Edublogs Weekly Review: 5 reasons to visit the Edublog Awards site!

There are only a few days left to vote in the 2010 Edublog Awards, and we wanted to take this opportunity to let you know why you should both vote and visit the Edublog Award site:
ebawardlogo

  1. Find out who the edublogosphere thinks are the top blogs to follow
  2. Discover 42 of the top tweeters to instantly create or grow your PLN
  3. Learn from an excellent group of class blogs from around the globe
  4. See how students are using blogs in the classroom to enhance their learning
  5. Get ideas on how best to use audio and video in an educational setting

Plus much more!

This week in the Edublog world

Want to share a post, ask others to visit a blog for comments, or show off cool student work?

Use the hashtag #ebshare to let us know so we can re-tweet it for you!

Featured Edublog of the Week

edu_featured_dir

Inter.Connect.Ed

reflections on teaching and learning through technology

Find more great blogs like this one in our International Edublogs Directory.

Upcoming Webinars & Live Events

Join us for next week’s live events!

Wednesday the 15th @ 9:30am PSTWhat can you do with your Edublog!?

An informal chat where any of your blogging questions can be answered by our staff.

Thursday the 16th @ 4pm PSTEdublogs Fine Focus

Join us for our fortnightly “Fine Focus” sessions each week. In these sessions we range across a variety of topics and include discussion (“Talk Time”), how to use various applications (“Techie How To”), and using technology in the classroom (“Tools and Strategies”). In fact anything “e-” that is of interest to educators!

Learn more about our live events here!

Summing it up

Don’t forget to vote for your favorite nominees and come listen to the award ceremony – LIVE!

Winners will be announced at the live awards ceremony on Wednesday the 15th of December at 7pm EST USA!

Edublogs Weekly Review: The power of twitter, #edchat, and student blogging

I’ll be the first to admit that several years ago when I heard about twitter I was more than skeptical. I would occasionally check it out and just not really get it.

Today, while I don’t tweet as often as I’d like, I can’t imagine a day without checking the stream to see what my favorite educators, bloggers, and organizations are up to!

And if you are new to twitter, or just haven’t experienced one before, one of the best ways to understand the power of twitter to is participate in an #edchat. These open conversations discuss a wide range of relevant topics and are fast paced discussions with many excellent ideas and resources shared.

#edchats are held each Tuesday at 12pm EST/ 5pm GMT and 7pm EST/ 12pm GMT, and you can learn more about how to participate and what it is all about here.

In fact, this Tuesday the topic was the educational value of student blogging!

There are just a few examples of the hundreds of tweets about the topic in the widget below and you can see the entire discussion on the #edchat wiki here.

This week in the Edublog world

Want to share a post, ask others to visit a blog for comments, or show off cool student work?

Use the hashtag #ebshare to let us know so we can re-tweet it for you!

Featured Edublog of the Week

edu_featured_dir

The Brainy Bunch’s Blog

Berwick, Australia

A grade 3/4 class blog – check out that personalized menu!

This blog is on one of our Edublogs Campus sites.

Find more great blogs like this one in our International Edublogs Directory.

Upcoming Webinars & Live Events

Join us for next week’s live events!

Wednesday the 8th @ 9:30am PSTAll About Edublogs Campus

For new Campus site-admins or for those interested in learning more about Edublogs Campus.

Thursday the 9th @ 4pm PSTEdublogs Serendipity – PD Out Of A Blue Sky

Join us in our fortnightly unconference sessions. Bring along the burning issues and hot topics YOU would like to discuss. The topic is chosen by poll at the start of the session.

Learn more about our live events here!

Recent Posts You Might Have Missed

Summing it up

Twitter is fast becoming the best tool for professional learning and sharing – but I warn, it can be addicting!

This might be a good time to remind you to follow @edublogs too :)

Have a great week!

We should talk – what are you doing to ensure student safety online?

winamp_coneIt is one of the most important conversations we can have. When student privacy and safety is at stake, we all have an obligation to do our part.

Keeping in mind that laws and policies vary depending on where you are and what age you work with, there are some common sense tips we should all follow.

The discussion below was inspired by comments left by educators on this Edublogger post over the past few weeks.

This post was co-written by Ronnie Burt and Sue Waters.

Is it fact, fiction, hype or fear?

Let us start by discussing the concerns of students working online and why we need to care before looking at some common sense tips.

As middle school teacher Jabiz Rasidana says:

“What, exactly is it, that everyone is so afraid of?”

