The 2010 Edublog Awards are open for nomination. These awards, now in their seventh year, celebrate… …the achievements of edubloggers, twitterers, podcasters, video makers, online communities, wiki hosts and other web based users of educational technology. Here are the awards I would like to nominate for 2010: Best individual blog: What Ed Said by Edna […]
blogging
Ugandan Global Project Update
As I have previously blogged about here and here, my grade two class has been working with five other classes around the world on a Ugandan Global Project. We worked on a blog together to learn about Uganda and the nationalities involved, and completed a run/walk fundraiser to raise money for the ABC Divine Foundation […]
Editing Students’ Blog Comments
Recently, a teacher asked my opinion about editing students’ writing on blogs She said “We are having a debate in our primary school at the moment – to what extent should we correct spelling/grammar in posts or comments by students? Our principal sees the posts as a finished product which reflect on our school, while […]
10 Blogging Tips for Students and Teachers
As I work with students and other teachers on setting up blogs, I find myself giving them lots of little tips that I have picked up over my own blogging journey. Many of these ideas have originally come from some of my blogging “mentors” such as Linda Yollis and Sue Waters. Here are 10 12 […]
Setting Up Student Blogs
Update – I wrote a new post about the process for setting up student blogs on 15th January 2012. Click here to find it. Last term, I set up blogs for two of my Grade Two students. This week, I have been busy working with three more students setting up their individual blogs. These are […]
Ugandan Global Project: Part Two
Last week, I blogged about the Ugandan Global Project which we launched today. Read the Part One post here. Mrs Yollis and her students made this fantastic video to launch the project. Mission To raise the social conscience and global awareness of our students through fundraising for The ABC Divine Foundation Primary School in Mutundwe, […]
Student Blogging and Internet Images
A few weeks ago I set up blogs for two of my most enthusiastic student bloggers, Rhiannon and Bianca. I chose these students as they regularly left comments on our 2KM class blog and were committed to learning as much as they can about blogging. After gaining their parents’ permission, I set their blogs up, […]
New Page: Educational Blogging
I am often asked for information about blogging with my class so I have decided to compile the posts I have written on educational blogging on a new page. Here you will find information about setting up your class blog, establishing rules and guidelines, educating parents about blogging, teaching commenting skills and more. What sort […]
Why Schools are Spooked by Social Media
I was pleased I was listening to ABC Radio Melbourne this morning when I heard the next segment was going to be about social media in schools. While I braced myself for a flood of ill informed callers harping on the negatives of Facebook and the like I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Denis […]
Why I think Blogs Should be Public
I have had a number of educators have asked me in the past about my privacy guidelines for my class blog. Recently, an educator contacted me for advice when their principal would not allow their class blog to be public. That is, the principal would not allow blogging unless the blog was completely password protected. […]
Track your comments with coComment
As a reader of many blogs, I like to be able to track my comments and find out when others have added to a comment conversation. A year or two ago, the Edublogs guru, Sue Waters, introduced me to coComment and I haven’t look back! “coComment is a service for managing, powering and researching conversations […]
Blogging Rubric
Thanks to Sue Waters, I recently came across this blogging rubric that was created by Clarence Fisher as a way to assess student blog posts. *click on the image to view a larger version* As the new school term is about to begin and I plan to get more of my Grade Two students creating […]
Blogging Tool: Embedit.in
embedit.in is a site that I saved to my Delicious and Diigo accounts about a year ago but forgot about and have not yet used. I recently rediscovered this site and realised how useful it could be in blogging. This tool allows you to embed almost any sort of file into your blog such as […]
Blog resource: New fonts for your posts!
I have long been a fan of downloading free fonts to use in Microsoft Office documents and I have often wanted to use more interesting and creative fonts in my blog posts. Most blogging platforms have set fonts however which limits your ability to change the appearance of text and therefore the visual appeal of […]
Create a Global Avatar with Gravatar
As I read quite a few blogs, I always like it when a commenter has an avatar (picture of self) next to their comment. Even if the avatar is not a true picture, it adds interest and a personality to the commenter. Often, when someone does not have a recognised avatar, their comments on blog […]