EduBlog Insights

I’ve been thinking about the Monday night meeting at NECC that Tim Lauer put together.  This question kept surfacing over and over, “What’s the difference between a discussion group and a weblog?”  It seems that the defining of a weblog keeps entering the picture so often and that is what is most difficult to do. You can quote a defintion such as the one we put together for the Georgia NECC conference delegation.

I’m working with Lauretta Burton today and she is creating an EduBlog for classroom use next year in her biology class.  Right now she is in the “thinking” stage and trying to plan out just how she wants to use this tool.  I’ve asked Lauretta to “blog” her thoughts at this point.  Remember, she has had just two short sessions to learn about this.

When I spoke with Anne about communication tools for my students I envisioned a page that would keep both the student and parent linked to what we would be doing in class.  I wanted the students to be updated on homework, tests etc.  The idea of webblogging has a far greater potential than what I had imagined.  I view weblogging has an opportunity to get my students to “THINK and WRITE” about the learning that will take place in the classroom this year!  Weblogging requires you to “think outside the box”.

Lauretta’s going back home to explore the Manila possibilities…. The name of her site is T.E.A.M. Discovery. I know we will be hearing more from Lauretta! 

It’s great to have a little down time to browse through the posts made by the Georgia educators at NECC.  Michael outines one of his sessions…..

Today started off with attending one of the best sessions of the conference for me.  It was an 8:30 - 9:30am session in which the speaker presented an interactive math software that can be used for grades K-10.  He gave each attendee a free evaluation version of the software on CD and we are allowed to have it copied and passed out to any other interested teachers.  I enjoyed it because I felt that it was something practical that I could use in the classroom immediately.  I have a copy of the CD if anyone is interested in looking at it.  The presenter also has tons of lesson plans on line to support the math lessons on the CD.  It was a great sesssion!

Melanie had many good experiences and is excited about sharing her learning experiences at home and school…..

I can’t believe that our time is almost up.  This is certainly an experience of a lifetime.  I can’t wait to share my information, pictures, and experiences with my family and with my students.

Ellice sees possibilities…..

At 11:00 today, I saw an interesting session about some courses that are available online for professional development. We have trouble finding content courses for graduate students, so I was interested in the math oriented courses as possibilities for some VSU graduate students.

Christine reflects on time well spent……

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this meeting was discussing what we can learn about technology use across the six university groups participating in this grant. I am especially interested in how technology is being used to facilitate field experiences for preservice teachers. It was time well spent talking with our colleagues.

Betty shares about a side trip to Victoria, British Columbia where she learned even more about technology…..

I visited Victoria, British Columbia for a side trip while here for the conference. A group of us flew via sea plane to the city. That was my first experience on such transportation means. The flight was easy going and the landing was as if we were on a soft mattress.  The weather was actually better than here in Seattle. It was warn and sunny. As luck would have it, we were there for Canada Day, and visited an International Folkfest. While there a visit to the Royal BC Museum allowed me to see an example of  how modern technology can be integrated to teach lessons about the past. While in everyday living we can see examples of technology use to make lives easier and better, the BC Museum used a form of  audio technology that also has classroom applications. The museum has individual  infrared audio equipment so that the user can simply position him/herself near a targeted exhibit, and will receive a narration about that exhibit.  I can see posibilities for individualized instruction in the classroom. This is expecially important to me in working with Special Needs students. Today I saw something similar in the Exhibition Hall that was to be used with hand helds. Maybe it is the same thing. I will have to investigate. Any ideas?

Lucille had some kind comments for us…..

Kelly, Lisa, Anne, and Tim make a great team.  I have enjoyed being a part of the program. I have been actively engaged in listening, learning, and having fun since Sunday, June 29 2003.

Those are just a few of the comments.  Be sure to take a look at NECC 2003 Notes for more….

This is my last night in Seattle- that’s sounds a little sad but it has been a great conference and I plan to return one day to this fine city - I like it a lot!

I feel good about what has been accomplished with the Georgia delegation.  We plan to continue keeping up with them and hopefully more grants like this one can be written.

When I went to the Intel session this morning, i had a number of session participants come up to me afterwards asking about weblogs.  Lots of them had been to Tim and Will’s session on literature and blogging.  The interest is high! You can feel it in the air!

Gotta an early plane to catch to Atlanta in the morning… lots to reflect on next week…..  Everyone have a great fourth!

Strong Voice for Youth

Strategies to Empower Student Learning

and my favorite for the day……

“Literature Circles & Blogging about Books”

Tim Lauer, Will Richardson, Katherine Schlick-Noe, and Marion Holland gave an absolutely dynamite presentation to a VERY large crowd.

Sorry, no time for more now as the GA NECC team need my computer so they can blog!!!!!!!!

