Educational Blogging

The world is full of visionaries and people who want to make a difference in the world, and many of those people share their knowledge online through their blogs. Whether you want to change the world through environment, humanitarianism, business, or any other way, there's a blog out there that can offer you guidance and inspiration. Read on, and you'll find 100 blogs that can help you change the world.

Simply put, it makes taking screen shots a breeze, and greatly speeds up importing images into the Picnik online photo editor.

A customized search created by Marshall Kirkpatrick to demonstrate how to use social media to get the "best of". This customized google search helps you narrow in on edubloggers out there.

ELIZABETH KNITTLE, technology integration specialist for the Barnstable Public School District in Massachusetts, took her first tentative steps in the 3D online virtual world known as Second Life about two years ago. She wasn't impressed. "I looked around and I thought, this is crazy," Knittle recalls. "I just couldn't see the value of it, so I left. But then people starting blogging about it-- a lot of people-- so I had to reconsider. I decided that if I was going to understand this thing and be able to answer questions about it intelligently, I really just had to suck it up and get in there and participate. Once I connected with people inworld, it made all the difference." That early buzz among K-12 educators centered on Second Life's potential as a learning platform. And in the last few years, many colleges, universities, and libraries have established resources in what has become the preeminent multiuser virtual environment (MUVE). Today, more than 100 Second Life "regions" are used for educational purposes.

MOTIVATION A unique study of K-12 teachers blogging as an instructional practice shows a significant increase in student learning through motivation for assignments and through deeper thought processes. Students enjoy the connectiveness of their work whi

MOTIVATION This study found that students are motivated to write when they know they are writing for a real audience with the opportunity for feedback. This study also found that peer reviewing is a revision strategy with a lot of potential for success, b

Email subscription There are plug-ins available for many blogging platforms that allow users to subscribe to an email update whenever a comment is left on a post, or to track responses to a comment they have left via email. In some ways this has an advant

a flowgram that defines web 2.0 in an interesting, easy to read way; additionally, it is embeddable for wiki/blog/website use

A very enlightening video on our current state of broadband penetration in the US. Though the election is over, the issue remains on our plate.

With so much talk about use of the newer platforms, I thought it would be worthwhile to throw some blog post ideas at you that never go out of style and always generate buzz. These should be applicable to any niche:

Ed Shepherd, a middle school administrator in Virginia and valuable member of my personal learning network, recently posted a call for definitions of collaboration. In this case, I decided to forget my affinity for 140 characters and bring it to my blog. So, what is collaboration?

While providing great content is critical if you want to establish a loyal audience, it is only one of a variety of ingredients. Other factors come into play; most importantly, your visitors need to see that you've made every effort to accommodate their needs; that you've put much thought into their experience on your site. To create a blog that stands out from the others, use this list of useful WordPress plugins to show your readers that you have made the effort, and you'll be rewarded with return visitors and growth. So what do your visitors really want?

Quick: what was the most widely-used form of media in 2008? If you guessed Internet news sites, blogs, or social networks, you'd be way off. Network TV news (NBC, CBS, ABC) is still used by the highest percentage of adult Internet users, with local newspapers and local TV news occupying the 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively, in a recently released survey from Ketchum. While old media is still on top, the trends in the survey, which has been conducted each of the last three years, point to a familiar story: media consumption habits are quickly changing. That said, some forms of new media are performing much better than others. For example: - Blogs are now used by 24% of Internet users, up from 13% in 2006 - Social networks are now used by 26% of Internet users, up from 17% in 2006 - Videocasts are now used by 11% of Internet users, up from 6% in 2006 Slower growers include: - RSS feeds: growing from 5 to 7 percent - Podcasts: growing from 5 to 7 percent - Business news sites: flat at 8 percent

Checking out Vocaroo today for a possible segment on PalmBreezeCAFE and thinking about the possibilities for it's use in the classroom. Once you record your audio, you can share the link, embed the sound file (see below) or download the file (.wav). I was able to create my Vocaroo without creating an account.

Student and Teacher Blogs that Succeed By Dean Shareski, May 1, 2008 from Educators' eZine There is a new teacher or student blog created every 2.2 seconds. Okay so I just made that up, but the point is we are seeing blogs created at blistering pace with the hopes of connecting with the world and providing an authentic audience for writers. Sadly, many of these well-meaning blogs die a slow death after a smattering of posts. Well-intended teachers and students often lack perspectives need for success. Blogs are easy to create. But just because something's easy doesn't mean it will stick. As someone who supports teachers in understanding and using digital learning tools, this is a pattern I've seen all too often. So how does a teacher or her students find blogging success? Here are a few things I've discovered in both my own blog as well as with my work with students and teachers.