blogginggroup

=BLOGS-What are they and how can we use them?=

A blog is basically an online journal. It allows anyone to publish information on the Internet. Blogs (a shortening of weB LOG), have become a way to publish thoughts, ideas, news, announcements, observations, pictures, videos, etc. Blogs can be a collaborative tool that allows the author to have a meaningful and thoughtful engagement with ideas and immediate feedback from a global community. For students, blogs can help them become better writers because they are writing with a purpose, to a real audience, and receiving immediate feedback.

Check out this introduction to blogs. (Click on the arrow keys at the bottom to go through the slideshow). media type="custom" key="9577776"

Blogs can be used as a collaborative tool.
 * Discussion between student-teacher-peers (the dashboard allows you to separate teacher comments from students comments)
 * Posts and comments can be e-mailed to a Blog (it's an option on Blogger) This allows anyone, at anytime, to comment or post
 * Edit, comment, and reflect on other's writing or work
 * Share pictures, video, writing

There are many ways that Blogs can be used educationally.
 * Use blog for a bookstudy. Students read books and blog reflections.
 * Use blogs for an online debate
 * Use blogs to post observations during a science experiment
 * Use blogs to create a photo essay
 * Use blogs to keep an online journal
 * Use blogs to answer teacher posed questions
 * Use blogs to develop a piece of written work
 * Use blogs as a discussion group
 * Create e-portfolios
 * Use blogs to document school trips
 * Document and showcase student's work

Blogging websites that are great for educators and/or kids include Edublogs, Bloglines (this is an aggregator, but allows you to see who else has subscribed to a blog), Blogger, Weebly, Bloki, and Kidswirl. Here is a [|slideshow] that introduces the viewer to 10 ways Edublog can be used in the classroom.

A blog can be used to host a web-based lesson. It holds pictures and videos and text. But, it can also be used as a collaborative tool where discussions are held or information is given and responded to.

Check out how this [|blog] was used in a geography classroom.

Jessica- Very well organized. You included a good bit of info and I like that you embeded a widget already! Ambitious. Jen--Question for you. . .is there a way to comment back to someone who comments on your blog. For example, if I comment on someone's blog, it comes up as a comment box at the bottom. Let's say 5 other people comment too, but the blog writer wants to reply to my specific comment. Is there a way to do that without just adding another comment box at the bottom of the list? Good question Jen. I don't think there is a way to do this. I usually put the "@" sign and the person's name I am responding to. (Dr. Fritz)

Karen - Good information. I still have trouble differentiating between a blog and a wiki. They seem to share many of the same capabilities, and many of the educational uses are similar to ones that I had seen for a wiki. I think the main difference is that a blog is chronological, with the newest posts showing up first, whereas a wiki can be structured however the user decides. Is that true? Can anyone verify this or describe the real difference between the two to me? Karen, the other big difference is that the owner of the blog is the only one who can edit the material on the blog itself. The readers of the blog can only comment....and they can't edit the comments, etc. With a wiki, it can be set up so that both the users and the owner of the wiki can edit ALL of the material. It can also be set up with restrictions so that the users can only read the material and don't have rights to access it.The wiki can be structured however the user decides!! (Dr. Fritz)

**Other Blogging-Type tools for the Web** **﻿﻿** There are some other Web 2.0 tools that are not blogs. As teachers, there is some discomfort with blogging, after all there was a teacher fired for the content of her blog earlier this school year (it was all over the news, but just in case, here's a link: [|Bucks Co. Teacher Suspended Over Blog About Students]). After doing the research provided, I felt it might be useful to look up some other tools that might be able to allow students to collaborate as they would on a blog, but with the safety net of it being completely privat (keep in mind that blogs can also be made private).

As mentioned earlier, a blog is a We**b Log** that is used to share information in various forms of media. Google Docs is different from a blog, in that it allows for the private, invitation only collaboration on multiple projects. It is not only a tool for conversation, but a tool for creation. In a blog, people share ideas, videos, and links. In a Google Doc, people can share ideas, videos, and links, but they can also collaboratively edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and they can do it live.
 * Google Docs **

Here is a link to the Google Docs "channel" on YouTube - it has tutorial videos that can introduce you to Google Docs and how to use the various tools within Google Docs. The most interesting thing about Google Docs is that you can perform a live chat as you edit a document or create a new one. Google Docs has the capability to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings and flowcharts. Entire projects can be created online. I was particularly impressed by the ability to create original graphics online (check out this video):

media type="youtube" key="zApehuekC-M" height="349" width="560"

How can this be used as a collaborative tool? //Students can begin projects in class, upload them to Google Docs, and then work together from home. There would be no more logistics issues with getting together to plan a presentation. One student can work when he/she is available, and another can view their edits at a different time and continue their work. Students can also choose a time to work together online (like we did with the Adobe online meeting). The educational possibilities for students to collaborate on projects is endless.//

