EduBlog Insights

I’m back in the K12 Online 2007 Conference sessions. My day started off listening to Brian Crosby’s keynote, “The Why’s and Wherefores.” It was awesome! Of course I loved hearing and seeing the fifth graders as that age is the group that I have done most of my blogging projects with and they are the best!

He zeroed in on some new and engaging ways to use the tools of blogging, digital video, online video conferencing, wikis, and Flickr.

He pointed out the lack of audience or having reasons for students to think critically about their work as one obstacle in our classrooms. Also the lack of voice for student concerns and opinions was another obstacle. Blogging lets students share their work and get feedback. They get heard. They are amazed at how many others are reading their work and this gives them a new sense of ownership that challenges them to improve. I like the way he put it so let’s spread the word! I’ve seen that myself over and over and it is empowering for learners. I couldn’t agree more.

I love what he said here:

The kicker is the feedback they can receive about their thinking. Having them blog stories and poems is a powerful tool but what if you have your kids write about their understanding of a topic in reading or science or math or history or a current event or even a field trip or investigation. Now others can question them and force them to think deeper and support their thinking. What a great opportunity to teach students about the ethics and civility required in questioning and discussing the topic with others.

and there’s more….

If motivating the students to write and care about their writing is an obstacle for you, blogging just might be the thing you’re looking for.

Next Brian focused on the higher learning skills like designing, editing, and analyzing that the media of digital video affords. His slant on the importance of creativity is crucial and he points us the Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on creativity. Don’t miss that!

What I liked best about this presentation is how the student work was front and center. He showed great examples and explained one evaluation part where students had to have another studentwho was not directly involved with their movie help evaluate it. Students were to get feedback from them on their understanding as they plowed through each clip of the movie. That’s putting the students into their own evaluating and learning frame. Be sure to check out his students’ work. It’s inspiring.

His use of Skype to make Celeste, a leukemia student an integral part of class is yet another example of his using the tools to make a difference. It is inspiring.

His use of wikis and Flickr to create community service projects not only enhances their learning but puts them on the path of becoming life-long learners. What could be better?

Brian ends with this thought provoking question:

What obstacles can you and your students overcome with these new tools?

Thanks Brian for such a thoughtful and inspiring presentation.

I have pushed everything to the side and I am determined to spend some time on K12 Online 07 this week. What a joy! Many have taken off for the holidays and we have a little down time. The research is on hold until the beginning of December so I am surfacing for a bit.

I selected Karen Richardson’s presentation “Crossing the Copyright Boundary in the Digital Age”. She starts off with a video giving a clear and concise overview of the contents of her wiki. The wiki includes a humorous yet very informative spoof of copyright by Eric Faden that includes a series of clips from Disney movies. Then she includes a copyright quiz by Hall Davidson that will let you know your own understanding of copyright laws. Then it moves into a great introduction to Creative Commons. You see a movie and this link will take you directly to a search engine to find Creative Commons licensed materials. The next part gives you a tour of places you can find copyright-friendly materials like Wikimedia Commons and Internet Archive. Then she moves into open education resources commons like Yellowstone National Park, National Archives website, and the Library of Congress. I have been spending lots of time on all these sites this morning - it is a terrific resource. Go follow her links to see all the resources.

Karen has created a dynamic resource that will be so helpful to all of us. These are a “must-see” for all educators. Thanks Karen for providing such a timely presentation. I know I will be using it a lot with students and other educators!

Photo credit: joy from Tigr’s Photos

I have been in so many new and different learning environments over the past 5 years and I have to say that it is an incredible journey. I still can remember the day I was introduced to blogs back in January of 2002. I remember thinking hmmm, this has possiblilities. I wonder how I could use these to get kids involved more in writing. Little did I know then how life-changing this journey would be.

