Blogging @ UNE

This site provides a information on blogs and blogging. It examines the history of blogs, discusses the potential impacts of blogs as well as the potential pitfalls. It would be a handy little primer to learn more about blogs. It can be accessed from the link below:

World of Blogs

Click on this site: http://weblogs.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/beesparents/
Parents contributed in discussions about a literature book, which their children were studying about. The project was called Secret Life of Bees Online Book Club.  Way back in 2002!

Click on http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/internet/page6724.cfm  

Hi,

thanks for being here. If you didn’t get here via the email that was sent click here.

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What you’re currently looking at is the live feed for this blog. It’s not the actual blog but rather a cumulative summary of all the blog’s postings. Depending upon the length of the post you might see all of what’s there or be given the option to read more.

Because this is link is live it is continually updated as new material is added. This is called ‘push’ technology because the updates are ‘pushed’ out by the blog software.

So would you like to subscribe to this blog? Perhaps the easiest way is to simply bookmark this page. Now to check out what’s happening on this blog is to simply look at this live feed via the bookmark you’ve created. Think of it as a sneak preview.

One more thing, why don’t you visit the actual blog and leave a comment. Remember this is the blog’s feed not the blog itself. Think of it like the difference between a film’s trailer and the actual film. To visit the actual blog simply click on the title of this post ‘Subscribing to this Blog’ at the top of this page.

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Okay now you are at the actual blog but still reading the same post. Don’t think about it - it will make your head spin. You’ll notice a comment box below this text. Please, if you could, leave a comment just so we know who has paid us a visit.

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Okay thanks for that. We hope you’ll take the opportunity to visit the live feed of this blog and check out what’s happening.

Just in case you’re really hooked here are the live feeds for some other cool feeds

Review of Educational Research -
feed://rer.sagepub.com/rss/recent.xml

Links to other Educational Journals feeds -
http://edtechdev.blogspot.com/2007/04/rss-feeds-for-many-educational-journals.html

Latest ABC News -
http://abc.net.au/news/syndicate/breakingrss.xml

Live cricket scores -
http://www.cricinfo.com/rss/livescores.xml

AFL -
http://feeds.news.com.au/public/rss/2.0/fs_afl_10.xml

Soccer -
http://feeds.news.com.au/public/rss/2.0/fs_soccer_20.xml

NASA image of the Day -
http://www.nasa.gov/rss/image_of_the_day.rss

NASA breaking news -
http://www.nasa.gov/rss/breaking_news.rss

New Scientist -
http://feeds.pheedo.com/newscientist_online-news

Famous Quotes -
http://quotes.wordpress.com/feed/

Okay, let’s not muck around. Put aside that unit amendment form and spend just five minutes exploring the possibility of blogs. Clicking here will take you to a page with loads of examples of applications of blogs in the teaching of English (aka Language Arts in another part of the world).

But you don’t teach in the area of English? So what! A good idea has applications across all domains. What, you’re telling me you’ve never walked home after a night out, seen a ‘road closed’ sign and thought, “Gee, that will look great in the living room!”

Anyway whatt are you still doing reading this when you were asked to click here. There I’ve given you another chance!

Sometimes technology has been called a solution in search of a problem. So I’ve been trying to nut out some uses for blogs in the classrooms. Especially for face to face classrooms. A lot of the blogs I’ve seen have their authors engaging in a great deal of reflection. This wouldn’t be a bad thing for classrooms, I think. All too often we’re so focused on getting the work done we often forget to sit back, relax and reflect on what’s been done, what worked, what didn’t and generally how we feel about it. Getting students to be reflective is also about helping them become metacognitive.

I suppose the trick is trying to convince students of the value of being reflective. Perhaps this is the medium to do it. A blog is a bit like computing in casual clothes. I’m here at my office, in bare feet, listening to The Who and typing out what’s running through my head. I mean, it doesn’t feel like work! I’m not too fussed that the stuff I’m typing doesn’t sound that “academic”. This doesn’t mean I don’t care what I’m typing, quite the contrary, I’m probably closer to this stuff than anything I’ve probably written in unit notes or journal articles. So maybe that’s what students need; a place to be real. I dunno (see that, I typed dunno).

