Blogging in the Classroom

I was so happy to have 15 enthusiastic educators join me on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 for a quick workshop on blogging in the classroom. The main ideas we covered were:

• What is a blog?


• How to find blogs of interest


• How to subscribe to blogs with a feed aggregator


• How to use blogs in the classroom


• Planning for your classroom blog


• The basics of getting a blog started

What is a blog?

The word "blog" is short for web-log. A blog is an online journal of sorts. You can find blogs written on political opinion, blogs as an electronic bulletin board to keep a particular audience informed, blogs that chronicle an exciting life event such as a new baby, wedding plans or an illness...if you can think of a topic I'll bet there is a blog out there to cover it.


Finding blogs of interest

One of the best ways to prepare for creating your own blog is to acquaint yourself with what's already out there. Not only will this practice help you define your blog, it will also provide professional insight related to your field. There are many tools available to search for blogs. One way we searched for blogs during the workshop was using Google's blog search. Other sites out there: Technorati, Bloglines search, Clusty blog search, Blogpulse.


How to subscribe to blogs

So, you find a great blog and you want to keep up with new postings and comments. Instead of bookmarking that blog and going in to check it everyday, use a feed aggregator to subscribe to it so that the updates automatically come to you. Our group used Google Reader to practice subscribing. You will need to set-up a Google account to use Google Reader. You will be able to access an incredible number of other great applications from Google once you have this account. The only other feed aggregator I have tried is Bloglines. I was pleased with Bloglines but prefer Google Reader because I can add it as a component to my iGoogle homepage.

Once you are set-up with an aggregator it is simple to add blog subscriptions - just copy and paste the blog address into the subscription box on your aggregator.

Some services offer subscription bundles on particular topics or areas of interest. You can also create a feed on a topic you search in Google News. For instance, if you wanted any news updates on MySpace you would conduct a news search with the keyword "MySpace". When your search results are displayed, click on the "RSS" link on the left side of the screen. You will get a page full of code - do not be intimidated, simply look for the word "" and copy and paste the URL into your subscription box.

How to Use Blogs in the Classroom

Find a great classroom blog out there that mirrors your class - maybe students in Alaska are studying Egyptians the same time you are. Share their blog with your class and ask to be allowed to comment on what they are doing. At the same time share your class experiences with them. Sign-up for a "Recipe a Day" for your consumer science class. Keep your science students up-to-date on the most current news regarding global warming.

Planning for Your Classroom Blog

• Starting a classroom blog takes as much time in planning and preparation as it does in setting-up the blog and getting it going. The more time you spend planning = less time dealing with problems. My advice on getting started:
  
• Determine what you hope to accomplish with your blog.
  
• Define your blog - will be be just for one class? just for one school year?
  
• Write a mission statement and post it on the front page - make sure you share and discuss with your students
  
• Have guidelines (also see guidelines) in writing (created by your or by your class) and require students to sign a contract agreeing to those guidelines. Have students take the guidelines home and have them signed by parents as a permission slip - consider sending a letter of explanation home to parents.
  
• Familiarize yourself with safe Internet practices for students
  
• Determine how often you will post to your blog and make a "date" with yourself to do it and stick with it!
  
• How often do you want your students to contribute? Do you want to make it a class activity in the computer lab or allow them to do it on their own over a period of time?
  
• Who will be allowed to see your blog? Who will be allowed to comment? Will you moderate the comments?
  
• How will you grade student participation? What will be included in your rubric?

Getting Started

There are many free blog hosting sites available but for the classroom I prefer edublogs. Edublogs is free, easy, they offer tons of customer support and it was created especially for educators. Other sites include the one I'm using now - blogger, which is Google's blog service, and Classblogmeister.

For Further Study

There's plenty out there to read about blogging - thanks to Donna Goldsmith for the great links:
"Blogging Helps Encourage Teen Writing"
"Using Blogs to Enhance Middle School and High School Education"
"Rocking the Cyber Canoe: Blogging in English"
"Support Blogging.com"
"Back to School With the Class of Web 2.0"
"25 EduBlogs You Simply Don't Want to Miss!"

2008 Presidential Election Resources

Lots of great activities to keep students engaged after PACT - many opportunities for cross-curricular lessons.

