I don't feel that any of the names mentioned act or feel like they are better than me and have even included me on many conversations
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Watch Educational Videos Offline with YouTube | Open Culture - 0 views
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Blogger: Cool Cat Teacher Blog - Post a Comment - 0 views
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I do love when you say, "if one person reads our blog and get something out of it.. it is important." I try to keep that in mind all the time. Numbers don't matter..people do.
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As far as the ego thing goes who cares. Your blog's this mine is that. Whoopdy do! If you're learning and growing your PLN that is what counts.
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I feel similar frustration. If the point is about learning than reading and commenting is a great way to add to our own creative potential.
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Great response to a burning question/statement that most of us (well probably all of us)feel at one time or another.
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Many of the people that I have learned the most from are not the ones involved in the "cocktail party" but rather those in the trenches doing what I love to do each and every day, just like you!
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He has an important point -- if you're only reading the uber-popular bloggers -- you're missing the point of the blogosphere. I make it a point to find some newcomers. To me, it is like a game, I want to find new people doing great things and encourage them like so many greats like David Warlick, Darren Kuropatwa, Ewan McIntosh, and more did for me when I started.
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agree that developing a readership takes time.
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Re: the depressing aspects of 'comment intensity,' I actually meant it to be an affirming post rather than a depressing one
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I think that the comment intensity idea is important in this respect: I often see laments from bloggers that they don't get many comments on their posts. What the table above shows is that even those of us who are fortunate enough to have large readerships often don't get many comments. My personal median over the past 20 posts, even WITH the big spike of 89, is still only 2.5. Ewan, your blog and Vicki Davis' are similar. The point is that many, many posts don't get a lot of comments, even those by the more widely read bloggers.
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Thanks for bringing this up. This has been an issue for me personally as well. OK, so nobody's IN, but the (pseudo?) community nature of blogging makes it feel that way.
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But, like other artists, we have to work a little every day whether we feel like it or not, and whether we get validation that day or not.
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I think many of us are working at blogging because there's an element of self improvement, which implies self evaluation. Without feedback from others it's easy to be hard on ourselves.
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For me, the conversation is hardly closed; it is simply a matter of having something to say, something to share.The emotional commitment is another aspect of the conversation that is easily glossed over.
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I've found (both with myself and those educators I've worked with in their blogging starts) that the edublogosphere is open and welcoming -- but as we engage in any cultural group (even offline), patience really is a key.Still, we sometimes measure our success by the interaction from those we look up to (esp. teachers - many of whom were probably the best students in their class, yes?)
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Sometimes we don't see the comments -- because the talk happens offline.
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I get very few comments on my blog but see through the clustermaps that I have readers each and every day, so continue to feel that the blog is benefiting me through reflection and may even be benefiting others as well.
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I NEVER get to share tools I discover because someone ALWAYS beats me to the punch...but I am ok with that.
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I truly connect with what you write even though I am one of "those" people who reads but rarely comments. YOU do make a difference and so do I!
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the whole cocktail party analogy is just a grown up version of the kickball line-up in elementary school.
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I was always picked last there -- whew this analogy hits me close to home. I was always picked last b/c I was the worst. Even the worst kickball player needs to feel encouraged and not destroyed for getting up and kicking the ball. Even the "worst" blogger - if there is such a thing -- needs to feel encouraged sometimes too just for blogging.
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In the blog world, change is effected by good content, and while good content isn't always noticed at first, it does eventually get a respectable position--sometimes because the cocktail group points them out.
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How could I think to be in the same boat as John Scalzi who started in 1998 if I've only been blogging since 2007?
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I found your blog, Vicki, because a project you do for Atomic Learning mentioned you, and your name is on the movies they use.
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2005 - you were the only ones out there to follow
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Oh yes, I have felt the cocktail chill at times. I'm a norwegian edublogger, that have been following your brunks (blogdrunks) for a while. To start with - in
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Wes told me once I twittered, that nobody should twitter alone and I could not agree more - so I don't.
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So, from the outer side looking in: Anybody stopping by in Second Life tonight (which is today for you) for a virtual edu cocktail?I'm aka Kita Coage at Eduisland II, waiting to cocktail connect with you c",)
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I suspect that we all have a deep desire to be heard and to be accepted. The longer I'm involved in the edublogosphere, however, the more impressed and encouraged I am by the level of acceptance that there is here. It is a good thing that we don't always agree with each other. Disagreement is often at the heart of constructive conversation
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At the same time, we are no different than the kids in our classrooms. We educators need to know that we will be accepted, no matter what we have to say and no matter how well we are able to express it. I think we help to make the edublogosphere a "safe place" for each other as we try to keep it positive and as we take advantage of the numerous opportunities to be affirming.
