Thursday, December 8, 2011

Consider the Other Side of Blogging: Posting

By now you've had several weeks of experience using a blog--this one--to learn and share ideas. This is just one way educators are using blogs to facilitate learning. Your role in this endeavor has been to read posts and comment. And, this week I'd like you to consider blogging from the other side--that of the author/content creator/poster. I'm hoping some of you may be wondering a) how you could use a blog or blogging in your role, b) what the benefits are of setting up a classroom blog, or c) how you can improve the classroom blog you already have in place. This week, we'll try to help you consider these questions as you consider the other side of blogging.

Edublogs is a blogging tool designed specifically for educators who are interested in using technology as a tool to communicate with students and parents. Each year they choose the top blogs for several different categories such as best student blog, best class blog, best podcasting, and best teacher blog.

To know more about the benefits of blogging, you should check out Edublog's Ten Ways to Use Blogs to Teach. Technically, this link will lead you to the top reasons to use “Edublogs” to teach, but the ideas are applicable to any blog you may create with any blogging tool. We don't use Edublogs as our blogging tool in our district, but their focus on educational blogs is well worth checking out.

After looking over the suggested ways to use blogs, check out several of the nominations for the top teacher blogs for 2011. Or, peruse a different category of nominees using the dropdown menu from the top of The Edublog Awards Blog.  Then, come back here and tell us what you found that struck your fancy. Please include the link to that blog (or other resource) and explain why it struck you as useful or inspiring.  

A final note: Although the discussion for this class takes place on a blog (which is a great way to use a blog, by the way), the primary focus for this class, ironically, is not blogging; we are merely using this blog to foster discussion and showcase new technologies that may be useful in your classroom. If you currently have or are planning to create a classroom blog, please take a look at these helpful hints, guidelines and other policies available on Sharepoint. In addition, we are eager to meet with you to help you get started, so please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Posted by Kimberly Allison at 1:29 PM
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Hilary Ledford (CH)'s avatar

Hilary Ledford (CH) · 694 weeks ago

I checked out a couple of the blogs until I found one that I liked (the coolcatteacher blog). What I liked was the examples of real-life teacher problems, tech tools and personal stories. What was frustrating about many of the blogs (in my opinion) were that they were kind of scatterbrained. The topics covered in one blog were so diverse and with some blogs I couldn't figure out what its purpose was. If I were to start a blog, I might focus more toward creating a blog that reviewed class instruction and offered a space for further enrichment. I have considered in the past starting a cultural blog- where students would submit to me links to articles, videos, songs, etc. that relate to French (or Francophone) culture and then I would post every couple of weeks.
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Marie Page's avatar

Marie Page · 694 weeks ago

I checked out many blogs on the EduBlog Awards blog site and was overwhemed by all the cool stuff on these blogs. Had no idea that these were available. I loved Free Technology for Teachers Blog. This blog had cool apps for education and for kids. Plus free tools were wonderful to know about too. As for posting to be honest I don't think I would due to how busy I am, but I will use the blog sites for information. Thanks
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Rhonda Ham CH's avatar

Rhonda Ham CH · 694 weeks ago

I checked out a variety of blogs on the EduBlog Awards site and was amazed at the various ways people were using blogs. As I reviewed them I began thinking about how much time some of thse must take and wondering how people find the time to keep them going. I really liked Darcy Moore's blog http://darcymoore.net because it not only talks about the curriculum of a new class that will be taught but it shows examples of student work using a variety of technology to demonstrate their knowledge of poetry, writing, reading etc.
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Scott Hagensen CH's avatar

Scott Hagensen CH · 694 weeks ago

I am pretty familiar with teaching blogs. During my master's program we had to check many different teaching blogs out. We had to a teaching blog for the class. One blog that I really like is http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/. It has really good information that you can actually use. I really like the section that has the freebies on it. there is some good information and good ideas to use in your lessons.

I feel like we have blogs at school with swift. You can turn on the discussion part of swift and use it like a blog. I update my swift site daily just like I would a blog. It would be hard to keep a blog and swift website. I am glad that at Tahoma we only have to use swift and not a blog.
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Joelle's avatar

Joelle · 693 weeks ago

I checked out a couple of blogs and found most of them overwhelming and thought how would I find the time to keep one up as I can't even find the time currently to make flipcharts for my classroom. I know that we have thought about using a blog for parents or students to respond after a field trip telling us about their experience and advice on any changes but that has not come about yet. I did thinkg Cool cat teacher was a cool blog as it had a lot of information that would be useful to me and it had some freebies that I just quickly glanced at but seemed like they could be useful at some point. I also agree with Scott's comment above that we have swift sites we are required to update daily and that is plenty to add to my plate at this time in the game with every thing else we also have to keep up to ate on. but I do think it would be nice to get some feedback on our field trips just to see the over all perception of what students learned and how parents felt about them since they truly aren't field trips any longer in seventh grade but are turning to be field experiences.
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Flashing Tool's avatar - Go to profile

Flashing Tool · 398 weeks ago

Here great efforts share. thanks for sharing such type of information admin keep it up.

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