Too often media creates hysteria about Internet predators leading school districts to respond to parent and teacher concerns by blocking any kind of social networking while failing to highlight the positive aspects achieved when students collaborate online as part of a global community.

Gail Desler highlights:

While we recognize that online predators pose a threat, about 1% of child abuse and sexual abuse cases, and we certainly do not dismiss the need to teach our students about safety issues, such as “grooming,” we also want all students to learn to use the Internet effectively and ethically.

Our middle school counselors, for instance, report that over 60% of their case load involves handling and defusing cyberbullying and “sexting” issues – mainly from smart phones. Pretty much 100% of the time, the parents are clueless as to how their children are using the Internet.

Digital citizenship should be built into media literacy —media literacy as a must-have skill for the 21st century.

Internet safety is best taught at school and not at home (sorry, parents).

And like Kathleen McGready says:

The biggest thing is … you can’t just do one off lessons on cyber safety. Cyber safety is not a separate subject.

Through being heavily involved in blogging, my grade two class has opportunities almost every day to discuss cyber safety issues and appropriate online behaviours in an authentic setting.

When we’re writing blog posts and comments together, a wide range of issues come up incidentally. The discussions are so rich and purposeful and my students now have an excellent understanding of the do’s and don’ts of internet safety.

Most of us agreed that:

  1. Teaching students what can and what shouldn’t be shared online can’t be boiled down to a few lessons.
  2. It is best if the topic is brought up often and in context when working with any web technology.

What do we need to consider?

The reality is that we’ve got to face the questions and concerns raised when students are online head on.

lightbulb

Our world is increasingly connected, and our students need to know how to interact online safely and with some level of privacy. The trouble is that educators, administrators, online web tools, politicians, and parents just aren’t sure what that looks like yet. And for some reason, a consensus decision isn’t likely anytime soon. Either way, we must educate students about the expectations we have of them when they are online and about the digital footprint they leave behind.

We need to educate our students on how to work in a safe online environment.

As Kathleen McGeady commented,

“I don’t think it matters that much what your actual policies are on photos/avatars/no images etc as long as you’re having conversations and doing something!”

Here’s some things to consider and our advice when working online with your students.

Tip #1:  Set clear guidelines

Set GuidelinesIt’s crucial to have clear guidelines so that all parents and students are aware of what is and isn’t appropriate.

The best approach is to get students involved with creating the guidelines.

For example. Pernille Ripp has an excellent activity using the analogy  The Internet is like a Mall.  She tells them that going on the internet is like going to the mall without your parents’ supervision and asks them to share how do they stay safe at the mall?  This takes the students from a topic they already understand and know to applying those same principles online.

Check out these examples:

  1. Pernille Ripp’ s Internet Safety Plan and Blogging Introduction
  2. Kathleen McGeady’s Introduction to Bloggigng HandoutGuide to Getting the Most out of 2KM’s Class blog and Our Blog Guidelines
  3. Edublogs Guide to Using Blogs With Students

Here’s how to set up your blogging rules and guidelines.

Tip #2:  Use of student names

What names to use?This is usually one of the first items to think about before using any online services with students.

Can they use their full name, first name only, last initial, or maybe a made-up username? In general, obtaining parent permission for minors is important when using anything other than a made-up or “code” name.

Most educators use the student’s first name only combined with a combination of letters and/or numbers that might represent their year level, room number, school or class blog such as amberh4 or adrianhan10 for student usernames and blog URLs.

Tip #3:  Use of  photos

Use of ImagesUse of student photos, and especially linking names with specific photos, are also questions that come up when blogging, sharing videos, or using other web services online. Even though 99.9% of visitors to your class blog will be well meaning parents, students, community members, or interested visitors from around the world, the unfortunate reality is that those with bad intentions can also visit public sites. There are also cases where the personal background of a student might mean they need more privacy and anonymity than others.

Decisions on whether to use student photographs or not is often more about protecting educators from having problems with parents or administrators who have concerns about cyber-predators.

A safe compromise is to only use photo taken from behind students.

On the other hand, one of the most engaging and powerful aspects of blogging comes from the sense of pride and ownership that only happens when you put yourself out there for the world to see. For this reason, many teachers do use student images.

As middle school teacher Jabiz Rasidana points out on Intrepid Teacher,

“the most rewarding experiences I have had online, the most authentic and personal relationships have been because I shared more than I should have.”

And the same is true for students. We put our thoughts and ideas out there, and everyone learns from it – especially the blogger.