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I don't at all feel excluded from the blog "cocktail party", because just like a real cocktail party, I am drawn to the people who have something important, and engaging to say and I am content to listen and learn from them. I have seen a few of the "big names" at conferences, and even met a few of them in person. I have emailed several of them and others, or left an occasional comment, and I have been very pleasantly surprised at the thoughtful responses I have received.
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I read many blogs, but comment rarely, and I suspect that those who read my blog do the same. So I don't feel at all excluded. I'm just happy to occasionally be part of the conversation.
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When I was at EduBloggerCon last spring I felt quite the outsider. There were famous people there and I was unknown. I still feel that way in the broad edublogsphere. But honestly the broad sphere is not who I am blogging for. I blog for a niche - computer science teachers. The event for that niche is SIGCSE and there I (blush) feel a bit like a star. Few of the people there know the edubloggers with much larger readership or Technorati ranks. And really reaching the CS teachers is my goal not reaching everyone who teaches general subjects.
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There is, I believe, room for more at the top if only because the number of teachers reading blogs is still very small but we all hope it is growing. We are still at the ground floor. That makes edublogging different from tech blogging I think.
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I think we need to all remember our focus for blogging. Mine is for reflection. I use my blog as a tool to improve my teaching. If others start to read and can learn from it, great. To my knowledge I am the only one seeing my blog right now. Which is fine with me. I don't think blogging should be a popularity contest and having a large number of readers is great, it must mean that you, and others, have something to offer that others want to emulate.
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I think you could have added three additional points. First, a suggestion on how to increase readership. I think new bloggers (myself included) are still trying to figure out how to make the connections that allow for conversations within blogs. I go back to your list of 10 tips for successful blogging, and still find things I never noticed before
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would love to see an updated list that perhaps would include how to make sure your blog is part of an RSS feed and how to set up subscriptions for potential readers to make it easy for them to subscribe to your blog.
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I think even you have realized that it is more difficult to break into the edublogger field as there is now so many new bloggers (just in the last two years).
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Finally, I am surprised that you did not point out how you have helped new bloggers by both asking for new voices and then publishing them in your own blog. I think this is an indication that you are trying to open up the "party".
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Isn't the whole point of web 2.0 is that it exudes democracy and equality? Those that get all concerned about rankings and ratings are, as you've suggested missing the point.
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We often quickly want to find ways of ranking. Reminds me of the evils of current assessment practices. We tell kids to do their best and work on improving performance and yet continue to use ranking systems that is clearly a mixed message.
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I'm new to this world as of Monday...yes, 4 days of immersing myself in as much ed. tech, web 2.0, online collaboration "stuff" that I can. (thanks to Lisa Thumman at Rutgers U.) Cocktail party or not, your blog and the comments people have left have increased my list of people to follow. Even a discussion about "being on the outside" has led me to the "inside". I'm thrilled to be in the company of such great minds and promise to start contributing once I wrap my brain around it all! Thanks to everyone for sharing! cmtvarok
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thanks for coaxing me out of my blogger drought!
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I believe that this "post" has been made stronger by the comments, which have added to the post greater depth of meaning.
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All over this conversation I see the change in society. We are all going through the emotions of becoming accustomed to something new... kind of like I first experienced when the Internet first came out.
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And while, when I began blogging, I didn't really set my sights or aim for a large readership... now that it is here, I will seriously consider and appreciate each individual reader and take my job seriously
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@tennessee -- Those in the trenches are my most important reads... I just wish there were more of us. It seems as if many teachers view blogging as a way out of the classroom when they should see it as a way to improve the classroom!
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@scottmcleod - I believe the comment intensity is highly correlated to controversiality AND immediacy. If a lot of people SAW someone recently, they want to interact and comment (immediacy.) If someone says something very emotional or controversial, people want to comment and interact (controversiality.) While I guess looking at these stats are fine, I've found in my very short time blogging that looking too much at numbers of any kind removes my focus from what is important. When I focus intently on conversation, my blog traffic and numbers just grow. I always say "whatever is watered, grows." If I water my investigation of stats, I become a good statistician... if I water my blog but also commenting and participating in the blogosphere as a WHOLE, I become a good blogger. I'd rather be the latter. And while the post was meant to be encouraging... I have to admit I'm a competitive perfectionist and always have to reign in that aspect of my nature.
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@christophersessums - I think the emotional nature of something is like the proverbial elephant in the Net -- it is there. It always stuns me the number of people who discuss their feelings on this when it comes up... it means that many of us are experiencing the same thing.
