Kidblog is built by teachers, for teachers, so students can get the most out of the writing process. Our mission is to empower teachers to embrace the benefits of the coming digital revolution in education. As students become creators - not just consumers - of information, we recognize the crucial role of teachers as discussion moderators and content curators in the classroom. With Kidblog, teachers monitor and control all activity within their classroom blogging community.
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shared by Kenneth Griswold on 31 May 13
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Kidblog - 0 views
kidblog.org/why-kidblog
blog writing edtech ELA resources primary intermediate kidblog tpsdinstitute
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Kidblog provides teachers with the tools to help students safely navigate the digital – and increasingly social – online landscape. Kidblog allows students to exercise digital citizenship within a secure, private classroom blogging space. Kidblog’s security features put safety first: Teachers have administrative control over all student blogs and student accounts. Your students’ blogs are private by default – viewable only by classmates and the teacher. Teachers can elect to make posts public, while still moderating all content. Teachers can add password-protected parent and guest accounts to the community at their discretion. Comment privacy settings block unsolicited comments from outside sources. Kidblog is fully COPPA compliant and does not require any personal information from students.
WiZiQ free Virtual Classroom - 114 views
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shared by Jeff Johnson on 02 Apr 09
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Publishing audio at will | ISTE's NECC09 Blog - 0 views
www.isteconnects.org/...publishing-audio-at-will
audio Publishing isteconnects.org ISTE edtech Blogger blog Wordpress Blogmeister Class_Blogmeister
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Blogs are naturally "publish at will" platforms. While blogs certainly CAN be configured to have new posts "moderated" by someone serving in the role of a gatekeeper, by default most blogs allow users to publish INSTANTLY. If you're interested in setting up a blog for moderated posting by students, I'd recommend using Class Blogmeister for this purpose. Wordpress blogs can be configured for contributor posts to be moderated as well, but this requires a bit of configuration. (This is the setup we're using here on ISTEconnects, btw.) On the Wordpress dashboard, under SETTINGS - GENERAL SETTINGS, we've checked the MEMBERSHIP box ANYONE CAN REGISTER and set the "New User Default Role" to be CONTRIBUTOR. With these configuration settings, new posts must be reviewed by a user designated as an "editor" or "administrator" before they become "live" on the site. For more on this, see the Wordpress.org CODEX article "Roles and Capabilities." To setup a free classroom or personal Wordpress blog you don't have to host yourself, I recommend using EduBlogs or Wordpress.com. Blogs setup with Blogger can similarly be setup as "team" blogs with moderated contributions from members which can include students and/or teachers. See the Blogger help article "How do I create a team blog?" for more details. My post from July 2008, "How can our school set up a team blog for teachers?" also gives more information about this for Wordpress users.
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Online University Reviews : 100 Most Inspiring and Innovative Blogs for Educators - 2 views
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"Whether you work at elementary schools or online colleges, you will find that being a teacher is a difficult and often thankless job. Between lesson plans, unengaged students, and new emerging technologies, teachers need help now more than ever. Luckily, there are a few resources out there for educators looking for tips, empathy, and inspiration. Blogs are a great way for teachers to connect with other great teachers around the world, find advice and inspiration, and learn new, cutting-edge teaching strategies. By visiting the 100 blogs below, you will find answers to all of your questions, as well as valuable teaching resources."
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edublogs: Ken Robinson's The Element: reincarnating creativity - 1 views
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We also need to recognise that, largely, those teachers who use technology the most effectively and lead the way with its use are also, by and large, excellent teachers with or without the technology.This helps us see what many of us appreciate already: the one biggest element of improving education, making learning more creatively inclined and entrepreneurial, is the teacher. It's not curriculum, class sizes (though smaller class sizes make the teacher's life easier) or even assessment. This is something I've been reporting back from research for two years (and which I've been blown out on more times than I can count). It's not about letting students lead the way with technology and "show us teachers" how it's done. Students are generally quite narrow in their knowledge of how to harness technology or creative venture.No, it's how teachers and parents teach that is important. It is, to use a piece of edu-jargon, pedagogy, both at school and at home.