• Cable in the Classroom "eLection" Game - http://broadband.ciconline.org/elections/Default.aspx
• CNN Student News - http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/
• CNN Live Feed - http://www.cnn.com/video/live/live.html?stream=stream1
• iCUE from NBC News - http://www.icue.com/
• C-SPAN Classroom Election Resources - http://www.cspanclassroom.org/Campaign2008_Resources.aspx
• New York Times Election Guide 2008 - http://politics.nytimes.com/electionguide/2008/results/votes/index.html
• Lesson Plan - The Electoral Process: Modern Political Parties and Elections - http://www.cyberlearning-world.com/lessons/civics/electoral_process.htm
• Lesson Plan - Elections in America - http://www.cyberlearning-world.com/lessons/civics/lp_path_to_the_white_house.htm
• SelectSmart - Presidential Candidate Selector - http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008/comparethem.html
• Electoral Vote - http://www.electoral-vote.com/
• Weekly Reader Election Fun - http://www.weeklyreader.com/election/index.asp
• United States State Department - http://uspolitics.america.gov/uspolitics/elections/index.html
• Scholastic News Online: Election 2008 (games, quizes, lesson plans and more) - http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/election2008.htm
• United States Electoral College - http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoralcollege/index.html
• Opensecrets.org, compilation of data on campaign contributions for the '08 elections - http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp?cycle=2008
• Daily Presidential Tracking Poll - http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/general_election_match_up_history
• US Census Bureau - Facts on Elections - http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/010725.html
• Reuters (graphics, polls, videos, etc.) - http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/2008candidates
• Pew Research Center - http://pewresearch.org/topics/election'08/
• PBS Lesson Plan - Analyzing the Candidates - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/politics/vote2008_candidates.html

MovieMaker Magic

MovieMaker Magic
SCASL Conference 2008
Andi Fansher – Library Media Specialist, Beck Academy Middle School
afansher@greenville.k12.sc.us
Royanne McWaters-Baer – 6th Grade Social Studies Teacher, Beck Academy Middle School
rmcwaters@greenville.k12.sc.us

If you have trouble downloading any of the documents, go to the SCASL wiki and scroll down to "Friday" http://scasl.pbwiki.com/2008+Conference for easy download

I created a set of instructions in PowerPoint - you can download from Google docs -

MovieMaker is a great piece of FREE software available for download from Microsoft. MovieMaker gives students the capability to combine narration, music, sound effects, still photos (using a digital camera, scanner, downloaded photos from the Internet or PowerPoint slides saved as jpgs) and digital video to create a movie.

MovieMaker can be adapted for any subject area for grades 6-12, and fourth and fifth grades with additional assistance. A project using this program will take about 2 weeks to complete and involves quite a bit of planning, but the results are worth it! The keys to making MovieMaker a success are organization and planning.

To get your project started, you will need to consider using some of the following organizational tools:

• Timelines
• Group Contracts
• Storyboards
• Scripts

Scaffolding this project by providing multiple due dates along the way will help your students be successful. Consider taking the following steps:

1. Timelines - work with your classroom teacher to come up with a reasonable timeline. Timelines will vary depending on how much material is required in the movie, if students are taking their own photographs or videos and how much narration they must record. This is one of the most important pieces of information to communicate with the students - remind them of the timeline frequently.
2. Groups & Group Contracts - divide your students into groups and have them think about the steps that they would best be suited to complete. Have each member of the group sign the contract. Royanne used a performance contract with her students.
3. Storyboards (another example here)- the classroom teacher should outline the movie requirements in a rubric. Students can construct a storyboard by following the rubric. Consider making the storyboard a graded assignment.
4. Scripts - students should conduct their research and write their script in scenes. Each and every word that will be included in their movie should be written here - this is not a time for outlines. Students may need to go back to modify their storyboard after they complete their script.

Now it is time to think about how students are going to go about researching their topic and gathering their media. Students should already have a detailed script and storyboard completed to remind them of what they are looking for. Their group contracts will help the remember what each person should be doing. We need to consider how students will store their information, how they will organize their information, citations and notes and using pathfinders.

1. Information Storage - In Greenville County Schools, each student has a personal storage space on the district server called a "home directory". This is a secure place for students to store their work, but not always an ideal location to store group work as students must use a personal login to access their home directories. We have discussed obtaining a few class sets of flash drive storage devices for this type of group project. The drives would remain in the library and would be labeled for each group to make the project accessible for all group members at any time during the school day.
2. Information Organization - Many younger students are not fully aware of the importance of file organization. When working with a MovieMaker project it is very important to keep all parts and pieces of the project together in one folder. It is easy to over organize or under organize photos, sound clips and video clips. Keep it simple and keep it all in one folder. Students should also be aware of the names of the media files they save - help them come up with a system of naming files so they will be easily accessible.
3. Citation Note Sheets and Plagiarism - What a great opportunity to insert a lesson on ethical use of information and plagiarism! I like using citation note sheets to encourage students to take notes in their own words (discourages copying and pasting) and to help them record all information necessary for writing citations. (see more examples on my webpage) Make their notes a graded assignment and encourage teachers to require students to use print resources for research in addition to databases and websites.
4. Pathfinders - A MovieMaker project is a pretty time consuming assignment - don't let students waste time aimlessly wandering the Internet. My feeling is that students either need the resources handed to them or need a lesson on searching and web evaluation - for this project is it most important that students get the information they need or is it most important that they learn to search and evaluate resources? I love to use pathfinders - research is fast and easy and students stay on task. Here is an example of a pathfinder I created for the Spanish movie project.

Google Tools, Part 1

Google Tools, Part 1 Presentation