After day one of my new job (!) as an integration technology specialist, I was asked to think about how to help a teacher who wants his class to start a blog. He teaches robotics, and he doesn’t want to moderate the blog. I have been mentally gathering my classroom-blogging resources, and have come up with some blogging platform choices for his class. I will know more when I speak to him and find out what his goals for the blog and his students are, but in the meantime, these are my top choices:
1. Blogger, which is a Google service. It is free and very easy to use. 2. Edublog, which seems to be an extremely popular choice for classroom blogging. Teachers say that it is easily customizable, and allows users to add videos, photos, podcasts and text. 3. Google sites, a service offered on Google Drive. Users say it is easy to use and anyone with a Google account has access to the service. 4. Weebly for education, a personal favorite. Weebly is easy to use and has a professional look and feel to it. Weebly makes it easy to add links, buttons, videos, forms, etc. to a blog or Website. 5. Wordpress, which is the first choice of a tech-savvy teen who acts as my “first responder” to any tech questions. Wordpress needs to be installed onto a server, I read, and I am not sure if the free software is limited in its customizable features. More research will be done on Wordpress, for sure. 6. Tumblr, a blogging site that has great reviews from teachers and students. It seems to be the most popular choice for college professors to use in their courses. Once I talk to the classroom teacher, I will be able to help him choose which platform will work best for his class. I need to ask him what his goals for the blog are. Who is the intended audience? Will each student have a blog, or will they take turns posting to one class blog? Will he assign blog posts to be graded? I need to find out what kind of privacy settings need to be included, and what the school’s expectations are about online privacy of students. Will their last names be included? Are they allowed to post photos of themselves or other students and teachers? Do parents need to give permission first? Have the students had lessons about online safety and protocol? (Note to self: ask this question first!) A lot of groundwork needs to be covered, but it’s an exciting first assignment and I am really looking forward to helping this teacher get his class’ blog off the ground!
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Do you use Pinterest or LiveBinders as a classroom tool? I use both, and I am often asked which is better to use "educationally." I love both Pinterest and LiveBinders but I find that I use them in slightly different ways. Pinterest is more appealing visually, and as a visual learner, I find it easier to process. Pinterest consists of virtual bulletin boards - they remind me of my college dorm bulletin boards with ticket stubs, photos, appointment cards, etc. pinned all over them. I have multiple Pinterest boards, personal and educational. One educational board is general classroom ideas, and one is for technology integration ideas. I love to browse the boards and pin new ideas. One drawback to pinning things, though, is that a Web page can't be pinned unless there is an image on the page. Earlier today I wanted to pin a forum discussion about Google Calendar, but when I used my Pin It button, I got the error message that no image was found. LiveBinders is perfect for that situation, so I added the pin to my Technology Integration binder.
LiveBinders is like a bookshelf of three-ring binders. Each binder is categorized and then within the binder, there are tabs and subtabs. For example, a binder might be called Classroom Tech, and a tab inside may be iPads. Sub-tabs could include iCloud set-up tips, helpful apps, etc. Any URL can be pasted in to create a tab, so no image is necessary. When viewing a binder, it's exactly like looking into a large three-ring binder with dividers and tabs. It is not as visually rich as Pinterest but it is very versatile. Binders can include links to movies, documents, websites, etc. You can browse other people's binders and even copy them onto your shelf. Links to your binder can be shared with your class, and you can share it on your blog as a parent resource. I use Pinterest more often and I find in more enjoyable (and a potential time-suck, so beware!), but I find LiveBinders to be more practically useful and slightly more versatile in the classroom. What do you think? Have you used EDpuzzle in your classroom yet? I haven't, and I can't wait to do so. EDpuzzle is a free video-customization site, offering so many applications for both students and teachers. You can use EDpuzzle to search for a video, or start with a video to which you already have access. The video can then be cropped, so you can use only the relevant parts of it. Quizzes can be embedded into the video, so you can evaluate your students' comprehension during the lesson. You can add your audio notes or create a voice-over during the video. The videos that you create can be embedded onto your class website or LMS. EDPuzzle would be great for teachers implementing a flipped classroom.