Literature Circles

Tim

What is a weblog?

Buckman Elementary
6 years ago you had to be a geek or strange person ˆ html, ftp, teachers eyes glazed over
lowering the bar
making it easier

weblog or blog is a website
usually run by a single person
bits of info are called entries

Ms Leake

It‚s a log, timestamped, dated
Has categories she posts into
Does it for you

Anatomy of a weblog
Title is home button
Banner area has title, nearly always links to entrance page

Blog entry
Excerpt
Permanent link
Trackback
Can have teaser and click more ˆ short blub and then more
Can have comments or not
Sidebar ˆ collection of links
Can syndicate information ˆ imagine 700 students writing so big task to see who wrote
Want to share so movement among folks creative commons ˆ various levels of copyright
Rss aggregator
It is easy publishing with some really neat tools

Will Secret Life of Bees
Uses software Manila ˆ can run over a thousand on one license
There are other solutions that are free
With Manila can do collaboration ˆ mention of GA
Online discussions
Artistic interpretations
Research/links
Author involvement
Parental involvement
Asked students to do chapter summaries, character sketches artistic interpretation, historical events
Symbols and themes, class discussion summaries

2 posts, had grading system

choose significant passages, scanned or digitally produced, depicted symbolism, generated discussion

students created a web site
students researched and vetted links
teacher can add as needed
basis of discussion

1st school in country to adopt book
fired an email to authors rep
any chance author would want to come and talk with us
she said yeah
showed author letter
wrote a long letter

parents online book club/web log  http://weblogs.hcrhs.k12nj.us/beesparents

parents read along with students and held their own discussion
similar issues with reading as kids:  time

opportunity to bring other voices into conversation
potential ways to bring people in to your classrooms

next year his journalism students will have a professional mentor to get into their space and give feedback

paperless class

talked about experiences of reticent student

effects of weblogs

reflection and debate
it creates a body of work where students can go back to
they either did it or didn‚t ˆ easy access
portfolio links, easy access

Katherine L. Schlick Noe, Ph.D.
Professor and Director of Literacy
School of Education
Seattle University
Seattle, Washington

Literature Circles
Blogs and Prompts

Opportunity for students to create meaning in collaboration with others
Amazingly powerful way for students to learn

In literature circles, students have the opportunity toΣ
Read good books
Picture books can be more powerful than chapter books

Talk about books
Write about books
Respond to books through the arts

How can teachers support students‚ learning where blogs are concerned?

Writing before discussion
Helps students think through what they want to talk about
Provides a way to think aloud on paper
Captures ideas inspired by what was read

Writing after discussion
Helps students synthesize the many ideas floating in the air
Provides multiple interpretations of text

So, what about writing as discussion
Every voice has equal weight
Barriers disappear
Invites thoughtful response

Tools for blogging can be the same as tools used for „in person‰ literature circle discussions

Simple prompts
I noticed, think, feel thought, if I could change, what if ,a connection is, my question is, I predit

Post-it notes
Golden lines
Just a quote ˆ find something beautifully put or something you disagree with, let‚s you start with something the author said

Build community norms for blogging just as you would for face-to-face discussion
List of quality discussions guidelines like
Good eye contact, etc.

Getting Started with Literature Circles and other books

Literature Circles in google ˆ comes up first

To put in teacher‚s hands what they need at the moment they need it ˆ her professional mission

Marion Holland

Copyright
Book covers

Good info at Educational CyberPlayground (http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/THE_LAW.html

She feels book cover use is fair use.

Creative Commons- attribution, noncommercial one
http://creativecommons.org

Tim uses Piles

Tim link to Harry Potter and Copyright Law ˆ talked about fan fiction

Asynchronous Participation

Live online chats
Authors/experts
Student comments
Biblioblogdom Project

Weblogs are good because students feel a virtual presence ˆ like with the author in Will‚s class
Awesome presence

7 middle school students are going to Seattle Children‚s Theatre: Shape of a Girl, the authors and others will be blogging with the girls

Avi
Breakfast Serials;  NIE
Seattle Times
Will be blogging

Future development

Productivity tools
Rss feed of student work

Evaluation tracking
Web based

Research

Allconsuming.net ˆ mentions top books

Richard Clark called for research on functional equivalent ˆ what is happening when you use these different tools. Do blogs do this?

Strategies to Empower Student Learning:  An Australian Perspective
Mark Dixon
Apollo Parkways Primary Schools in Victoria, Australia

This poster session had some incredible materials centering around Bloom‚s Taxonomy.  It highlights an inquiry learning process, from an Australian http://www.apolloparkps.vic.edu.au perspective that is set up to get kids engaged in their learning.  Here is the web site of the school.  http://www.apolloparkps.vic.edu.au

They had a book called Teaching Thinking Skills in the Primary Years.  I have to have it!  Here is the website for the book.  http://www.hbe.com.au  The guy told me that there were other good resources there.