Kathleen McGready says:

Unlike many classes, I identify students by first name and photo. Of course I gain parent permission for this and 100% of my parents have been supportive. Last year, I did not publish photos of students and I think there were more cons than pros. The parents and the classes we work with around the world are able to connect more with our blog and student work by seeing who the authors are.

Taking it a step further, any student comments or posts may need to be kept private behind a password. This is understandable – imagine if you were the one student in a class that for one reason or another shouldn’t have your photo online especially when it comes to your avatar.  All of your classmates have a photo avatar while you are left with a funny image or drawing. You probably wouldn’t be too happy about this.

An alternative solution is to get your students to create  their own avatar using these online reources without using a photo!

The key is to have the conversations with your administrators and parents about the use of photos online — so you can address the needs of your community.

Tip #4: Public vs Private

film

Many times, cautious administrators or teachers will opt to keep all blogs private.

However, being locked behind a password greatly limits the global learning aspect that encourages outsiders to visit and comment on student blogs.  Further still, it can really stifle the energy and motivation created when students know they are writing so that their family and friends (and even strangers) can see.

  • If students share a video they created in a class presentation they will probably get excited.
  • If students publish the same video on the web for all to see, they feel accomplished and professional!

From experience we’ve found that when educators allow their students to publish their content in a public space they spend more time educating their students and reinforcing appropriate online behavior than those that use private sites locked behind a password.

And don’t forget, on public blogs you can set up systems like Leigh Newton uses where all comments and posts spark an email to him, the administrator.

Here’s how you moderate all comments and posts on student blogs — if you need/want to take this approach.

Tip # 5: Student work and confidentiality

PrivateHowever, there are occasions when you really do need to consider confidentially.

There was one example we ran across recently where a teacher of special needs students had a class blog. By allowing students to comment on the blog, the students were identified as part of the special education program.  This lead to the important discussion about if this violates confidentiality for those students. In this case, the school administrators erred on the side of caution – and the wishes of the students and parents involved. The conclusion was to change the class blog to private so that only registered and approved visitors could visit it. The parents and students in the class were all given accounts to use.

Teacher feedback, specifically anything that can be interpreted as grades, is another area that educators that are blogging with students should be aware of. It is natural to leave comments on blogs for students, but there are other times when more detailed feedback may be best left for private.

Final Thoughts

As Common Sense Media puts it in one of their 10 beliefs,

“We believe in teaching our kids to be savvy, respectful and responsible media interpreters, creators, and communicators.  We can’t cover their eyes but we can teach them to see.”

agentHere’s some helpful resources

So what next?

Like the continuous discussions we should be having with our students, the dialog should continue among educators, parents, and policy makers to ensure we are maximizing learning freedoms while encouraging safe and smart web habits.

Please leave your thoughts or questions below for our blogging community to continue to learn from each other!

Edublogs Weekly Review: Top 10 reasons why it is truly the most wonderful time of the year!

The last weekend of November is here which can only mean that the holiday season has officially arrived!

At Edublogs, we love this time of year, and here is our top 10 list as to why:

  1. The hardworking educators and students that use Edublogs get some well deserved time off from school
  2. Great widgets from here make it easy to put yule logs, holiday countdowns, snowmen and more in sidebars
  3. A popular idea to keep students’ minds focused during the upcoming holidays is to ask them to blog while on break – and our support team will be here in case we’re needed!
  4. The free holiday images found here and here are perfect for blogs, class newsletters, cards, and more
  5. Users send us tons of chocolate and gifts – there is still time to contact us for where to send them ;)
  6. We announce the winners of the 2010 Edublog Awards on December 15th
  7. There is so much excitement about how blogging is impacting student learning, and those sharing their experience are about to win BIG!
  8. All of the student mentors of the Student Blogging Challenge are about to receive their Edublogs Pro subscriptions as our way of saying thanks
  9. We all have an excuse to turn on the “Let It Snow” plugin (see the Plugins menu in your dashboard) on our blogs
  10. And we all get to spend time with our families!

Here’s to a great holiday season from the Edublogs team!

(See our CEO James, our support guru Sue, and myself getting in the spirit below!)

This week in the Edublog world

Want to share a post, ask others to visit a blog for comments, or show off cool student work?

Use the hashtag #ebshare to let us know so we can re-tweet it for you!

Featured Edublog of the Week

edu_featured_dir

Ms. Edmonds’ Science class

An excellent middle school science class blog!

Find more great blogs like this one in our International Edublogs Directory.

Upcoming Webinars & Live Events

Join us for next week’s live events!

