EduBlog Insights

This morning I invited Marcos to read my post on Inappropriate Comments = Teachable Moments. Marcos is one of my fifth grade students in  The Write Weblog  group.I asked him if he would like to blog about the matter. He said yes.  His  post  on the matter follows:

My Opinion About Weblogs

I have just finished reading Inappropriate Comments=  Teachable Moments posted by Mrs. Davis. It made me form an opinion about why weblogs should be allowed.

I think weblogs should be allowed in schools because it is part of our education. Weblogging has made me a better writer and thinker. Sometimes we get an inappropriate comment but that doesn’t slow us down. It is not the end of the world because someone has called you a bad name. You can’t stop that from happening. When we get an inappropriate comment we learn a lesson and that lesson is not to be like that person. We also learn responsibility on the Internet. If you were in a race and someone called you a bad name, would you stop? I think not. Martin Luther King Jr. was called bad names all the time and it didn’t stop him from fulfilling his dream.  Thinks like this happen all the time, even out of school. So, please don’t shut down weblogs.

Marcos needs to keep on blogging. He’s a good thinker and writer. Weblogs are helping in that area. Go check out his excellent blog, Marcos’ Seaworld of Facts.

An inappropriate comment has arrived on a student site. So……….

This is a teachable moment. It’s definitely not a moment to shut down blogs! It was a moment where I took immediate action. I deleted it. I happened to see it on the day it was posted so chances are I got there before others did. That’s not always the case. And that’s OK. Really, it is. Think about it. Can you protect your students from every inappropriate remark that might be said to them? No! But you can teach them that an inappropriate remark is not a reflection on their work buta reflection on some other person. We have an easy solution. We can just delete it and move on. We have other things to focus on, things that are more important and more worth our time. We educators are in a unique position of being able to give them excellent guidance. Let’s do that instead of worrying that an inappropriate comment is the end of the world. It’s not. It’s just a sad reflection of our times.Let’s work to change it. Sometimes when I see all the stuff that is posted on blogs by teenagers I find myself wishing that someone had given them some guidance. Lots of them are just not thinking. We need to build these types of things into our discussions in our classrooms. I like to think that good teaching about responsible weblog use would help. No, we can’t reach all but we won’t reach any if we keep burying our heads in the sand and keep worrying about what MIGHT happen.Weblogs give us a place to really responsible Internet use. We’re not going to have 100% success but that should not stop us from trying. We educators need to move on. Moving on, to me, is working together with my students to show the possibilities, the potential that weblogs can provide in our classrooms. It ties right in with what Will said today in his excellent post, Writing=Success, Blogs=Writing

Here’s an excerpt:

In the little spare time I have had today, I have spent it commenting to students on a weblog entitled “A Look at Bullying.” The tagline says “ESL students exploring an issue of consequence.”  This

is giving students a voice with the teacher on the side guiding the

conversation. We need more like this. Pick a good issue and get your

students involved. What a great use of weblogs! 
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elearnspace always provides such good, relevant information. Here are a few examples, out of many. He points us to Ourmedia.  An excerpt from the site:

Ourmedia’s

Then ‘Ourmedia’ points us to UndergroundMedia.org. They cite it as “a great compliment to this site since its goal is to empower people

These sites will be worth following, for sure.

elearnspace also points us to the Washington Post article, “Blogging Clicks with Colleges.”  My favorite two paragraphs from the article:

“It’s more power to the student,” said junior John

Students in sophomore Craig Kessler’s English class

George Siemens is an instructor at Red River College in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He has one of the best About pages around.Consider subscribing to his   twice-weekly elearning newsletter. It’s terrific! Have you noticed lately how many good bloggers are from Canada?

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The best part of my days is when I have time to step into a colleague’s classroom via weblogs! Sharing the learning and the knowledge via weblogs is so cool. I came across a student group weblog, PingWillauerKayaks. The students are part of an Outward Bound middle school on Thompson Island in Boston Harbor. This group of 8th graders are keeping a record of their learning journey and we get an up close and personal look. They are building four kayaks and plan to auction them off at an-end-of-the year fundraiser.

Isn’t it wonderful that we can get glimpses of classrooms in such a manner?  I wish I could have had such a view of my own childrens’ learning. I can only imagine what will continue to develop. I love finding weblogs where the students are involved.This blog is a part of the Ping Network and the Otter Group. 

An excerpt about Ping Networks:
Ping Networks builds and manages blog networks that transform groups into better, faster, and smarter bottom-up, peer-based communities of interest and practice. A Ping Network is made up of weblogs aggregated into a blog portal. Ping Networks are built on Pingwareÿ, hosted blogging software that offers each community a unique interface with custom designs, features, and information tailored to its needs, interests, and processes.

An excerpt about the Otter Group:

The Otter Group builds and manages online learning programs and online communities for businesses, associations, and hobbyist networks.

    Today on Innovation Odyssey they are rerunning “A Place to Be Heard: Elementary writers learn to love their weblogs.”

Weblogging to Success features Helen Turnbull’s middle school students blossomed as writers through a class weblog.

We need to form ‘Blog Fellows’. Now wouldn’t that be awesome?

  Will posts

protection given to bloggers under the media exemption rule. See his post. I ditto his request!  Join in to petition FEC chairman Scott Thomas. I  urge you to sign the petition and tell others about this. It’s important that we protect the freedoms we now enjoy on the Internet!
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I’m at J. H. House now and just finishing the session with the fifth graders. These kids are terrific. Patrick spent all week composing a response to the people who made encouraging responses to his previous post. It is heart-warming. I am so proud of him. See his post, “My Thank You.”

Hillary and I are on our way over to a local high school to meet with a few instructional technology specialists and some Spanish teachers who are interested in blogging. One of the ITS’s also teaches a math class. I can’t wait to show him the Pre-Cal 40S blog. Anyone know of good samples for Spanish teachers?

Good directions from Geoff Harder at The Blog Driver’s Waltz (BDW) on how to subscribe to an email  list (listserv) using Bloglines .  Thanks, Geoff!

I am spending the day trying to update my Weblogs: The Possibilities Are Limitless! site.

I won’t get it done because browsing through all these links I’ve

collected over the past year is taking me on too many interesting 

trips!

Also, came across this article, Melding the past, future of education, which is worth a read and a post but I gotta get back to my task!

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Mrs. Roper, the PE teacher at J. H. House read the Blooming Bloggers weblogs. Here’s a peek at part of her first blog:

I am embarking on this cyberspace adventure because to the JHH Blooming Bloggers.  This group of remarkable students let me have a sneak peek at blogs detailing their favorite sports.  My love of sports and their fascinating blogs were a perfect match.  Making

blogging experience ~ the students responding to my comments.  Now I am hooked!

My goal is to get this blog in shape.  Along the way I will address issues concerning health, fitness and P.E. happenings.  Let the adventure beginΣ 

Go read Get Your Blog in Shape!

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