EduBlog Insights

references and quotes. I love when the talk is about writing. And I

love the learning, the shaping and reshaping of ideas, and the

think-rethink process that weblogs encourage. Writing/blogging really

does benefit learning. We need to encourage, cheer our students on and

work at releasing them from trying to write for us or for a grade.

Their personalities and thoughts can come through and wow, think of all

the learning there for us!

I hope more educators will get their students blogging and open that

blogging up to the public so that it begins to be perceived as a

powerful medium for thinking. That’s the heart of writing/blogging.

me about two new blogs that I know will be great. One if from

Kindergarten and one if from the Art teacher (whom I have asked to

create one for the last couple of years). She told me no time so I am

so excited that she is making the time now! Both these teachers do

incredible things with kids. Check out Dugas’ Doghouse and ARTopia - Honor Your Creativity. Mrs. Anthos’ first post tells why her blog is called ARTopia.

Dotty

Lynch of CBS News makes predictions on 10 summer stories that will

still have legs in the fall: One of these predictions was on the staying power of blogs. Here’s the excerpt on blogs:

published back in August. She is

going  take at look at this list in a few months to see what she

missed and just how strong those legs turned out to be. I don’t know if

she has followed up on the story yet but I’ll be on the lookout for it.

Primary in Glasgow, Scotland. The students celebrated National Poetry

day 2005 by writing a Keepers Poem. The poem was inspired by The

Keepers Poetry Project which is inspired by the original Keepers poem

by Phil Whitehead. John Johnston is the teacher who put this incredible

project together. These children are in primary 2 to 7. They wrote 150 verses, blogged them and then

created the podcast. John writes a most helpful description of the

project here. He offers his suggestions and thoughts. Ewan posts about it here and

proclaims it “A real success that can be emulated in any school.” I

couldn’t agree more.

Having both the blogs and the podcast is a dynamite combination. I love

this type of engagement by the students. I was spellbound as I listened

to their beautiful voices. What a powerful way to bring poetry into

their lives and their reader’s lives. Then as I was reading through the

blog, this comment from Phil Whitehead:

Now that just tops it off! Great work from our fellow educators in

Scotland! You just know this teacher is fostering the love of reading,

When asked how blogging has changed their professional lives, answers

ranged from it helping one get a job, to opportunity for a lot of

speaking engagements and training and publishing opportunities,

learning what works and what doesn’t and being able to share about real

life at the reference desk.

When an inquiry was made about a code of ethics all responded in the

affirmitive. Getting facts straight, having a clear editorial process,

deciding what does and does not go into a blog, and just simply being

responsible. One mentioned how the code was negotiated as they went

along but it was something they think about all the time. I think that

is an interesting point because I believe a lot of us are doing that.

It’s not clear cut in some instances. One phrased it as playing nice.

They’re not going to make derogatory statements against fellow

co-workeres in their workplace. They have to be concerned about the

property of their clients.

They honed in on blogs and print journalism which led to the need to

have the conversation be more two-way. The need for permanent links to

content was stressed.

Having a mission statement, spell-checking, being passionate, original

content, updating and keeping content fresh, and being connected to

things of interest were some of the things listed as making a blog

good. The point was made that different blogs serve different functions

so it might be difficult to generalize.

The bloggers and the authors blogs are listed in the article. You need

to read the whole article. I followed  the

listed blogs. From all the resulting conversations, you can tell what an inspiring conversation it was to many

involved and those who are reading about it. I can see I need to add

blog is really doing a great job of covering any and all information

concerning schools and the hurricane relief effort as well as many other

relevant educational topics. Add it to your list of must-reads!

The highlight was the add-on that said “They need blogs!” The”they”,,,,….none other than our students! Hear! Hear! ! Here’s the add-on:

Will’s upcoming book mentioned. I shall be first in line to purchase an