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Twitter Template - Resources - TES - 5 views
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This is a twitter template. Another tool for offline use for those schools who don't get a lot of access but would like to bring some fun social media style activities into the classroom. You do need to join the free TES site to access these, but it is a great site and I'm finding lots of things to use.
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Facebook template page - Resources - TES - 7 views
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Some of use the fakebook tool at classtools.net but if you need to be offline, this is a template to make a Facebook page for a famous character. It is a .doc (Microsoft Word) file and you can download it and use it for your activity. These are great for looking at famous characters and students enjoy them.
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Substance - Open Documents for the Web - 6 views
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A good site for writing books online. This site does much of the formatting for you. Collaborate easily with others and your finished masterpiece is availiable in many on and offline formats, including embedding code and PDFs. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools
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Download Windows Live Writer 2012 - Scott Hanselman - 2 views
www.hanselman.com/...loadWindowsLiveWriter2012.aspx
education blogging windows surface livewriter microsoft wordpress
shared by Vicki Davis on 18 Jan 14
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If you have a PC and want to write offline and then upload, Windows Live Writer is your option. It is actually a very powerful (free) tool for blogging. Here's a blog post about why Scott Hanselman uses this app for his blogging. I've used it off and on but am using it even more now that I have a Surface Pro. I used to draft on my ipad in Blogsy but the biggest issue I had was adding links and full compatibility with wordpress - I can do it all on my Surface Pro using Windows Live Writer. This post links to the app and the why-to from this blogger. It works with wordpress, blogger, and more.
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Share the Journey Education | 11Alive.com | Atlanta - 2 views
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There are some new apps in Chrome. I've installed the "pocket" app. These are basically apps that stand alone but sort of have chrome running in the background. Here's information on these handy tools to help you get more done. I do recommend Pocket (and have the app for my ipad as well) for offline reading. There are times I find a great article that I know I want to read, when I click "add to pocket" it puts it into pocket and then, when I sit down to read at night, there's the personal magazine assembled from the day's interests.
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Tripppin - Learn English Around The World - 5 views
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This looks like a very cool English game that uses all kinds of shows to teach. Thinking that ESL teachers will want to test this one out. Mau Butler send me this message about this new site: Hello Vicki, I've been an ESL teacher for 20 years, in several countries, and a reader of your coolcatteacher blog for a while. Congratulations. You do excellent work. :) For the past 3 years, I've been building a very innovative approach to teaching and learning English, which is now ready to use. Considering your work, I thought you'd be interested in trying it out. It's called Tripppin and I strongly recommend you see it for yourself on www.tripppin.com but this is us in a nutshell: "Tripppin is an English practice platform, which blends offline and online learning experiences into a game, a music channel, cooking shows, animation, entertaining videos shot around the world, and excellent support for English teachers everywhere." Hope you can have a look :) Thank you.
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Advocates for Digital Citizenship, Safety, and Success | Google Groups - 0 views
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Come one, come all! Please check out the group and join - we can all make a difference here if we work together.
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Who are we? This is a grassroots efforts started by educators to promote the active instruction of students, parents, and administrators on topics concerning digital citizenship, safety, and success. We want to mobilize ONLINE but take our actions OFFLINE into our own communities and schools. We're a group sick of talking about it and ready to DO something.
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Online Predators and Their Victims - 1 views
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adult offenders who meet, develop relationships with, and openly seduce underage teenagers
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The publicity about online"predators" who prey on naive children using trickery and violence is largely inaccurate.
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In the great majority of cases, victims are aware they are conversing online with adults. In the N-JOV Study, only 5% of offenders pretended to be teens when they met potential victims online. (112)
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99% of victims of Internet-initiated sex crimes in the N-JOV Study were 13 to 17 years old, and none were younger than 12. 48% were 13 or 14 years old. (115)
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My (Liz B. Davis ) Summary of Key Points (All are quotes directly from the article): Online "Predators" and Their Victims. Myths, Realities, and Implications for Prevention and Treatment. by: Janis Wolak, David Finkelhor, and Kimberly J. Mitchell - University of New Hampshire and Michele L. Ybarra - Internet Solutions for Kids, Inc.
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it was those 15-17 years of age who were most prone to take risks involving privacy and contact with unknown people. (115)
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This tells us what we need to know about courses on digital citizenship and safety -- discuss these issues probably beginning around 11 -- before soliciation happens -- then have focused programs probably starting age 12-13 -- as with everything -- these ages tend to get lower over time -- what will happen w/ the Webkinz generation is anyone's guess.
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I see this more and more...as the parent of webkinz kids...in the past..you had the "don't talk to strangers" talk with them. Now the strangers are coming into our homes and at much younger ages.
