A fun time with students in our webinar!

During today’s class blog webinar, I had the pleasure of welcoming in David Carruthers’ grade 6 class from St. Thomas, Ontario. Let me just say that these students were wonderful!

We host these webinars on a rotating basis, and we don’t require any sign-up, registration, or really have any way of knowing who might show up.

After Mr. Carruthers asked if the students could all login, we had the whole group of students live in the Elluminate room asking questions and interacting right alongside the educators that were participating from around the world.

The students asked excellent questions about pages and posts, adding different widgets, upload space, and changing fonts. You can tell that they know what they are talking about when it comes to blogging.

Check out their class blog, The Plugged In Portable, to see the excellent work that they are doing. I’m sure that they would appreciate some nice comments too – the student blogs are all found on the right sidebar.

Keep an eye on our webinar page or our blog here to find out about upcoming webinars.

Thanks Mr. Carruthers and all of your students for joining us today!

Edublogs Weekly Review: Why you should participate in the Edublog Awards

ebawardlogoYou may have seen posts, tweets, or messages about the 2010 Edublog Awards process which began yesterday with the nomination phase.

Going into our seventh year, these awards are a way to recognize all of the different bloggers, teachers, and others that are contributing to the improvement of education at a global level.

It is amazing the amount of helpful and inspirational information that is out there, and the Edublog Awards are a great way to share it all with an even wider audience.

So why should you nominate your favorite blogger, tweeter, PLN, podcast, etc?

  • Most importantly to say thank you to those that you follow, read, and learn from
  • Share the resources you value with your readers and followers
  • We publish a list of nominations that becomes a handy destination year-round to find new resources
  • Be part of a global education community
  • Join the fun and excitement that is all part of the Edublog Awards!

For more information, including a list of all 23 categories and how to nominate, visit the Edublog Award site now!

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

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History Matters – 20G

An award winning class blog with great student bloggers!

Dublin, Ireland

See our interview with their teacher here!

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

Webinars & Live Events

Join us for next week’s live events!

Wednesday @ 9:30am PSTWhat can I do with my class blog?

Thursday @ 4pm PSTEdublogs Fine Focus

Learn more about our live events here!

Summing it up

We love this time of year – the approaching holiday season and the Edublog Awards.

Keep those nominations rolling in and let us know should you have any questions!

An interview with an award winning blogger and educator

europeana_launchOne of the most exciting things about being part of the Edublogs team is that we get to see all of the excellent uses of class and student blogs around the globe.

We recently learned that one of our users, Donal O’ Mahony from Portmarnock Community School in Ireland, had been nominated for a European eLearning Award at the EMINENT Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In fact, at the conference it was announced that Donal and his history class received the Europe’s Digital Heritage award for their student blogging which can be found here.

You can see all of the 50 shortlisted projects here.

Donal was kind enough to answer a few questions we sent his way in hopes of sharing a bit more about his class blogging experience with others.

Where and what do you teach?

I teach at Portmarnock Community School, Dublin, Ireland (here). I teach mainly history and some religious education. The school is co-educational and has about 825 students.

How long have you been blogging?
I have been blogging about two years, firstly for myself with eLearningIsland (here) and the with my students (here). We moved from a class blog to each student (30 of them) creating their own individual blog (here).

What do you want to accomplish with using blogs with your students?

  • Engagement with history in a way that that is relevant to their world
  • Digital literacy – an understanding of how to work their way around a Web 2 environment
  • Representation of work that is beyond copy and pen
  • Visibility on the WWW encouraging responsibility

What are the benefits you have seen so far?
Interest, wanting to be in the ICT mediated-class, pride in work, ability to be able to articulate about matters digital, an eye for design (they loved playing about with themes, some of them using the custom feature).

What challenges have you faced with blogging in your classroom?

  • Time, I believe is the greatest challenge. EduBlogs helps here in having WordPress configured for the use of the teacher giving time back to him/her to focus on teaching/learning
  • The computer room in schools can be a “variable” environment – Its the simple things that cause problems! Flash may not be updated on all machines, Broadband is down occasionally (we do generally not have paid technical support for ICT in schools in Ireland) – the student however can also work on their blog at home which many did
  • Different levels of digital literacy from the student who is making his her first online steps to the student who is more advanced in their abilities – just like teaching the normal class really!

Is there anything else you would like to add?

My own blog deals with some of the issues around ICT in education. I recommend following it!

We recommend following it too.

Also check out the slides from the presentation below.

One thing in particular to look for in his process is that he started with a simple class blog and then gradually moved into students having their own individual blogs. This approach helps students understand what blogging is all about, sets the tone and blogging rules, and introduces the blogging process.

Thanks Donal for sharing with us and congratulations to you and your students for the honor!

Edublogs Weekly Review: Taking blogging to infinity and beyond

nasalogo_twitter_reasonably_smallThis week we came across Mrs. T’s Fantastic Fifth Grade Bobcats class blog and this fun video post of a recent field trip to NASA.

In fact, we liked the blog so much that it is our blog of the week!

In addition, it really got us thinking about how blogging can be used to facilitate collaboration between classrooms and different organizations and experts such as NASA.

A little bit of fun research into the different offerings of NASA revealed a few tools and resources that you may find useful to add to your blog.

NASA and Twitter

Follow @NASAJPL_Edu for educationally related news and tweets from NASA. Some great images, videos, lesson ideas and more!