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with students batched by age and subject to standardised tests for quality before shipping to the real world. Conformity has thus always had a higher value than diversity
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We also need to recognise that, largely, those teachers who use technology the most effectively and lead the way with its use are also, by and large, excellent teachers with or without the technology. This helps us see what many of us appreciate already: the one biggest element of improving education, making learning more creatively inclined and entrepreneurial, is the teacher. It's not curriculum, class sizes (though smaller class sizes make the teacher's life easier) or even assessment. This is something I've been reporting back from research for two years (and which I've been blown out on more times than I can count). It's not about letting students lead the way with technology and "show us teachers" how it's done. Students are generally quite narrow in their knowledge of how to harness technology or creative venture. No, it's how teachers and parents teach that is important. It is, to use a piece of edu-jargon, pedagogy, both at school and at home.
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shared by Dennis OConnor on 05 Nov 09
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Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood : 7th Grade Humanities - 22 views
teachers.saschina.org/jamesrobinson
digitalcitizenship edublogger literature china international schools
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This is James Robinson's class blog. It also hosts blogs from all of his kids. James teaches literature and writing at SAS (Shanghai American School). He's been blogging for about a year and a half. As you'll see if you visit this great example of classroom blog use, this blog rocks! James is using Wordpress to create a website/blog presentation. He's happy to have teachers or students drop in and respond to the personal blogs his students have created. If you're looking for a chance at an international student exchange blog connection, give it a look. (Heck, give it a look if you're just curious.) The kids love to get comments from folks around the world so don't forget to be interactive! ~ Dennis O'Connor
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Kidblog in Action! Classroom Q&A With Kindergarten Teacher Sharon Davison | Kidblog - 20 views
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I use a variety of technologies that help to engage, enhance, and inspire children to want to pursue their ideas. I have found that once you are inspired to learn, you learn how to learn through your ideas about what you understand.
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Developing Relationships/Making Connections. I have used Kidblog prior to kindergarten even starting! I set up an account each year and email directions on “How To” blog with a rationale about why, etc. My new students and their families begin in the summer before they begin kindergarten! They post photographs of things they are doing. Then others who are new also to kindergarten begin to post comments on their posts and introduce themselves! A lot of blogging has happened BEFORE we even begin kindergarten and BEFORE we meet face to face! One year one of my kindergarten students wrote, “Only 2 more sleeps until kindergarten.” This is so great! It reflects a beginning of an understanding about how blogging is used to communicate and meet new friends in a safe way.
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Kidblog hasn’t changed how I approach the writing process, but rather it has helped me to showcase and enhance the writing that my students are doing. Through blogging, my students experience the same things they experience when writing on paper. They use inventive print, leave spaces in between their words, use periods to end their thoughts, and of course they check their sentences for meaning. This is HUGE. Young children are beginning to re- read and reflect about what they understand and THEN they are able to make changes/edit.
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Through blogging my students have lots of opportunities to share what they are doing inside and outside of kindergarten. This is important because it is through our discoveries and explorations that we are able to share, connect and collaborate with others. Through these connections my students are motivated to blog and share what they are blogging about. Just by sharing their blog independently on our SMARTboard my students make connections about what they see and hear. They all want to share their blog posts! It is very empowering to read your ideas and share your work when you have a safe and kind environment to do so. The children support each other and their ideas. Kidblog has been wonderful for supporting and creating a positive classroom culture. I have never had a student not want to share their blog. How great is this? It helps build self-esteem too!
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AJET 26(3) Drexler (2010) - The networked student model for construction of personal le... - 17 views
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Table 2: Personal learning environment toolset Web application (networked student component) Tool used in test case Student activity level of structure Social bookmarking (RSS) Delicious http://delicious.com/ Set up the account Subscribe to each others accounts Bookmark and read 10 reliable websites that reflect the content of chosen topic Add and read at least 3 additional sites each week. News and blog alert (RSS) Google Alert http://www.google.com/alerts Create a Google Alert of keywords associated with selected topic Read news and blogs on that topic that are delivered via email daily Subscribe to appropriate blogs in reader News and blog reader (RSS) Google Reader http://reader.google.com Search for blogs devoted to chosen topic Subscribe to blogs to keep track of updates Personal blog (RSS) Blogger http://www.blogger.com Create a personal blog Post a personal reflection each day of the content found and experiences related to the use of personal learning environment Students subscribe to each others blogs in reader Internet search (information management, contacts, and synchronous communication) Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/ Conduct searches in Google Scholar and library databases for scholarly works. Bookmark appropriate sites Consider making contact with expert for video conference Podcasts (RSS) iTunesU http://www.apple.com/itunes/ whatson/itunesu.html Search iTunesU for podcasts related to topic Subscribe to at least 2 podcasts if possible Video conferencing (contacts and synchronous communication) Skype http://www.skype.com Identify at least one subject matter expert to invite to Skype with the class. Content gathering/ digital notebook Evernote http://evernote.com/ Set up account Use Evernote to take notes on all content collected via other tools Content synthesis Wikispaces http://www.wikispaces.com Post final project on personal page of class wiki The process and tools are overwhelming to students if presented all at once. As with any instructional design, the teacher determines the pace at which the students best assimilate each new learning tool. For this particular project, a new tool was introduced each day over two weeks. Once the construction process was complete, there were a number of personal web page aggregators that could have been selected to bring everything together in one place. Options at the time included iGoogle, PageFlakes, NetVibes, and Symbaloo. These sites offer a means to compile or pull together content from a variety of web applications. A web widget or gadget is a bit of code that is executed within the personal web page to pull up external content from other sites. The students in this case designed the personal web page using the gadgets needed in the format that best met their learning goals. Figure 3 is an instructor example of a personal webpage that includes the reader, email, personal blog, note taking program, and social bookmarks on one page.
