sleeves and start creating. On the other hand, by showing some of those sites I think it makes them want to do it on their own even more. Web logs class is becoming very fun. We’re at 135 sites and counting…

I spent about an hour with one of our librarians today talking about some possibilities. And the VP in charge of all activities wants one as well. I really need to get my design issues resolved, and it looks like I’m going to have to delve into the theme creation piece of it a bit more deeply. I know this; what ever comes out of this will be created from a Bryan Bell original. Why mess with success.
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