Wednesday the 1st @ 9:30am PSTWhat can you do with your Edublog!?

An informal chat where any of your blogging questions can be answered by our staff.

Thursday the 2nd @ 4pm PSTEdublogs Fine Focus

Join us for our fortnightly “Fine Focus” sessions each week. In these sessions we range across a variety of topics and include discussion (“Talk Time”), how to use various applications (“Techie How To”), and using technology in the classroom (“Tools and Strategies”). In fact anything “e-” that is of interest to educators!

Learn more about our live events here!

Recent Posts You Might Have Missed

Summing it up

As you can see, December is a busy and exciting month.

Make sure to add a bit of festive cheer to your blog if you’d like and have an excellent holiday season!

How to get the most out of online tools

It is practically impossible to keep up with the ever-changing tools and resources available to educators. Not to mention all of the new vocabulary and jargon that comes along with it.

web2041

The following posts from our own Sue Waters on TheEdublogger.com might be a great place to start:

Know of other great posts to help beginners out with ed tech or online tools? Share below so we can add them to the list!

Edublogs Weekly Review: Attack of the web browsers and RockMelt wins!

It all started on a typical Monday morning when my web browser of choice, Chrome, just stopped working for me.

A quick google search lead nowhere – only that others experienced similar problems over the past year, but no help or advice. I deleted, reinstalled, upgraded, downgraded, and nothing – Chrome was not happy. So I reluctantly looked elsewhere for something new.

About the same time I was checking out our monthly stats on Edublogs.org in our Google Analytics account and came across this stat:

126 different browsers

What?! We had users using 126 different browsers visiting Edublogs.org over the past 30 days!

Nearly half where using Internet Explorer, followed by Firefox, Safari, and then Chrome.  Who knew (not me!), but there are also browsers such as Konqueror and Sea Monkey, and we had a couple hundred visits from the PlayStation Browser and the Nook eReader.

Coincidentally, at the same time I was also catching up on my favorite tech-geek podcast, CNET’s Buzz Out Loud. They were going on and on about a new web browser called RockMelt.

rockmeltIt is currently in invitation-only Beta mode (while they test and work out all the bugs), but I put in for an invitation and a few days later was happily using RockMelt.

The best feature about RockMelt is that within no time, I have set up all of my favorite blogs in the sidebar where it alerts me to new posts immediately. I am no longer dependent on Google Reader, which I for one am very happy about. Not because Google Reader isn’t good at what it does, but if I go a couple of days between checking in, I’ll never catch up! This real-time display of blogs lets me keep up in a non-intrusive way.

I can especially see teachers and students that want an easy way to follow blogs in their classes to find this feature useful and fun!

Oh, and RockMelt is built on Chrome, but it isn’t having the same problems I was having before.

You must have a facebook account to use RockMelt as facebook is highly integrated into the browsing experience. There’s a pretty good twitter feature built in too, but still no option to publish tweets directly from the app. (edit: Oops, actually there is – see the comments below!)

To see more about what it can do, you might like this video here.

If you’re interested, be one of the first three to leave a comment below and I’ll send you one of the invitations I have left. Or, you can sign up for your own on RockMelt.com.

This week in the Edublog world

Want to share a post, ask others to visit a blog for comments, or show off cool student work?

Use the hashtag #ebshare to let us know so we can re-tweet it for you!

Featured Edublog of the Week

edu_featured_dir

The Plugged In Portable

Grade 6 class blog with loads of resources!

St. Thomas, Ontario

Find more great blogs like this one in our International Edublogs Directory.

Upcoming Webinars & Live Events

Join us for next week’s live events!

Wednesday the 24th @ 9:30am PSTAll About Edublogs Campus

For new Campus site-admins or for those interested in learning more about Edublogs Campus.

Thursday the 25th @ 4pm PSTEdublogs Serendipity – PD Out Of A Blue Sky

Join us in our fortnightly unconference sessions. Bring along the burning issues and hot topics YOU would like to discuss. The topic is chosen by poll at the start of the session.

Learn more about our live events here!

Recent Posts You Might Have Missed

Summing it up

What’s your browser of choice? In your school or place of work do they let you use more than one?

With the use of add-ons and extensions Firefox and Chrome are certainly growing in popularity, and it will be interesting to see if any of the others can make a lasting impact.

Have a good rest of the week!

Provide some details for your blog
No stress, you can always change this later on.
Use only lowercase letters (a-z) and numbers.
.edublogs.org

« Go back Register Account » Create a Site »