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The personal learning environment can take the place of a traditional textbook, though does not preclude the student from using a textbook or accessing one or more numerous open source texts that may be available for the research topic. The goal is to access content from many sources to effectively meet the learning objectives. The next challenge is to determine whether those objectives have been met.
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AssessmentThere were four components of the assessment process for this test case of the Networked Student Model: (1) Ongoing performance assessment in the form of weekly assignments to facilitate the construction and maintenance of the personal learning environment, (2) rubric-based assessment of the personal learning environment at the end of the project, (3) written essay, and (4) multimedia synthesis of topic content. Points were earned for meeting the following requirements: Identify ten reliable resources and post to social bookmarking account. At least three new resources should be added each week. Subscribe and respond to at least 3 new blogs each week. Follow these blogs and news alerts using the reader. Subscribe to and listen to at least two podcasts (if available). Respectfully contact and request a video conference from a subject matter expert recognised in the field. Maintain daily notes and highlight resources as needed in digital notebook. Post at least a one-paragraph reflection in personal blog each day. At the end of the project, the personal learning environment was assessed with a rubric that encompassed each of the items listed above. The student's ability to synthesise the research was further evaluated with a reflective essay. Writing shapes thinking (Langer & Applebee, 1987), and the essay requirement was one more avenue through which the students demonstrated higher order learning. The personal blog provided an opportunity for regular reflection during the course of the project. The essay was the culmination of the reflections along with a thoughtful synthesis of the learning experience. Students were instructed to articulate what was learned about the selected topic and why others should care or be concerned. The essay provided an overview of everything learned about the contemporary issue. It was well organised, detailed, and long enough to serve as a resource for others who wished to learn from the work. As part of a final exam, the students were required to access the final projects of their classmates and reflect on what they learned from this exposure. The purpose of this activity was to give the students an additional opportunity to share and learn from each other. Creativity is considered a key 21st century skill (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009). A number of emerging web applications support the academic creative process. Students in this project used web tools to combine text, video, audio, and photographs to teach the research topics to others. The final multimedia project was posted or embedded on the student's personal wiki page. Analysis and assessment of student work was facilitated by the very technologies in use by the students. In order to follow their progress, the teacher simply subscribed to student social bookmarking accounts, readers, and blogs. Clicking through daily contributions was relatively quick and efficient.
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shared by Joseph Alvarado on 25 Feb 10
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Why Teachers Should 'Friend' Students Online - Murry's World - 0 views
rrmurry.posterous.com/-should-friend-students-online
facebook internetsafety teachers technology friend cybersafety murry students web2.0 teaching learning education resources tools
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It is NOT Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, or any other online community that is the problem. It is the people who are out of touch with today's youth.