I am currently working every moment we can schedule with Ewa McGrail, the professor here at Georgia State University on all the research data we compiled from the project last year. It is incredible the amount of data we have. We have submitted one article already, have lots more to work on. We are currently working on a book chapter. It takes a tremendous amount  of time and heavy thinking  as we analyze the data, continue transcribing and searching through the materials, the interviews, the podcasts, and many other records. Writing is grueling because you want to be so thorough and get the words right to capture the moments and truly portray what happened. Again I am learning so much and just processing all that is quite a lot. Sometimes I have to just step back, catch my breath, and say yes we can get this right. Ewa is teaching me a lot and great to work with as we try to schedule as many moments together as we can. That’s the other part - getting our schedules to work together when we both already have lots else going on at the same time. We both have it as a high priority and would love to be able to have this part full time but that’s not the real world, right? I still struggle with just what is OK to blog about and what is not. Anyway I just wanted to let you know why I am so “absent” from blogging lately. I am thankful I could be a part of something like this. We need more research in this area. As I cull through other research I am amazed at what I am finding that somehow escaped me before. As I said the learning part is absolutely awesome. I will get back to my normal blogging in time but right now it’s just too much.

Found this link from MediaWeek via PJ Net:

As news organizations slash budgets and scale back bureaus, CNN is expanding—except not in real life. 

In the week of Nov. 5, the news giant is set to open a news-gathering outpost in Second Life. And unlike news service Reuters, which embedded a real reporter in the online virtual world last year, CNN will rely on Second Life “residents” to do all the legwork.

And the network will act as a sort of journalism school, offering guidance to avatar citizen journalists via weekly “news meetings” directed by CNN.com staffers. 

This will be interesting to follow….

I just got back from a week long trip to Dallas to connect with family members that I had not seen for quite some time. It was wonderful to connect with them once again but I missed the opening of the K12 Online Conference. Of course I knew that it would be there “always’ due to the diligent work of Darren, Lani, Sheryl, and Wes. Boy do we owe them a round of applause!

I started with Clarence Fisher’s “Classroom 2.0 Keynote”. What a way to return to work! Clarence has a warm, personal way of communicating and I loved roaming through his town, school, classroom, home and the inviting outside environment. His keynote was outstanding and so on target for the things we need to be thinking about aspects that we need to be considering and working on regarding our concepts of Classroom 2.0.

Clarence talked about meeting the challenge head-on and redefining what happens in classrooms.

Points Clarence made that are crucial:

• Pedagogy is the most important thing to think about. It is in teaching. We have to change the way we teach. If we continue to teach kids to memorize, to spit information back out at us, we are not helping anyone. We are not solving any of the world’s problems and we certainly are not helping them get a job with someone who wants them to think creatively and differently. We need to look at how we teach.
• The second thing is tools. It’s not just any tool but it is about tools that promote collaboration that make it easy for kids to talk to each other, to exchange ideas and viewpoints, and make it easy for them to make connections on their ideas about learning. So let’s get the focus on there.
• Another important factor is the relationship we have to information.
• We want them to see themselves as legitimate creators of information, who are questioners of information, who are able to see if things are real, to tell truth from fiction, and see bias and viewpoint. To be a good citizen is what is important and to be a good thinker no matter where you live.
  
• Most of us have a mandated curriculum. Obviously we need to teach it but our relationship to that curriculum and what is in that curriculum needs to undergo constant change. We need to be constantly looking at it and trying to decide what is it that is important. What do kinds need?
• The most important thing that needs to change when we think about changing classrooms is our attitude toward classrooms and towards education and not only us but really society’s attitude toward education.

Clarence went on to talk about technology assessments and what is important there. He says we really need a way to track kids’ activities in classrooms. Then we can adjust our practices in classrooms.

His keynote was inspiring. Don’t miss it! Thanks Clarence for making a difference!

Here is the link to the K12 Online Conference Schedule. Share it with your colleagues! This conference is the best! I can’t wait to enjoy and learn from more of the sessions.

I started my day reading a post from Erica, a fifth grader.

why there is too much violence in the world. There are bad people in the world. Why the bad people do bad things to the world?  Why do people have to fight?

