EduBlog Insights

I like this site, 10 stories the world needs to know about. What a worthwhile thing to get students blogging about.

Excerpts from the site:

This list includes a number of humanitarian emergencies, as well as conflict or post-conflict situations and spans other matters of concern to the United Nations, although it is far from embracing all of the many issues before the Organization.

The stories are not ones that have never been reported, but are often second-rung issues that need more thorough, balanced and regular attention. 

The launch took place on the eve of the World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, with the goal of the initiative to engage with the media in bringing attention to critical issues.

Some of the topics of the stories are child soldiers in Uganda, persons with disabilities, the peacekeeping paradox, overfishing, and women as peacemakers: from victims to re-builders of a society.

This could be a start and then students could be guided to begin researching issues that they think need to be included. You could take it to the national, state, local or even school level. Make it relevant to their lives. This could even be a school wide focus. I think I may have a project for next year. Hmmmmm…..

Peter Ford points us to an exemplary weblog project award. He complements Julie Lindsay and the Grade 8 students at the International School Dhaka who won the Environmental Awareness section of the International Schools’ Cyberfair. I had just recently met Julie on the NECC discussion board and had already written this to her:

Congratulations to Julie & her students!

I just finished browsing the weblog site and I am impressed with the thoroughness of the project, how well layed out the project is, and how much work the students put into it. You should be so proud! I learned a lot about Bangladesh. It’s an awesome and informative site. Thanks for sharing!

Your portfolio site is terrific, too! Keep up the great work!

When I found out that she was working with Peter, I really got excited. I wrote this to Julie:

It’s exciting to hear you are working with Peter Ford. He is the best! I loved what he did with his students. He has the right philosophy about weblogs and centers everything around the writing and the students. I wish we had someone like Peter here in the states but if we do, I am unaware of it.

Julie is going to NECC and will be presenting in the Global Gallery. Be sure to check out the Digital Portfolio Weblog, as well. It’s top notch. As Peter says, Why not leave them a congratulatory comment? I think that’s a great idea! Hop over to the weblog right now! Then follow that up by joining in on the NECC Blackboard Online Forum . Create an account, find the Distance Learning Forum, click on the Discussion Board and the DL Cyber Cafe will lead you to the weblog discussion. You need to  sharing some of the good things you are doing.

The June issue of Wired lists the top 40 whom they consider “masters of innovation, technology, and strategic vision - 40 companies driving the global economy.”

It includes a Done & To do list for each one. Interesting reading….

Atlanta paper-

“Firefighters battle a massive fire in a chemical warehouse at Bio Lab, Inc., in Conyers, Ga., on Tuesday, May 25, 2004. The company makes chemicals for pools and spas as well as products for cleaning homes. The fire broke set off multiple explosions and promptedhundreds of residents to evacuate.”

Local paper-

“Traffic on Interstate 20 West is diverted onto Salem Road around a massive fire in a chemical warehouse in Conyers, Ga., on Tuesday, May 25, 2004. Rockdale County residents were being ordered to evacuate their homes and the State Department of Transportation closed parts of Interstate 20 and all roads leading into the area. A fire was reported at 5 a.m. at Bio Lab, Inc., which makes chemicals for pools and spas, as well as products for cleaning homes. There was no immediate report of injuries.”

This was really eerie coming in to work. I must have hit the expressway right before they starting diverting traffic. This is my home exit pictured here. The cloud was parellel with me for about 3 exits and I just wanted to get past it. It kept edging over towards us and it was huge.  I did not want it to settle over my car and the other cars on the expressway.

My mind kept flashing back to 9-11 and thinking how awful this looked but knowing that there was absolutely no comparison to the aftermath of that day for New Yorkers. It brought back many sad thoughts and reflections on that terrible day. Really makes you pause and think……

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I came across an article today entitled “Theoretical and Practical Applications of Emergent Technology in ELT Classrooms; How the ‘Blog’ Can Change English Language Teaching” presented at “The 4th International Symposium on ELT in China.” (all in Chinese). The author is Mr. W. Jason Reagin, MEd. who teaches at Suzhou Singapore International School.  He discusses current practices for reading and writing in the ELT setting and the use of blogs in the ELT classroom. Her has a list of benefits, limitations and possible fixes, among other things. He has many benefits but one stuck me - “It creates a forum for the learner to be an individual.” That’s so true. I have really seen that with the ESL students I’ve worked with this year. He goes into the “ins and outs” of blogging. It’s good to see this being presented in the ELT arena.  The author has a blog called My blogging experiment with a tagline Where China, ESL Teaching & Technology come together. In his blog he posts, “As I think and plan for next school year (September 2004) I am thinking of ways to integrate BLOGS into my schedule of English, Social Studies, and Science classes. Any suggestion?” 

Do I! Here goes!

Question/Answer/Aha! Blog - After reading or discussing content, students could post questions, answers to others’ questions, and Aha’s! explaining how light bulbs came on from learning something previously unknown.

Current Events Blog - Blog about events in the news by writing comments, opinions, or questions and make connections to what they are learning in the class.

Idioms Blog - Have a class blog where sentences using idioms are displayed. The sentences can revolve around what they are learning in class. Then students can use the idiom in a sentence in the comments section.

Portfolio Blog - Students can create an ongoing portfolio of samples of their writing where they showecase their best pieces of writing.

Letters Home Blog - Students can use blogs to write letters home or to friends to discuss what they are learning in class.

Caption It Blog - Post photos and make captions or write a brief paragraph about it. They could relate to your content area.

Reflections Blog - Students can use blogs to recall, think about, and articulate what they have learned; connect new information to the known; and express their own thoughts.and feelings about topics.

OK, anyone up for adding to this list?

The Maricopa Learning Exchange is another site I love. I think I have mentioned it before. It is an electronic warehouse of ideas, examples, and resources (featured as packing slips- like that concept too) that support student learning at the Maricopa Community Colleges. Recently this package came to the warehouse, Service Learning and Civic Participation. Roselyn Turner from Estrella Mountain Community College contributed the package. These community colleges are really doing good things.The goals for the assignment are critical thinking skills, communication skills, focus on the globe as the community, activism during the course and lifelong activism. As I read it I kept thinking that something like this is just made to order for students on blogs. You could adapt it a little and it would be great to use as a springboard for writing on blogs. Let’s get our students tacking issues of the world!

I always find the most interesting materials from MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) Today Susan Sermoneta pointed to Tomorrow’s Professor List-Serve. It contains links to past 561 articles (as of 5/04) sent out 100 times a year - on teaching, much of it on e-teaching. The author is Rick Reis. There are lots of good articles that have to do with education/teaching and technology/best practices.

MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Links to online learning materials are collected here along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments.

I needed a good pick-me-up for Monday morning. Natalie d’Arbeloff from the Blog Herald provided it with her Addicted to Blogging article.

This above graphic she created is cool. Check out Natalie’s weblog BLAUGUSTINE. It’s HER cartoon alter ego and it’s good.

<via> cogdogblog

Alan posts about an excellent chart for comparison shopping for blogware. The chart  gives attributes of different user-installed blog software packages.