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All I can say is AMEN! I blogged about this last year, as a matter of fact, because it ticks me off that we would have all of this great technology, but NOT use it for expanded educational opportunities that we might not have otherwise had. I love extended the teachable moment beyond the "year" that I'm given with a set of students. Just because they've come and gone doesn't mean my responsibility to continue to teach them if the opportunity presents itself is over. I am a teacher. Not from 7:30 to 2:30. Not just on the weekdays. Not just in my classroom. I am a teacher ALL. OF. THE. TIME. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, whether physical or virtual. We should be more worried about the teachers (and critics) who aren't nearly so well connected
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shared by Jim Farmer on 22 Oct 10
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How to Get a Classroom of Kids Blogging in Under 5 Minutes! - 47 views
www.makeuseof.com/...ssroom-kids-blogging-5-minutes
classroom Blog kidblog education web2.0 tools technology collaboration teaching resources
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designed by teachers for teachers. They have made the process of creating and monitoring a class blog safe and efficient. Sign-ups are fast and simple, making it easy to co-ordinate a whole class of new students. At the same time, the blog's privacy and security is protected by default. This makes life incredibly easy for the teacher, allowing you to get straight in to the fun bit of blogging!
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50 Useful Blogging Tools for Teachers - 7 views
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Blogging is becoming more and more popular in the classroom. Teachers can blog to stay in touch with parents and students or they can incorporate blogs from all of the students as a learning tool. The beauty of the student blog is that children from Kindergarten to high school can blog. No matter how you use blogs in your classroom, these tools will help you get started, enhance your experience, or bring the students into the fun.
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A good list of web based tools for teachers and students. It is a useful list. There are categories and an annotated description of each tool.
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Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud: RESPONSIVENESS - 0 views
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"So some teachers got a page that showed that no student selected them?" I asked. "Yes," the storyteller informed me. "We thought every teacher needed to know how they were perceived by the students. We simply gave them the information." At this point each professional staff member was asked to select one student from the list who had indicated no relationship with a teacher. Care was taken to make sure each student was selected by someone. Throughout the year teachers were asked to reach out in special ways to this student. Their efforts included:1. Send three "I noticed…." statements a week.2. Give one eye-hug a day (sustained eye contact ending with a smile).3. Give two physical touches a week (high-five, pat on the back, shoulder squeeze, handshake).4. Use the person's name every day.5. Be in their proximity three times a week (other than in the classroom).6. Ask them for help once a week7. Ask their opinion about something once a week.
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shared by Paul Beaufait on 03 Feb 17
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What I learned from burning-out as a teacher - 9 views
www.patricepalmer.ca/...-from-my-burn-out-as-a-teacher
communities burnout mindfulness positive psychology teacher development teachers
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Mindfulness refers to the process of bringing our attention and awareness to the present moment, with an attitude of non-judgement and acceptance
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"Teaching communities can be incredibly nurturing, caring and supportive of the children in their care, but sometimes forget to extend this to the teachers who are at the front line. Teachers may be afraid of being seen as weak or struggling if they open up about their challenges or difficulties. My first piece of advice is find a colleague you can open up to and can offer support or just a listening ear, of course, you can do the same for them. Building and nurturing positive relationships is one of the most important things anyone can do for their well-being."
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How to Make Better Teachers «Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech - 15 views
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The reflective writing has been valuable but definitely the nearly 4,000 comments have been even more of a learning experience. This is the single best professional development experience I've had.
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Hire a teacher, give them a blog. Get them to subscribe to at least 5 other teachers in the district as well as 5 other great teachers from around the globe. Have their principal and a few central office people to subscribe to the blog and 5 other teachers as well. Require them to write at least once a week on their practice. Get conversations going right from the get go. Watch teachers get better.
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Inspirations - Blogosphere | Teachers TV - 0 views
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Blogging is now a worldwide phenomenon with weblogs reaching a potential audience of hundreds of millions. Blogs have been described as the ultimate in publishing for the people and have been used to challenge governments and the press. Steve O'Hear, one of Britain's digital evangelists, explores how blogs can be used in schools. Steve finds some enthusiastic primary age bloggers and sees how it helps in literacy, ICT skills and a range of other subjects. He finds many of the benefits extend beyond the curriculum. Blogging can help pupils: * Develop confidence * Improve their self expression * Get a real sense of fulfilment from publishing their work In West Blatchington School in Hove, blogging is practised by everyone from the head down. Steve visits the school's after-school blogging club, a special bloggers' assembly and sees weblogs being used in the school's autistic unit.
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TabUp - Keep Tabs. - 0 views
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This is a fantastic start page option for teachers and students. It has everything teachers want (widgets, privacy controls, booksmarks, calendar, RSS, mini blog(journal), notes, to-do, video, and more). The file upload is a big bonus. Students and teachers can personalize the designs and add/share tabs. You can make each tab public or private and grant specific privileges for the tools (widgets).invitIe students individually or bulk upload from a file.
