Blogs (A.K.A. Web Logs)

What is a blog? (verb and noun)

Weblogs in Education Video, from Will Richardson (time: 2:28)

What I do with blogs in the classroom:

• unit reflection
• lesson reviews and online interactive quizzes (Example)
• scribe post (First Post - Recent Post)
• give and get feedback
• orchestrate an authentic global audience
  (Pre-Cal 20S Visitor Map)
• Encourage students to "take charge" of their learning
  (Example 1, Example 2)
• have fun! (Example)

What can YOU do with blogs? The Possibilities Are Limitless

Explore Classroom Blogs (time 5 min)

• Pre-Cal 20S (dormant)
• Pre-Cal 30S (dormant)
• Pre-Cal 40S (dormant)
• Applied Math 40S
• Pre-Cal 40S (Winter '06)
• AP Calculus
• Room 208 (Grade3/4 class)
• Grade 7 Math Blogorama at Sargent Park
• Sargent Park's Grade 8 Math Zone
• Secret Life of Bees
• The Write Weblog
• ESL Bullying Blog
• In Need of Coffee (High School Literature)
• American Studies
• Bud's Blogging Experiment
• Excellence and Imagination (Grades 7 and 8)

Explore Teacher Blogs (time 5 min)

• A Difference (Darren Kuropatwa)
• Bud The Teacher (Bud Hunt)
• Blog of Proximal Development (Konrad Glogowski)
• Edublog Insights (Anne Davis)
• Weblogg-ed (Will Richardson)
• Remote Access (Clarence Fisher)
• Mentor Matters (Mrs. Ris)
• The Open Classrom (Jo McLeay)
• edublogs (Ewan McIntosh)
• The Education Wonks (Ed Wonk --
       the home of The Carnival of Education)

Your Turn To Jump In (time: 20 min)

1. You've got mail!
2. Join the Rip Mix Learn Playground Blog
3. Write your first post by replying to the Blog Prompt
4. If you run into trouble or need help, read Bloggers 'R 'Us (written by a student in one of my classes)
5. Have fun! -- ;-)

Something to take home with you ...
    In case you forget how to set up your own account and write your first post at Blogger you can watch this video. ;-)

RSS - THE Killer App for Educators

There are many introductions to RSS available on the internet. This is my version of a Real Simple Summary. ;-)

• What is a "Killer App"
• RDF Site Summary vrs.
  Rich Site Syndication vrs.
  Real Simple Syndication vrs.
  XML
• What is "Atom?"
• Feeds and Aggregators; Magazine Subscriptions and Mailboxes
• Bloglines
• Newspaper RSS feeds
• Recognizing feeds and how to use them
• Subscribe to the Future
• Finding more feeds: Blogrolls; your browser
• screencast tutorial on Bloglines
• Educator's Guide to RSS.pdf (by Will Richardson)
• 50+ RSS Ideas for Educators v1.11 (by Quentin D'Souza)

Let's sign up and find some feeds! (Time: 10 min)

More to Explore
Things you can do with RSS.

Cool things teachers can do with RSS. (Example)

Let's Socialize - Folksonomies

There are a great many social bookmarking sites. Two of my favourites are:

(1) furl

• personal web
• recommendations
• furlmates
• furl feeds
• Guide to using furl.pdf (by Jim Wenzloff)

(2) del.icio.us

• tagging
• social aspect
• del.icio.us feeds
• del.icio.us tools
• John Udell's Screencast

(3) A Whole Lot More

• with the click of a single button
  (Alan Levine's post on 17 social bookmarking tools.)

Create a furl or a del.icio.us account and/or check out these very cool del.icio.us tools! Most of the tools are useful only after you've been using del.icio.us for a while. ;-)

More to Explore

• How To del.icio.us Part 1
• Beginner's Guide to del.icio.us
• Copy Del.icio.us Bookmarks to Furl
• Furl to del.icio.us
• del.icio.us Most popular Treemap
• Del.icio.us popular sites
• LiveMarks (what's being bookmarked in del.icio.us right NOW?)