Tough question but one that merits answers. Here’s mine:

Erica,

You ask questions that are very hard to answer but I want you to know that I ask the same questions myself. It is so hard to understand why there is so much violence in the world. One thing I want you to know is that each day millions of children go to school and go to bed and their lives are full of happy and good things. All the good things that go on in the world go on without making headlines in the news. I wish we would hear more about those good things that are happening. These bad things do happen though. That’s why we have police, jails and laws to protect us from these bad people. I do wish that we could find ways to solve differences by other means than fighting (like in wars).  One thing we can do is always stand up for what is right when we see bad things happen. I think if we try to help others and know that one person can make a difference.  You are doing that now by asking these questions.You are making us think. I also like the way you signed your post with love. We need more love in the world! We will all work together to make a difference!

Love,

Mrs. Davis

I’m reminded once again about the importance of commenting. Hmmm, I’m going to double my efforts there, especially with our students. We can make a difference…..

Lani tagged me with a new blog meme to help us spread the word about the upcoming K12Online07 conference. Here’s the meme:

Please share either three (3) reasons to participate based on your experience from last year or (if you didn’t attend last year) three (3) things you hope to gain from the experience this year.

Now this is an easy meme. I could go on and on but this time I’ll follow the rules!

Clarence Fisher

Kevin Jarrett

Nancy McKeand

Bud Hunt

Steve Dembo

Robin Emmert

Hillary Meeler

Mary Ann Ricketson

And I second Lani’s thought “And anyone else who would like to help us spread the word… tag you are it.”

Bud pointed to a new article, Linkin’ (B)logs: A New Literacy of Hyperlinks, in the English Journal column “New Voices” by Tiffany J. Hunt and Bud Hunt. They are the column editors for the EJ column. It is a terrific article speaking about the read/write Web  in this participatory culture. The article posts about the obstacle of filtering and how it “blocks” us. I really like reading the story of Bud’s learning from blogging and the community of readers and writers he has met along the way. I identify with that and also with the teaching of blogging being hard. It is the building of a different type of community and this article helps us define the literacy development better. It is so encouraging to me to see this quality of writing about the learning with students. We need more articles where work with students is shared.
Bud shares on his teacher blog how he encourages students to focus on writing three kinds of posts: research-related posts, speech-class content posts, and classmate-related posts. He provides a detailed description of each post type in the article. I like how he tells the students that they are free to write about whatever they wish that’s relevant to their course.

Kudos to Tiffany Hunt and Bud Hunt for sharing their good work! I look forward to reading more.

I read Karl Fisch’s post about What Matters? with great interest. I think Karl and his group of teachers are really doing a fantastic job with their students. We need to hear more about what is going on with our students. I recently skyped with Karl and Anne Smith. It was great to connect and talk possibilities. Anne Smith has the most amazing blogs. I have poured over them and I think the thing I like the best is the way she includes her students in the reflecting and thinking process. It is front and center and the focus is always on the students. Anne says:

I am just having a difficult time trying to find the line between feeling like I am leading them to the answer I am looking for (i.e. my what matters example) and having them struggle to find their own understanding - what I feel like they should be looking for.”

That really resonates with me. I have exactly the same feeling when I work with my elementary students and push them to reflect about their own learnings. It is not something they are used to doing. Also getting them to be risk-takers and not focus on what the teacher wants with their answers but instead what do they want? What do they think would work? I think it is a scary process at first for the students. Yet I believe with all my heart that if we worked at getting more responses from them, help then learn how to write reflectively and honestly, and give them opportunities to do this frequently…..we would all learn much that would help us in this journey. They need to be in on these types of conversations. And what better place to have these conversations than on blogs!

I am working with a language arts teacher, Mary Ann, who is just beginning to blog. She has read through Anne’s blogs and I can just see the light bulbs going off in her head. See her first two posts, Water, Water, Everywhere! and Say it in your own words! Great posts for a beginner, right? She is still pouring through Anne’s blogs and those light bulbs keep flashing! I know we will be starting Mary Ann’s students out on some type of “What Matters?” post. What a model from which to learn! (Thank you Anne!)