While I am already imagining lessons that I can create with EDpuzzle, I am even more excited about having my students create projects using this tool. It is a innovative way to present material, giving choices other than PowerPoint and Prezi (not that I don't love Prezi and PowerPoint). EDpuzzle would be a good choice for group projects, and could be great for students who have anxiety about presentations. The project can be constructed and narrated individually, and then presented without stage fright. I am excited to try it - here is a link to the EDpuzzle site...check it out! Having just completed third quarter at the high school, which means completing the junior research paper, I have started to look into technology that could make next year's research paper even easier. Diigo, a research and annotation tool, is one idea that I would like to try out with a willing English teacher. Click the button above to go to a website that explains how Diigo can be used in the classroom.
Although I've had a Twitter account for a long time, I've never embraced tweeting as I have using facebook. I tried different accounts and following different groups of people. I followed all the Real Housewives and Dance Moms that I could find on Twitter and realized that one reason I wasn't invested in Twitter is because I was bored - surprisingIy (to me), I didn't really care about what the Real Housewives or Dance Moms were tweeting about. I kept forgetting my username, my password, which email account I used to set up the accounts, so I wiped the slate clean and started over. I've started a new account and follow what is really interesting to me lately - teachers, technology, creativity and exciting new educational trends. And now? I love Twitter.
The most exciting thing I've discovered on Twitter in the last few days is QuadBlogging. I may be late to the QuadBlogging party but I am fascinated and hope that I can convince a teacher to try it out in the upcoming school year. I haven't done a lot of research on it so far but I love what I have learned. QuadBlogging is a group of four classrooms blogging together. These four classrooms can be from countries on the other side of the Earth! The classes each have a blog, and each class has a week of being the "it" blog for the quad. They blog and post and ask questions, and the other three classes comment, answer, add information, etc. Once each class has had its turn being "it," the cycle starts over again. This is one of the coolest uses of a blog that I can imagine. One teacher, somewhere in Great Britain, is QuadBlogging with her four-year-olds. They are interested in learning the languages of the other classes with whom they are blogging, they are very excited about writing items that will be blog-worthy, and they are passionate about the communities. Here is a link to a blog entry from the teacher who is QuadBlogging With 4-year-olds. The teacher of the class, Nicola Fitzpatrick, found out about QuadBlogging on Twitter (she's a new Twitter user, like me!) and found herself in a quad. I love what her pre-kindergarten students are doing with it, and I can't begin to imagine what our high school students could be doing in History, English, Science - ANY class - with QuadBlogging. Here is a quote from a teacher whose class is engaged in QuadBlogging. It's a long quote, but it showcases the most awesome aspects of QuadBlogging. “Collaboration amongst learners is something that we strive to achieve in our classrooms and quadblogging has helped me to achieve this in a way I could never dream possible. The children are enthused and excited by their blogging buddies from around the world and their learning is no longer confined to the four walls of the classroom or indeed by me as their class teacher. The children are so motivated by the comments from other teachers and children and these motivates children to blog even more, comment more and therefore learn even more about so much more than is in my planning. Engagement and motivation is raised as children become the teachers and not just learners, teaching others about their cultures, religions and school life. The key to a successful blog is of course the audience and this is where quadblogging has the biggest impact for our blog. It helps to build up those wonderful learning collaborations, as well as help to increase the audience for our blog and for the rest of our schools fledgling blogs. The children love visiting a school a week and this helps to further inspire them when it is their turn in the blogging cycle, giving them a chance to show off to their new ‘friends from around the world’. The children continue to visit each other’s blog long after the cycle has finished once again showing that quadblogging is a powerful tool in the development and continuation of our blog. We have a saying in my classroom ‘Neurons that work together, fire together’ and with quadblogging we are certainly able to get those neurons firing.” Cherise Duxbury High Lawn Primary School Does that make you as intrigued as it does me? This kind of blogging, this interaction with students and teachers from all over the world, reaches outside of the four walls of the physical classroom and offers our students 100% authentic education from their global peers. QuadBloggin is my most recent exciting discovery on Twitter - as I continue to hesitantly make my way into the Twitter community I look forward to other awesome and amazing ideas and practices! |
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AuthorMom to two sons, married 23 years to college sweetie. Instructional Technology Specialist for a vocational high school. Educator for 20+ years. Love to read, do anything crafty, and spend time with friends and family. Passionate about education, technology, and the combination of the two! I'm a proud foster-failure with Big Fluffy Dog Rescue, having fallen head-over-heels for our first foster and adopting her :) Archives
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