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I think we need to be aware that not all "unknown people" are wanting to commit crimes, fraud, etc. Talking to someone you don't know might be the introduction to your new best friend. The content of discussion is important. Not knowing someone, I would not give them personal information. Friendship is built over time.
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A nice way I've heard to describe this is that even though kids think they're tech savvy, they are not relationship savvy. It's this age group that doesn't recognize the complexity of relationships.
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@David - I think, however, that we should be very careful about teaching HOW to make friendships -- friend of a friend and building relationships OVER TIME is often how these things happen. Children want the romance and don't realize the "gentle" stranger they've met wants to harm them. This is a tricky one -- one of my dearest friends is Julie Lindsay who I met online. But that conversation was totally OK, as youwould guess. Teaching them about this is tricky. We'll have to think on this one AND look at the research.
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take place in isolation and secrecy, outside of oversight by peers, family members, and others in the youth's face-to-face social networks (115)
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Most of the online child molesters described in the N-JOV Study met their victims in chatrooms. In a 2006 study, about one third of youths who received online sexual solicitation had received them in chatrooms. (116)
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Youth internet users with histories of offline sexual or physical abuse appear to be considerably more likely to receive online aggressive sexual solicitations. (117)
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..Although Internet safety advocates worry that posting personal information exposes youths to online molesters, we have not found empirical evidence that supports this concern. It is interactive behaviors, such as conversing online with unknown people about sex, that more clearly create risk. (117)
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Posting personal information is NOT what puts students at risk -- interactive BEHAVIORS! Do! This is one criticism we've had of online projects. At risk behaviors from AT RISK students cause things to happen!!! Listen up!
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and your students are lucky that they have you to guide them. Way too many schools are not involving their students in these activities so they don't have these "appropriate" models
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Exactly, kristin -- MORE SCHOOLS have got to do this. It is a travesty that these kids are being victimized when the schools can do something about it. Completely a travesty. I hope we can all get fired up again about this topic, especially with the good research coming out now!
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Online molesters do not appear to be stalking unsuspecting victims but rather continuing to seek youths who are susceptible to seduction. (117)
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maintaining online blogs or journals, which are similar to social networking sites in that they often include considerable amounts of personal information and pictures, is not related to receiving aggressive sexual solicitation unless youths also interact online with unknown people. (117)
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Boys constitute 25% of victims in Internet-initiated sex crimes, and virtually all of their offenders are male. (118
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Some gay boys turn to the internet to find answers to questions about sexuality or meet potential romantic partners, and there they may encounter adults who exploit them. (118)
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..child molesters are, in reality, a diverse group that cannot be accurately characterized with one-dimensional labels. (118)
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Online child molesters are generally not pedophiles. (118)Online child molesters are rarely violent. (119)
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Child pornography production is also an aspect of Internet-initiated sex crimes. One in five online child molesters in the N-JOV Study took sexually suggestive or explicit photographs of victims or convinced victims to take such photographs of themselves or friends. (120)
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Youths may be more willing to talk extensively and about more intimate matters with adults online than in face-to-face environments. (121
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it may not be clear to many adolescents and adults that relationships between adults and underage adolescents are criminal. (122)
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Simply urging parents and guardians to control, watch, or educate their children may not be effective in many situations. The adolescents who tend to be the victims of Internet-initiated sex crimes many not themselves be very receptive to the advice and supervision of parents. (122)
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We recommend educating youths frankly about the dynamics of Internet-initiated and other nonforcible sex crimes. Youths need candid, direct discussions about seduction and how some adults deliberately evoke and then exploit the compelling feelings that sexual arousal can induce. (122)
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Youths need candid, direct discussions about seduction
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The hard part is finding comfortable places to have these discussions. Where is the best place?
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I believe that the Http://digiteen.wikispaces.com project is the best thing I've got going in my classroom with 9th graders in Qatar & Austria. We're having great conversations -- third person looking at things happening and working through what they think is a good way to do it, I believe. I truly think that everyone working with students should be educated to watch for the "signs" -- and we should also have individual programs.
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Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
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Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
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Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
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Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
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Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
educationalsoftware » Offline Software - 0 views
educationalsoftware.wikispaces.com/Offline+Software
all_teachers educational educational games educationalsoftware literature math olshasp online online games professionaldevelopment
shared by anonymous on 22 May 08
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Buzzword - 0 views
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The online word processor from Adobe. This is one to watch because of testing and future compatibility with Adobe Air, a "plugin" that will let you take things offline and be online, although the word processor runs in a web browser. We are much closer to this environment.
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Online word processor from adobe. Future versions plan to integrate Adobe Air.
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New Improved Web 2.0 Smackdown Keychain from Kevin Hunnicut - EBC - 0 views
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