Tomorrow I go back to the school. As usual, I can’t wait!

I know, I know, I am a day late with this post in recognition of BlogDay but hey, as they say , “better late than never!” I actually did start it yesterday so I’ll just look at it as finishing up today! Here goes!
I like the idea of recommending other blogs. That’s something I do a lot of anyway. So today I thought I’d recommend some of the blogs I read that I find intriguing for reasons other than my usual focus on kids in the classroom who are involved with blogging. These blogs are ones I thoroughly enjoy for a variety of reasons. You can’t go wrong adding any of them to your current reads.

blethers - The author of this blog is Christine McIntosh from Dunoon, Argyll, United Kingdom. She describes herself as a former English teacher on the loose. She is quite a writer and has a quick wit and blogs about so many interesting things that are not always on my radar. I learn a lot. In addition she is a photographer with an eye for unique shots. Her pictures have been the focus of many of my students’ creative writing ventures. They love her pictures, as I do.Here’s a great bonus for you on this recogniton of Chris as a fine blogger - she has two sons who have great blogs too. (Okay, boys thank your good mother who you know deserves a lot of credit for your good works!) Ewan McIntosh’s edu.blogs.com and Neil McIntosh’s Complete Tosh are excellent blogs.

I love the concept of this blog. Here and There Japan is written by a former English and reading teacher in the United States, Malaysia, and Japan. She spends her time taking pictures and writing about things they see, use, and do in their daily life in Japan. Her tagline says “snapshots of life in Japan, written especially for kids. It is a delightful blog and one that my elementary students and myself have spent lots of moments enjoying as we read, and view the fascinating pictures. I wish others would make similar blogs. Think how much we could learn about different countries and the journey is so much fun! So consider doing something like this for your country. She also screens her comments and welcomes them but wants to make sure they are kid-friendly so that is a great feature as you can be sure that all is “kid-safe”. Links are also provided to favorite children’s books about Japan.

goldengod iis a blog I came across when I was searching for images. The author is Andrew Ferguson who is a Vancouver photographer. His blog is chocked full of wonderful information and tips on photography. My hope one day is to have time to give to learning more about photography,I really enjoy his posts. They are inspiring. His style of writing appeals to me and I am learning a lot. He lists his top photography blog posts on his side bar. One of my all time favorites is “How to Find Great Free Photos”. I posted about that before here but I continue to find on his blog what I consider to be some of the best tips on the web about photography. Go add this blog to your reading list.

Things My Kids Say is a blog that makes me laugh and it is guaranteed to put me in a good mood for the day. It will touch your heart. This sleep-deprived mother of four from Los Angeles, CA shares pictures and moments from her family’s life. Here are a couple of my favorites, The trash truck is coming! and But I’m not tired!!!. We all have had those moments around our home where the humor and love makes it all so worthwhile. It is really neat to have a peek inside the lives of others who are sharing such good, warm family moments. Plus what a great model for other families to see. I have to disclose here that this blog is from my cousin’s family. I have never met my cousin’s wife f2f but through this blog I feel I know each family member. Now that is really cool, don’t you think? Thanks “sleep-deprived” for sharing those precious and those hysterical moments of your day! I love it!

My final blog is Word. This is the official blog of READ and WRITING magazines and it is just so appealing. It is a literary blog that has lots of writing tips, book reviews, and other tidbits of information. They just celebrated their second birthday. Word also has a My Space page. There are so many good posts on this blog and they lead to lively discussions in our classrooms. The blog features many different authors. I like the clever titles and the variety of subjects. They feature student writing- fiction, non-fiction, and poetry! It includes a spot to submit student writing. I think this is one of the few, if not the only, commercial blogs I have in my aggregator. It’s well worth taking a look.