NASA hosts frequent Tweet-Ups at different locations, and if you sign up, you can be invited to come in for a VIP tour and question/answer period. How cool is that?

NASA TV

You can embed many videos from NASA right into any page or post on your blog. The most recent videos can be found here.

Or share this link to a live feed from the international space station on your blog. According to the NASA website, due to the orbit of the space station, there is a sunrise or sunset every 45 minutes caught on video here!

Live Chats

NASA offers live chats frequently with different experts about many different topics. Recent chats discuss comets, the sun, the moon, fuel, and hurricanes – a wide variety that would be relevant to many different types of courses and age groups. Students and teachers can even submit questions before hand to get answered by the expert!

All of the recent chat transcripts – and information on upcoming ones – can be found here.

More NASA Resources

Find teaching and learning materials from NASA by searching through different levels, grades, subjects, and types.

Also, you can sign up to be on NASA’s news list to receive email updates and announcements about NASA’s educational programs, activities, and events.

Top #ebshare tweets from the week:

RT @edublogs: Check out all of the Edublogs live events in November – http://bit.ly/b3Fpsf Hope to see you there! #ebshare #culturainglesaMon Nov 01 23:27:28 via Panoramic moTweets


RT @edublogs: 34 Free Productivity Tools That Will Help You Eliminate Expensive Software via @inspired_clsrm – What a list! http://bit.lThu Nov 04 17:22:36 via web


Looking for ideas on how to help students evaluate web sites http://bit.ly/bLfa6Y #edchat #ebshareFri Oct 29 00:00:07 via web

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

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Mrs. T’s Fantastic Fifth Grade Bobcats

An excellent example of what a class blog can be!

California, USA

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

Summing it up

Besides NASA, are there other government, business, or non-profit organizations who’s online resources could really compliment your class or student blogs?

Let us know of any you find or how you use outside resources so that we can pass it on to others.

Have a great weekend!

Edublogs Live Events In November

It’s hard to believe that November is already here and before long we will be in the middle of the holiday season!

And this November, we wanted to let you know about several live events and webinars we have planned.

These real-time events are delivered using Elluminate, complete with audio, chat and desktop sharing – and are completely free and open to anyone that wants to join in.

What is Edublogs Campus?

This hour-long webinar will introduce all of the unique tools that make Edublogs Campus packages the perfect blogging solution for schools, districts and universities. Ideal for new Campus Site-Admins or for those interested in learning more about what Campus can do – we’ll make sure that all of your questions get answered.

When: Wednesday, November 10th @ 9:30am PST and Tuesday, November 23rd @ 1:00pm PST

What can I do with my blog?

For all new and experienced bloggers, we will provide an overview of all of the great blogging features available to Edublogs users. A 30-minute presentation period will be followed by a 30-minute question and answer time where participants can get advice from and ask questions directly to Edublogs staff.

When: Wednesday, November 17th @ 9:30am PST

Edublogs Weekly Serendipity & Fine Focus

In these weekly engaging webinars, 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. If you have something to share we would love you to guest present a session for us!

When: Every Thursday @ 4pm PST

To join a live event just click on the following link:

https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=vclass&password=LPCBZLAT4D3Y921591JT

Elluminate is a Community Partner with Edublogs.

To learn more about Elluminate check out:Get a Free v-Room

  1. Introduction to using Elluminate
  2. The Elluminate Quick Reference guide
  3. Join the Configuration Room to test your connection and configure your audio

Get your FREE 3-user Elluminate vRoom HERE!

To stay up to date on the latest webinars and live Edublogs events, bookmark this page and visit it often.

No reservations are needed – simply click on the link above at the time the webinar is to begin. We hope to see you there soon!

Edublogs Weekly Review – Goblins, ghosts, and Halloween swag for your blog

smileAre you as excited about the chocolate and costume filled weekend ahead as we are?

We thought it might be fun to share a few of the Halloween resources we’ve come across which might make good additions to a weekend blog post or add a bit of holiday fun to your sidebar.

So here goes:

Online Pumpkin Carving

Use this web application from Spookathon.com to carve your own virtual pumpkin.  You can then download the carving as an image or embed the jack-o-lantern right inside of a post or page on your blog.

Halloween Widgets

PrimaryGames.com has kid friendly and fun widgets and resources such as puzzles and countdowns that can be put right on your blog.

Images and Avatars

One of our favorite free-use image sites, FindIcons.com, has many excellent images that would also make a great costume for your normal user or blog avatar as well!

Learning About Halloween

This post wouldn’t be complete without encouraging you to check out Larry Ferlazzo’s The Best Websites for Learning About Halloween list on his blog. This recently updated list is full of web resources on the history and cultural practices of both Halloween and The Day of the Dead.

Top #ebshare tweets from the week:

20 reasons why students should blog http://bit.ly/1HnfjW #edtechMon Oct 25 11:16:03 via TweetDeck


“A Timely Epiphany”…I’ve been reading and reflecting… http://is.gd/goyfo #sjsdblogs #stjosephschools #ebshareThu Oct 28 14:44:28 via Seesmic twhirl


Looking for ideas on how to help students evaluate web sites http://bit.ly/bLfa6Y #edchat #ebshareFri Oct 29 00:00:07 via web

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

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Giles-Sweet Tech Blog

Chock-full of resources for students!

Ohio, USA

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

Summing it up

If you know any additional Halloween resources to share, please leave a comment below.

Most importantly, everyone have a safe and happy Halloween!

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