Blogging for teaching and learning-A tutorial

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Why do we need to blog? Blog What? Why?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate What is a blog and why should we blog? Outcomes By the end of this e-torial, you will:  Know what a blog is  Understand the benefits and challenges of blogging  Have an action plan for effective educational blogging! Tools This e-torial make use of the following programmes or tools:  A Browser ( Internet explorer/ Firefox…)  Online blogging tools (Wordpress/ Blogger/ Typepad/ Edublogger/iblog…)

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate What is a blog? „A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There Problogger (a blogger) are many guides to choose from, each has blogged about what a develops an audience, and there‟s also blog is in his blogpost… comraderie and politics between the “What is a blog” in people who run weblogs, they point to reference to other each other, in all kinds of structures, bloggers defining graphs, loops, etc.‟ Source blogging….. Wikipedia: A blog (short for web log) is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Blogs also provide readers with the option to leave comments, which makes it possible to start a discussion around a blog post So what is a Blog, Blogger, Blogpost, Blogging, blogoshere…..?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Why do people blog? I use my blog to organise and link workshop materials See Maggie’s blog I use my blog like a website as I do not have to host it anywhere and it is so easy to update on the fly! I use my blog to publish school news, comment on educational articles, policies and happenings I use my blog to share and link my lesson plans and resource materials. I use my blog to reflect on my See Pam’s blog teaching practice See Tom’s Blog

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Why are blogs so popular?  It is free  It is quick and easy to update and maintain  It allows for feedback  You do not have to be a “techie” to create and maintain it!  You can personalise it with funky easy- to-apply themes…  Which results in professional looking  It is searchable sites  If you mentioned  It builds community ANYTHING  It builds brand (teachers/schools need a ANYWHERE better profile…!) it will show up in your blog search I can even blog straight from  More reasons……… my cell phone!!!! For a full report on the state of the blogosphere, see Technorati

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Why are blogs so popular? Interactivity  It allows for easy subscription using RSS & e-mail  You can “dolly it up” and make it interactive using widgets (snippets of code that brings video, feeds, photos, anything really…into your blog AUTOMATICALLY) What is RSS and  Share it everywhere widgets? As part of a follow-on learning pathway you will learn how to use RSS and widgets to make your blog more interactive!

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate To blog or not to blog…… Creating a blog without a clear idea of why you want to do it, is like writing a book without a topic. Ps we won’t read it! Do blog … Don’t blog…  With a purpose  If you are not prepared  For fun to commit time…..  To educate  If you are not an Everyone is  To learn innovator doing it!  To share  If you are a quitter So I should  To collaborate  If you do not want to be too…..?  To advocate in the 21st century!  To inform  For more reasons and discussion, click here

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Blogging action plan In order for us to achieve our •What is your blog going to be about? •School? Personal? Organisational? outcome of creating and Purpose •Who is your audience? Learners? Parents maintaining an effective blog, we need to …. •What posts have to be included?  Decide what the purpose •Ideas Folder (theme/niche) of our blog is Ideas •Look for opportunities. going to be  Brainstorm some ideas that •Where are you going to create it? •Choose a theme will support our purpose and Create •Insert feeds, widgets, interactivity create an ideas folder  Create our blog  Maintain our blog •Update regularly •Look after comments  Post regularly Maintain  Reply to feedback  Collaborate with others in our field Find a blog-buddie to do this with you, so that you can support one another!

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Ideas 4 blogging 4 teachers  Post daily homework tasks  Reflect on the days teaching  Post educational tutorials  Embed videos and slideshows that you want the class to watch and post comment on. (peer review maybe?)  Post newsletters and parent notes  Post sport results and event calendars  Post a photo gallery I ACTIVITY  Weekly class report 1. Read some of the teachers blogs  Comment on current educational (click on the links to the right) and issues make a note of how they used their blog  Inspiration 2. Make a list of things that YOU can  Embed a school radio station blog about  …………? Blogging is a great tool for critical thinking, enhancing writing skills and peer assessment. Why not let your learners blog?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Ideas 4 blogging 4 Subject advisors  Post weekly list of new teacher resources from Thutong ;-)  Reflect and comment on educational policies and new curriculum implementation issues  Post lesson plans for teachers  Post educational tutorials I ACTIVITY  Embed videos and slideshows that could assist teachers in their teaching As a subject advisor you have to be a practice policy implementer, subject specialist, teacher supporter, lifelong  Post newsletters with news from the learner, assessor, trainer, facilitator district and administrator. Bearing this in mind, make a list of  Post notices and summaries of all the things that you would like to meetings blog about in support of all your roles.  Organise workshops and links Be specific.  …………? You have so many roles to full fill, how can blogging help you to cope? How can your blog keep your teachers informed, resourced and motivated?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate School Blogging ideas The school can post:  Daily notices for learners and parents A school blog can  Sport results as they happen showcase the spirit of  School photo gallery learning in a school  Events calendar  Newsletters  Comment on educational issues  Advice for parents, learners  Grade reports  Class happenings (embed a video)  School radio station (embed podcasts)  ………….. It is easy to post collaboratively to a school blog and it is therefore effortless to maintain Picture source: Crestoncollege Snap fundraising idea: Get your school blog sponsored!

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Personal Blogging ideas  Reflect on daily/weekly happenings  Blog about your interests, hobbies and I cut and paste “really” passions (eg gardening, recipes, funny jokes or PowerPoints sport…) that people send me via e-  Use it as a newsletter for friends and mail into my blog family  Inspirational quotes  Something that made you cry  Post photo albums  Something that made you laugh  Post important information (a must read!)  Create a radio station I must Read:  Whinge about the crime rate (or 10 good anything else accept your boss!) reasons to  Talk about REAL issues! blog  Create a blog page for all the links that you want to get to quickly  Post your CV…….. What about privacy in a personal blog?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate The challenges you will face  It can be time consuming  Allocate a daily/weekly timeslot depending on your purpose.  It takes time to built an audience base (If you are going to do a personal/learning/organisational blog)  You do not always get feedback and comments  Don‟t worry, lurkers also count  Blog for yourself and your own learning pathway! The majority of bloggers recognize the positive impact that blogging has on their personal and professional lives Technorati Report

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Activity: Action plan •What is your blog going to be about? •School? Personal? Organisational? Purpose •Who is your audience? Learners? Parents I ACTIVITY  Complete the first 2 steps of •What posts have to be included? •Ideas Folder your action plan Ideas •Look for opportunities. •Where are you going to create it? Download •Choose a theme Action Create •Insert feeds, widgets, interactivity plan Template •Update regularly •Look after comments Maintain The majority of bloggers recognize the positive impact that blogging has on their personal and professional lives Technorati Report

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate Presentation information This e-torial was developed by maggiev for the Department of Education for use by subject advisors, teachers and learners It forms part of a learning pathway  Blog: What? Why?  Creating a blog  Making your blog look good  Making your blog interactive with widgets and RSS All e-turials can be found on the Thutong portal: www.thutong.org.za

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Blogging for teaching and learning-A tutorial

by Maggie Verster on Nov 07, 2008

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Blogging for teaching and learning-A tutorial — Presentation Transcript