You could easily spend hours on this .... we've got 10 minutes. ;-)

Flickr

Pictures can be used on classroom blogs in a variety of ways:
Example 1, Example 2, Example 3.

Flickr is a photo sharing site that goes beyond the basics.

(1) It can:

• store photos (upload up to 10MB per month)
• share photos (send invitations)
• tag photos (for easy finding and sharing)
• add notes to your photos
• add and receive comments
• create sets or albums (limit of 3 with the free version)
• creates multiple versions (great for use on websites and blogs)
• upload:
  • from your computer
  • from your cameraphone
  • to your blog
• provide access to other's photos
• set privacy levels to your photos
• assign who has access to your photos
• join or create groups
• create RSS feeds

(2) Creative Commons

• Watch the movie (5 minutes 40 seconds)
• Watch the slideshow (2 minutes)

(3) Play Time!
Create an account and/or check out these very cool flickr tools!

More to Explore

• Flappr (click a flag!)
• Daily Zeitgeist
• Mappr
• Flickr Colour Pickr
• Flickr Graph
• a movie called: Flickr (by Johnathan Coulton)
  Warning: contains an off color remark towards the end

You could easily spend hours on this .... we've got 10 minutes. ;-)

Fearless Learners, Courageous Teachers

Alan November is a leading teacher educator in the field of educational technology. In early May, 2005, he published this webcast entitled: Fearless Learners, Courageous Teachers

It's about an hour long. He discusses three things that kids need to learn to be successful members of society in the future.

1. Information Literacy
       - manage massive amounts of information
2. Global Communication Skills
       - think globally
3. Self Directed Learning and Work
       - be self-directed in their learning

Below, you'll find another vision of the future. Some of its implications are a little frightening but it is based on events and technologies that are current today. If you're not up-to-date with the latest web 2.0 technologies it can be hard to identify the point in the video where the speculation begins -- the item about "Reason Magazine" really happened.

The Future is Here

The future is here,
it's just not evenly distributed."
William Gibson

Will Richardson wrote this on August 21, 2005.

Netvibes, a new web 2.0 app, came online on September 15, 2005. It's a customizable web-based desktop run almost entirely by RSS feeds.

The future is here, and it CAN be evenly distributed."
Darren Kuropatwa

Credits and Thanks

This workshop is a Rip Mix Learn event made possible by the work of the people listed below. Each one is responsible for some aspect of the content or has influenced my thinking about teaching and learning with technology in some way. If I've left anyone out please email me and let me know so I can set the record straight.

One last thing. The list of classroom and teacher blogs in the blogging section omits a great many excellent educators and blogs. My appologies to them. I tried to keep the lists small so as not to overwhelm the workshop participants. If you think there is a glaring ommission please email me and let me know.

Thank you to:

Alan Levine Alan November Anne Davis Ben Bishop Bob Sprankle Bud Hunt Chris Harbeck Clarence Fisher David Reece David Weinberger Dean Shareski EdWonk Ewan McIntosh George Siemens

Honeywell Technology eLibrary James Tubbs Jim Wenzloff Jo McLeay John @ Beelerspace John Udell Johnathan Coulton Konrad Glogowski Mary Harrsch Michael Verdi Mr. McNamar Mrs. Ris pchere @ Quick Online Tips

Quentin D'Souza Robin Sloan & Matt Thompson Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach Terry Kaminsky Tim Yang Tom @ The Media Drop Tom McHale Winnipeg School Division #1 Will Richardson Yvonne Hutchinson

The "Rip, Mix, Learn" metaphor originated with Alan Levine. Alan's work has had a significant impact on my thinking about educational technology. For a more indepth look at these technologies see Alan's "Rip. Mix. Learn." Workshop given on November 16, 2004.

The idea of using a blog as a presentation tool is another one of Alan's original ideas. See:

• BloggerShop
• Blogshop
• More Than Cat Diaries: Publishing With Weblogs
• Living at the Crossroads of IT & ID

The "Small Pieces, Loosely Joined" metaphor originated with David Weinberger's book of the same name.