Anyway back to the classroom. The RSS feeds from blogs offer a great opportunity for teachers who can subscribe to their students blogs so when anything is posted they get an update. This is called “push technology” as the information is being pushed out to us subscribers. The old fashion “pull technology” meant we would have to go looking for this stuff. So imagine you’ve got a classroom of 25 students all blogging. If you’ve subscribed to each of their blogs you can check out what each student is up to in one fell swoop through an aggregator or live bookmarks. I reckon I’d rather do that than lug home 25 sets of tasks for marking.

You know, it’s about being strategic and using the tools at our disposal to good purpose. To be a good teacher online shouldn’t be about working harder but working smarter. So where do you sit in the scheme of things?

• Armstrong, L., Berry, M. & Lamshed, R. (2007). Blogs
  as Electronic Learning Journals.
• Dick, W. & Cary, L. (1990), The Systematic Design of
  Instruction, Third Edition, Harper Collins
• Downes, S. (2004) Educational
  Blogging. EDUCAUSE Review. Vol. 39. No. 5 (September/October).
•  Ferdig, R. E. & Trammell, K. D. (2004). Content Delivery in
  the ‘Blogosphere’.  
• Glenn, D. (June, 2003). Scholars who blog.
  The Cronicle of Higher Education. Research & Publishing. 
• Glogoff, S. (2005) Instructional
  Blogging: Promoting Interactivity, Student-Centered Learning, and Peer
  Input. Innovate Journal of Online Education. 1 (5). 
• Kennedy, K. (February, 2003) Writing
  With Web Logs.
• McGuinn, N. and Hogarth, S. (2000). Learning Logs. The
  University of York Department of Educational Studies.
• Richardson, W. (2004) Blogging
  and RSS — The “What’s It?” and “How To” of Powerful New Web Tools for
  Educators.
• The Department of Education and Training, Government of Australia
  (2007) Internet.
  Weblogs in the classroom. Resourcing the Curriculum.
• Scott, P. (2001) Internet Librarian 2001
  Shimabukuro, J. (2005). Freedom
  and empowerment: An essay on the next step for education and technology.
  Innovate Journal of Online Education. 1 (5). 
• Sims, R. (2006) Beyond
  instructional design: Making learning design a reality. Journal of
  Learning Design, 1(2), 1-7.
• Sims, R., Dobbs, G. & Hand, T. (2002) Enhancing quality
  in online learning: Scaffolding design and planning through proactive
  evaluation. Distance Education, 23(2). 135-148. 
• Wikipedia (2007) Blog.
  

Go ‘Site Info’ and then ‘Edit Tools’. Tick off ‘Blogger’ . Then it will appear under the features list or list of tools.

A blog is one type of tool often associated with Web 2.0. So what is Web 2.0? According to Wikipedia Web 2.0 refers to ‘the perceived (italics mine) second-generation of Web-based services’. Note the word perceived. Web 2.0 is probably about conceptual change of the Internet rather than any actual structural change. Although the technology and bandwidth is improving all the time, Web 2.0 is very much about changing conceptions of how the Internet is used.

The Wikipedia article makes reference to O’Reilly Media. It’s worth having a read of this article to get a better idea of where the Web 2.0 concept came about.

Web 2.0 has also described as the read/write web. Supporting the collaborative and social nature of this web environment are varieties of social computing tools such as blogs. These tools are gaining rapid acceptance amongst the younger generations. For instance see the article Teens Latch on to Social Computing Tools.

So do these Web 2.0 tools such as blogs have a place in the modern classroom? If so, how can they be used to good effect to bring about positive learning outcomes? These tools have been embraced by those ‘digital kids‘ with a great deal of enthusiasm. Can we harness this enthusiasm and use it to promote learning in the classrooms?

You might like to take a look at Judy O’Connell’s blog ‘Hey Jude’. When you go there make sure you click the Resources tab and have a look at the resources Judy has made available. This is an award winning educational blog and definitely worth the look.

By the way we are negotiating with Judy to come up here and lead a seminar on the educational potential of blogs.

Simply click here to go to the site.