Blogging- Digital Deck card 7

Hey all,


I randomly selected the selected the Blogging card which 'was meant to be' as this was my goal.ha


It has been interesting to learn that Blogging is a tool that helps you create your own personal web space and publish to the internet as often as you like without needing to know computer programming. Blogs can be used to provide news on a particular subject or as a personal online diary. Blogging can be a great way to communicate and/or collaborate as it provides opportunities for visitors to leave comments.


It has been great to have a look at some sites that were on the back of the card.


This is something I'd like to share with you that I found on http://www.epotential.education.vic.gov.au/- (this site also has ways that teachers are using blogging within their classroom.



10 ways to motivate students to blog…


1. Hook them in.


Post a powerful provocation to get them thinking. Get them to respond as a comment. Use photos, artwork, video clips. Suggest a thinking routine to scaffold responses. eg ‘Connect, Extend, Challenge‘ or ‘See, Think,Wonder’. Ask powerful, engaging questions about big ideas and accept all kinds of responses. Sam Sherratt’s class blog is a great example.


2. Freedom of choice.


Allow choice. Encourage students to write about what matters to them. Don’t expect everyone to write about the same thing at the same time in a uniform way. Encourage creativity rather than compliance. (I love this point. I struggled initally with the idea of set tasks vs student choice. While it sometimes bothers me that some of my students won’t post great classwork because it doesn’t fit with their own view of their blog, if I look at the bigger picture, it makes their blogs more authentic and relevant to them. (Mitch)


3. Don’t over correct.


Ed: Actually the jury’s out on this one. Some say blog posts should be final draft pieces, with spelling and grammar correct. I tend to disagree. I’d allow students to express their opinions, grow their thinking, be creative… but I may be wrong! Mitch: My general rule on this one is if the work is an assigned class task, I expect students to have thoroughly checked the accuracy of their spelling and grammar. If it is a personal interest piece written in their own time (most of what makes up their blogs) then I am happy as long as it all makes reasonable sense.


4. Help provide an authentic audience.


Share student blogs with other teachers at your school. Invite parents and grandparents to comment. A comment from a grandmother interstate, a cousin overseas or a teacher from a school on another continent is a powerful motivator for students. Tell your online PLN about them. Add a Clustrmaps widget showing global visitors.


5. Model good writing.


Blogging is writing. Share your own blog with your students. Write posts that model the sort of writing you’d like them to produce. John Spencer writes beautifully. So do his students at Social Voice!


6. Encourage different modes of expression.


Blogging isn’t only writing. Encourage creativity. Students might create videos, images or cartoons and post them. Great examples here from David Mitchell’s class blog.


7. Make global connections.


Students love to hear what their peers think. Help them connect with both an in-school and an online PLN. Collaborate with classes in other countries. Read about Australian Kath McGeady’s collaboration with a class in the US. Their Uganda project is inspiring! And have you seen the Alice Project, where ‘Three 10th-grade Honors English classes tumble down the rabbit hole to discover Alice’s journey first-hand’?


8. Encourage students to support each other.


Who doesn’t get a kick out of working together to solve a problem? Students love to show each other how to use that photo of their artwork to make a Jigsaw Planet, or record their speech as a podcast for their blog. If they have the skills, let them share them! (I love this one. ‘Kids showing kids’ is much more effective than teacher as boss of learning! -Ed)


9. Let them own it.


The theme. The widgets. The blog name. The posts. Kids love to take full control and place their own stamp on their patch of online space. Mitch Squires’ Year 3 student, Emily blogs here.


10. The power of embedding.


Help students master embedding web 2.0 and multimedia tools. They’ll be empowered to experiment and include an almost endless range on their blogs. See Steve Davis’s middle school English class understandings of text, expressed through different media.

Karina's ICT GOAL

At last my computer is fixed so I am able to do this!


My goal is to learn more about what Blogging is and feel comfortable using it.


Blockers:
1. Not being familiar with Blogging/lack of confidence.
2. Putting aside time to look more closely and investigate how to blog.


Solutions
1. Investigate how to use Blogger. Make a time with Laura Benham to go through it again.
2 Schedule it into my diary weekly to check out our SHPS blog.

Comic Life Digital Deck Card Review

Hi everyone,

I have been looking at 'Comic Life' as part of my digital deck card review.  Comic Life is a program that allows you to 'provide narrative experiences for students beginning to read and for students acquiring a new language'.  My interest heightened upon reading this, particularly as I teach Prep and Indonesian.  However, when I visited the website it said I get a 30 day FREE trial and then I have to pay!!

However, there are some good points about the program...

-It was easy to use and fun!
-Would be great for sequencing activities
-You could print your template, cut it out and make it into a sequencing game
-I would possibly do it with older students if teaching a language

Negatives...
-Would have liked to have been able to have more options for creating the backgrounds to the boxes.  Only allowed me to use photos and I didn't have any appropriate.
-Have to pay!

Check it out for yourself at 'Comic Life'

Google Picasa

G'day everyone

I was in charge of reviewing Google Picasa for our meeting. I was skeptical at first with it since I am not interested in editing photos or uploading them all onto a program like this. However, I have found that it is very easy to use and pretty cool. I watched a tutorial on how to use it for a start listed here

http://epotential.education.vic.gov.au/showcase/edustar_win/picasa to get an idea for it. It goes through everything you can do pretty well. The thing I like most is that it includes, photo editing, collages, PowerPoint and movie maker all in one and stores all of your photos. So if you wanted to make a slideshow on sport, just put all your sport photos into a folder, and from there you can select to make a slideshow. The same goes with collages and movies. To add photos you just create a folder and drag the photos you want across. Mine automatically transferred although I’m not sure if I did that or it’s just the way the program runs. You do have to install it onto a computer through internet explorer and I am assuming all other browsers as well. Here is a collage I made quickly before writing this review.

Not the best collage on the world but pretty easy to do. I am going to try and use it more and make a video on the Preps investigations. Stay tuned

I think students would enjoy this for their inquiry when creating images given that they can be as creative as they like. There are all sorts of collages they could make for a poster or front page, as well as adding text in their somewhere.
*The only trouble is that it will try to install other programs onto your computer. I think it would be an easy fix but it is a pain

If you are interested in Picasa give me a shout and I’ll do my best to run you through it.