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A Vision of Students Today (& What Teachers Must Do) | Britannica Blog - 0 views
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It has taken years of acclimatizing our youth to stale artificial environments, piles of propaganda convincing them that what goes on inside these environments is of immense importance, and a steady hand of discipline should they ever start to question it.
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There is a huge investment in resources, time, and tradition from the teacher, the instutions, the society, and--importantly--the students. Students have invested much more time (proportional to their short lives) in learning how to be skillful at the education game. Many don't like teachers changing the rules of the game just when they've become proficient at it.
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Last spring I asked my students how many of them did not like school. Over half of them rose their hands. When I asked how many of them did not like learning, no hands were raised. I have tried this with faculty and get similar results. Last year’s U.S. Professor of the Year, Chris Sorensen, began his acceptance speech by announcing, “I hate school.” The crowd, made up largely of other outstanding faculty, overwhelmingly agreed. And yet he went on to speak with passionate conviction about his love of learning and the desire to spread that love. And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school. What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning.
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They tell us, first of all, that despite appearances, our classrooms have been fundamentally changed.
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While most of our classrooms were built under the assumption that information is scarce and hard to find, nearly the entire body of human knowledge now flows through and around these rooms in one form or another, ready to be accessed by laptops, cellphones, and iPods. Classrooms built to re-enforce the top-down authoritative knowledge of the teacher are now enveloped by a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where knowledge is made, not found, and authority is continuously negotiated through discussion and participation. In short, they tell us that our walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms.
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And that’s what has been wrong all along. Some time ago we started taking our walls too seriously – not just the walls of our classrooms, but also the metaphorical walls that we have constructed around our “subjects,” “disciplines,” and “courses.” McLuhan’s statement about the bewildered child confronting “the education establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules” still holds true in most classrooms today. The walls have become so prominent that they are even reflected in our language, so that today there is something called “the real world” which is foreign and set apart from our schools. When somebody asks a question that seems irrelevant to this real world, we say that it is “merely academic.”
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We can use them in ways that empower and engage students in real world problems and activities, leveraging the enormous potentials of the digital media environment that now surrounds us. In the process, we allow students to develop much-needed skills in navigating and harnessing this new media environment, including the wisdom to know when to turn it off. When students are engaged in projects that are meaningful and important to them, and that make them feel meaningful and important, they will enthusiastically turn off their cellphones and laptops to grapple with the most difficult texts and take on the most rigorous tasks.
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At the root of your question is a much more interesting observation that many of the styles of self-directed learning now enabled through technology are in conflict with the traditional teacher-student relationship. I don’t think the answer is to annihilate that relationship, but to rethink it.
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Personally, I increasingly position myself as the manager of a learning environment in which I also take part in the learning. This can only happen by addressing real and relevant problems and questions for which I do not know the answers. That’s the fun of it. We become collaborators, with me exploring the world right along with my students.
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our walls, the particular architectonics of the disciplines we work within, provide students with the conversational, narrative, cognitive, epistemological, methodological, ontological, the –ogical means for converting mere information into knowledge.
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shared by Jeff Johnson on 08 Oct 08
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Digital Education - 0 views
blogs.edweek.org/...DigitalEducation
academic blog education engagement improvement obstacles participation students teachers web2.0 web_2.0
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This blog post on Ewan McIntosh's edu.blogs.com points out a new peer-reviewed study that links Web 2.0 to academic improvement. The report found that Web 2.0 tools encourage participation and engagement, especially for those students who are timid; help students continue classroom discussions outside of the classroom; let students who are so inclined continue researching anytime, anywhere; and instill a sense of ownership and pride in students for the work they publish online, which can lead to more attention to detail and a better quality of work. The report also found that one of the biggest obstacles to using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom was the time it takes teachers to incorporate those new tools into lesson plans. Although many teachers were familiar with the tools and used them in their personal lives, they were apprehensive about how to monitor Internet use in the classroom and the time needed to figure out how those tools should be used to teach.
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12 Tips for training older teachers to use technology - Resources for English Language ... - 0 views
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There is an assumption that persists in the educational community that more mature teachers are much more difficult and reluctant to be trained on the effective use of educational technology. To some degree, I think this assumption has been built on by the digital native vs digital immigrant myth. But as someone who has trained teachers of all ages all over the world I would say that, from my own experience, this hasn't been the case.