Intermediate Educational Blogging

1
Intermediate Educational Blogging

• Recognizing the screen elements of a blog,
  composing posts, making comments and a basic
  understanding of aggregators.

2
What are we doing today?

• Feedback
• Review of the schedule
• Review of the reading
• Review of the assignment
• Screen elements of the blog?
• Blog posting
• The good, the bad and the ugly
• Aggregators

3
Feedback (what I learned)

• People liked the activities
• People felt they learned about the technology
• People wanted more visuals and lecture
• People wanted the groups to be smaller
• People found the large group activity a little
  confusing
• People need to access the ED3484 blog to be
  prepared. http//3484w06.blogspot.com/

4
Course schedule

• Lectures
• Labs
• Assignment

5
RSS Ideas for Educators

• Describes what we are doing.
• What is RSS?
• Really Simple Syndication
• Rich Site Summary

• Is a PULL technology
• Considered FEEDS

6
RSS Ideas for Educators

• Aggregators (later today)
• A way of view a number of blogs
• Social Networks
• People putting their social life online
• Bookmarking
• See what other like people are thinking
• ePortfolios
• Online rich media resumes
• Sharing (flickr, odeo, bubblesphere)
• Publishing your work

7
Assignment

• Audience Any one of K6 Students
• Kindergarten
• Primary (Grades 1-3)
• Elementary (Grades 4-6)
• Context NL K6 curriculum
• Any subject within the NL curriculum
• Choose a grade, choose a subject, build a blog

8
Assignment

• A URL by March 21st
• An 800 word design document
• APA guidelines
• A peer assessed rubric by March 30th
• Completed by April 6th

9
Assignment Grading

• Assignment is worth 25 of your ED3484 course
  grade.
• 15/100 - meets dates
• 30/100 - design document
• 15/100 - peer assessment
• 40/100 - BLOG

10
NL Govt Curriculum Guide
http//www.ed.gov.nl.ca/edu/sp/pcdbgl.htm

• Choose your grade
• Choose your subject
• Create or find lessons plans
• Brainstorm ideas
• Include multimedia
• Have fun
• Build your blog

11
Parts of a blog

• Browser
• Header
• Posts
• About
• Links
• Previous
• Archives
• Login

12
Browser

• Blogging software runs in a browser
• Internet Explorer
• Firefox
• Opera

13
Header

• Provides a title and brief description
• Can be customized to suit your audience and
  context

• Your assignment blog should include YOUR name to
  begin its title.

14
Posts

• Have a content related title
• Should have well written content
• Should contain references
• To other sites
• To multimedia elements
• Every post should enrich the readers experience

15
About

• Displays information about your blog and you with
  data from your blogs description and your blogger
  profiles meta-data.

16
Links

• Creates a list of blogs and sites the author of
  the blog likes to read.
• Is a great way to find other interesting blogs
  related to teaching.

17
Previous

• Provides a list of your previous posts.

18
Archives

• Provides a method for readers to view all the
  blogs postings.
• Can be archived by week, month and year.

19
Administration

• The dashboard has links to the administration
  features for all your blogs.

20
A good blog is concise

• Is active with posts and comments
• Is current
• Has rich media
• Has related blogrolls
• Is organized with categories
• Is linked to an author profile
• A well understood context
• Has good aesthetics
• Has concise post titles

21
Activity

• Small groups (3 or 4 people)
• Brainstorm
• The grade the subject
• Two or three blog posts
• On the flip charts write the two or more posts
  you thought of for your blog. (include brief
  descriptions of the multimedia elements placed in
  the post)

22
DEMO

• Adding a post
• Reference NL K6 Curriculum
• Adding a comment

23
Quality posting is important

• A good post
• Has a concise post title
• One or two paragraphs only
• References other web info
• Is a complete idea
• Has an author
• Does not duplicate another post
• Anything else???

24
Encourage thoughtful comments

• A good comment
• Adds to the original post
• Should NOT be anonymous
• May include a web reference
• Avoids being just a personal comment

25
Document your Blog Design

• Describe your audience
• Social, economic ethnic
• Describe your subject
• Grade, Subject, Curriculum elements
• Blog elements and aesthetics
• APA Guidelines

26
Aggregators

• See pages 10 through 14 of RSS ideas for
  Educators
• Use bloglines (http//www.bloglines.com)
• DEMO

27
Exit Activity

• Write on one side of the card three things you
  learned during todays lecture.
• On the other side of the card write what you
  would like to learn more about.
• Leave your cards at the front as you leave.

Remember Next class is in the LAB, E5006