They had some really good materials and you can be sure those kids are thinking!  I shared the little Bloom‚s Taxonomy flip book that I use all the time with students.  If anybody wants to know about that, I can provide info when I get back home.

Strong Voice for Youth 

Parafield Gardens High School: Kindergarten to Retirement, Japan and Australia

Straight from the handout:

This is a public school project that has been ongoing for four years.  It started as a Literacy project in 1999 and developed into a curriculum project.  They have a high Vietnamse population, I think he said 1/3 or more.  Students write the articles and produce video and QuickTime movies to go with their writings.  These students collaborate with primary children and aged care residents.

Their Technique:
Introductory discussion about what makes a good story and strategies to capture an audience.
* What‚s in a headline?  Focus on Joy or Fear or Anger or Sorrow
* Whats‚s in the lead?  Answers to who? What? When? Where? How? Why?

Students work in small groups choosing a topical issue for the school newspaper.  They plan key questions, conduct intervies, take photos and video, write the article, edit the movie and publish on the Intenet.  (use Claris HomePage)

The Teaching

They teach students that they are writing for a real audience.  Their articles can be read by people around the world, not just in the local community.
They encourage writing which is about events, celebrations and people.

Here are some resources they mentioned:
How to write for the Internet
http://www.pghs.sa.edu.au/dn1paper.htm
How to make a movie:
http://www.pghs.sa.edu/au/dn2manga.htm

I didn‚t have time to check this out but looks good. 

The students had also created some incredible Photoshop collages that they put in magazines.

I find Seattle to be a fascinating city.  Everywhere you go there are crowds of people, all with busy agendas going here and there.  I even found a Barnes & Noble right around the corner from the convention center.  Seattle’s a friendly place and I hope to get back here when I have lots more time!  Speaking of time, I haven’t even had time to catch my breath.  I have been blogging, but second-hand all day yesterday helping these great Georgia educators. Yesterday we had a station set up at the convention center and all the grant participants came there and began the process of blogging all they are learning.  It’s fun to read what they write and take a different perspective of all that’s going on.

So, I’m up early trying to catch up cause I promised Pam I would keep in touch with all of you who did not get to come to NECC this year.  I truly wish that Joe, Pam, Pat, Sarah, Terry and everyone else were here.  That would have been fantastic but you all have been in our thoughts and your ears should have burned last night because we were saying good things about all of you and what you are doing.  The EduBloggers meeting at the Rennaissance  capped the day. I can hardly express how it feels to meet people face-to-face whom you have been collaborating with all year.  Meeting Will and Tim  was great.  I also met a lot of the people who work with Tim  and got to know him yet again in another way. Also, I met Susie Boss from Intel.  She’s the one who wrote the stories about blogging on Intel’s Innovation Odyssey.  Ohhhhh, to have her writing skills!  I enjoyed every minute talking with her and meeting more of the Intel crew. They are a dynamic group and doing so many good things to focus on education and educators.  Talking to Thor from Clarity Innovations was really uplifting.  His company’s mission and vision gives me hope for the future.. It amazes me how the community continues to grow.  Last night was a mixture of people and it was great to talk and learn from all of them. Tim asked Will, Tim, and myself to talk about what we had done this year. The audience was most interested and asked great questions.  I think perhaps the toughest thing to explain was just what exactly is a weblog.  Defining it is so hard but I’ve decided that’s really a good thing.  It is a bag full of possiblilities and you can make it be whatever you want it to be.  It will not be pigeon-holed.  I don’t think you can really appreciate that until you get knee-deep in it.  Tim really put together a great evening.  Just listening to his teachers talk about him lets me see what a change agent he is for education..  Thanks Tim for a great get-together!  Of course, meeting Will was most special.  It’s a strange feeling meeting someone whom you feel you already know and the best part is liking him as much off-line as on-line.  What fun! 

I am going to include the sessions I have gotten to as stories that you can read if you choose.  They will be just my typed notes as I was listening to the presenter. I try to write as much as I can but do tend to use my own shorthand and punctuation gets put to the side.  I hope they make sense but just email me if you have questions.

Open Source
ESL
Higher Order Thinking Skills

  I’m finding it hard to squeeze in the time to do all I want to do . but my main focus is on the Georgia team we brought up here.  Be sure to read their posts at GeorgiaNECC2003Notes.

And EdWeblogs:NECC 2003

I’m writing this Tuesday AM.  I had hoped to get this out early but I was back helping the Georgia NECC team - what a hard-working, fantastic group we have here!  I’ll try to post more later…..