Advantages / Disadvantages: //The advantage of Google Docs is its live capability. The conversation can be "two way" in real time, where a blog requires time for a response to be posted and someone to hopefully respond. The disadvantage is that a Google Doc does not "grow" the way a blog can. Blogs, because they are public, can be viewed by anyone in the world, which can invite a variety of interesting responses. Google Docs uses e-mail addresses to invite others to the collaboration, and thus will never become public until a work is completed.//

I have used Google Docs to create an online learning experience for my students. I collected a list of links in a word document, and then I took my students to the computer lab to explore the links as an online review for our test. The problem I had was that most of my class was absent that day (junior class trip). So, I uploaded the document to Google Docs, and sent an e-mail invitation to my students parents, giving them instructions on how to sign up for Google Docs and view the document online. That was two years ago. Now, the review is an online assignment, and I require my students to add links that they find useful to the review. It helps my students to review, and it helps me to find more quality websites for class.

This link will take you to a list of examples of gadgets created in Google Docs. The following link is an example of how Google Docs (specifically spreadsheets) was used to create an incredible, interactive graph of how unemployment has changed from state to state, or with population. You can click on the state you want to see, or change the horizontal axis of the graph. Clicking the play button will take you through the data as time progresses.

I researched this because I had the same question as Karen did...what's the difference?
 * Wikis **

A blog consists of journal entires in reverse chronological order. People can make comments, but cannot change the author's original text. In a wiki, there are no comments, only edits. One author may write something, but anyone can edit their work. Entires are not presented in any particular order (except according to the tastes of the authors). Both blogs and wikis can be made public or private.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Below is a video about how to create a WikiSpace <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">media type="youtube" key="rKqU9RATAic" height="349" width="425"

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">The purpose of a Wiki is to help others learn about topics they may not otherwise know about. This is different from a blog beacuse blogs to not require an educational purpose. Just as some people create an online scavenger hunt and call it a webquest, some people do create wikis that are more like blogs than wikis, but the primary purpose is to share knowledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">The collaborative and educational applications of a wiki are obvious (we have been using one for this entire course).


 * About Growing Your Blogs**

Some of the research we were asked to do about blogging related to the work of Glogowski. Glogowski does a lot of work with his eight grades students on blogging. He works to make his students thoughtful, egaged readers and learners, rather than passive recievers of information. The examples he uses are from his own eight grade class, and it is interesting to see the connections students are able to make between current social problems and what they are studying in class.

Glogowski's student blogs consist of some basic ideas:


 * 1) Students are to blog for the entire school year.
 * 2) Blog goals are NOT determined by the instructor, but instead by the students.
 * 3) Students determine the content and frequency of posting.

Glogowski has had some success with this, though there are some learning difficulties tied into it. Students are not used to such long term learning goals, or having so much freedom with choosing their content. Glogowski encourages his students to "Grow their Blogs" and now gives them a worksheet to lay out their thoughts for how they will do this. Click here to download this form from Scribd. The form asks the students some basic questions using the metaphor of growing a flower. In filling out the form and planning their blog, the students basically answer these questions (I have paraphrased, as the categories make no sense unless you go back and look at the form from Scribd).

> //Students ask themselves what they want their blog to say and look like at the end of the school year//. > //Students gather together some online resources for information and come-up with a plan for frequency and length of postings. An important point about posting is to avoid becoming burnt out. Visit this article to learn more about growing a new blog.// > //The students must know how often they will post, or what the tone of their postings will be to engage other readers.//
 * 1) What is the goal?
 * 1) How do you create the right environment for your blog?
 * 1) What kind of committment will you make to the blog?

The other part of Glogowski's work is on reflective blog talk. Once he has his students blogging, he asks them to reflect on their work and the work of others. It is an important aspect for any of us to recognize that students must be forced to reflect upon their work, or they will not. Through the use of this Ripple Effect Sheet, students are able to reflect upon their own work and its meaning, as well as the meaning they gleaned from other's work. It is really very intersting to see the connections students are able to make through this simple sheet. Students correct each other's work and become more engaged and knowledgeable about topics that would normally never interest them.

Though it seems scary to have eigth grades blogging all year long, Glogowski uses a resources called 21 Classes. It is a free blogging community that is able to be made private for your classroom usage. The difference between this and a Wiki or a Google Doc is that this is strictly a blogging conversation, not a collaboration to produce a new product / presentation. It can expose your students to blogging without exposing them to the rest of the world.

To learn more about Konrad Glogowski and his work, visit his blog at the Blog of Proximal Development. He is also a member of Classroom 2.0, and Teachers without Borders (all interesting work, and worth a glance).

Classroom 2.0 is an online community for educators interested in using 21st century tools as a part of learning. Teachers without Borders is an organization that supports teachers locally to help them to create connections globally.

Megan- I love the Classroom 2.0 page! Do any of you use Blogs during class NOW? If so, how successful has it been?