hartman's enormous idea

I hope this is the right way to post my idea for a classroom lesson...I guess I'll know shortly. I have only read a few pages of one of the articles so far, so maybe upon further reading I'll get some clarification and guidance about exactly how to structure my proposed project effectively for sixth grade middle school students. (I figure the six hour flight back to the mainland from Maui will provide the perfect opportunity to do so). In any case, the real struggle I went through in trying to figure out how to incorporate blogs into a project was actually finding a way to include them that would truly take advantage of their unique properties (globally accessible, instantaneously available). I came up with numerous projects that incorporated the use of blogs, but in nearly every case there did not seem to be any real reason to use a blog instead of any other medium, including old fashioned pencil and paper. Finally, after much revising, the idea of using a blog to track student progress on an experiment arose. When I added to this concept the component of recreating an existing scientific experiment (one of my first ideas as a middle school science teacher) there seemed to be some justification for using blogs rather than pencil and paper. So my idea is this:

Each student will sign up for their own blog on Blogger.com. They will be responsible for posting an entry of at least three sentences every day to their blog describing their progression throughout the project (including the proposal process).

Each student will submit a proposal for approval that outlines:
1. What scientific field their experiment is based in.
2. What their experiment will attempt to prove or disprove.
3. Who originally performed their experiment.
4. What the original outcome of the experiment was.
5. How they will reproduce the experiment.
6. How they will convey their final findings.
7. How long their experiment will take.
8. What supplies they will require for the experiment.

Upon proposal approval, each student will be allowed to undertake their experiment process. Because different experiments will require different lengths of time to complete, the deadline for each student will be determined by the student themselves (and graded according to how well they have allocated and managed their work time).

Upon experiment conclusion, the students will be expected to create a final write-up and reflection that details their findings and hypothesizes on errors, improvements, and areas for possible expansion for the experiment in the future.

The unique properties of blogs is thus taken advantage of by allowing the outside world to see exactly what steps each student has taken in their experiment recreation (not to mention the students themselves having access to this information) which enables the audience to then judge the validity of the recreation almost immediately after each step has been taken (rather than after the entire experiment has been concluded). Hopefully some interaction with the original experimenter could take place at some point in the project so that their input could be included in the final product, although that will depend greatly on the actual experiment each student decides to recreate. -joe

Integrating Blogging into my Honors Multimedia Production Course

When I first began to contemplate how I might integrate blogging into the courses that I teach, I was thinking about small, individual assignments that might lend themselves to using a blog. However, after reading the articles, I now think that it may be more useful to incorporate blogging as a central and ongoing part of my "Honors Multimedia Production" course. While much of my course content involves working with software and issues related to design and technology, there are a number of ways I've been trying to extend the course into new directions. First, many of my students haven't been exposed to cutting-edge interactive multimedia content in the same way that they've been exposed to film and other media. I think it's important for them to survey and explore contemporary interactive design and the studios and artists who are making it. Secondly, I want students to examine some of the critical issues and theory related to new media and contemplate the ways in which new media is a unique art/communication medium. I think blogging may be an ideal way to get students thinking about and exploring these things.

Rather than doing a series of individual blogs, my plan is for all of my students to participate in one central, collaborative course blog. I already maintain a website (http://karlcleveland.com/157) that is the "bible" for my course, and I think that I can integrate the course blog as part of that site, so that all the resources and material for the course will be in once place. But, with the blog, students will be able to help shape the content and resources available and contribute to the "collective intelligence" of the course.

My plan is to require students to post at least one thoughtful entry and one comment per week to the blog. Each entry will also need to include a link to an external resource or example. Each week, I will provide a few resources and links and a specific task to research and explore online. Alternatively, I can develop all the tasks and related links in the beginning and students can pick and choose which to write about (provided they cover all the tasks by the end). Each task will relate to interactive media arts and focus on the following five exploration themes:

Exploration of Studios/Artists -- Find cutting-edge multimedia design studios and/or artists who develop interactive multimedia artworks/projects for the Web, CD-ROM, or installation and comment on their work, design philosophy, and techniques.

Exploration of Design Principles -- Find examples of effective and compelling interactive multimedia design and dissect the design elements, uncover the design principles and techniques that are at work, and how these principles are applied and/or operate within the examples/

Exploration of Technology -- Comment on a recent or expected future technology that will affect the creation, production, distribution, and/or experience of multimedia products

Exploration of Process and Practice -- Find and research interactive multimedia design studios/firms that provide information on their creative/developmental process. Review and compare the process of two or three such firms.

Exploration of Critical/Theoretical Issues -- Examine critical theory related to new media/multimedia with emphasis on providing a definition and/or historical context for new media as a unique art/communication medium. Consider what is unique about how new media objects/experiences create the illusion of reality, address and involve the viewer, and represent space and time. Identify concepts or characteristics that are unique or intrinsic to new media (i.e., interactivity, participation, integration, narrativity, hypermedia, nonlinearity, immersion, collaboration, personalization, database use, real time processing, forms of distribution, etc.) and find example projects that utilize these characteristics.

Lesson - Life without Technology

I would like the students in my class to consider life without technology. I have started putting a lesson together. It would look something like this:

Introduction
What if there the current technology that we are so accustomed to and dependent on was not a part of our daily life? This is a chance for you to consider life without the technology you use daily. How would your daily life be different?

Task
You are a student in 1900. You will create a blog with daily entries detailing your daily activities for a period of one week. How do you get to school? How do you contact your friends and family? How do you get your homework completed? How would you find out about news and events?

Process
1. First, you must sign up to create a blog. Go to the following website and create a username and password:
a. http://www.blogger.com/start
b. NOTE: DO NOT use your real identity. Create a username and password that does not reveal your real identity, and give the web address for your blog to me. This blog may be read by the entire class as well as parents and other students.
2. Use the following websites as sources for information about the 1900’s:
a. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/1900/
b. http://www.time.com/time/time100/timewarp/timewarp_us.html
c. http://pbskids.org/wayback/tech1900/
d. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa121599a.htm
e. http://www.archer2000.net/1900.html

Evaluation
Each blog entry will be read by your teacher. Each entry must include detail and should be at least two paragraphs in length.

Online Classroom

Although this is a fairly straight-forward approach to blogging, I would like to make my class project a Teacher Blog.

I've often wished for an easy way to post classroom activities to the internet and Teacher Blogs really seem to fit the bill.

Although I am the webmaster for my school, it takes a lot of planning and a circuitous FTP route for me to post new information to our site. Many of the staff at my school have asked about how they may post information for their school activities quickly and independently. Now, with minimal training, I will be able to assist staff members with creating their own online classrooms.

Future ideas include:

• Classroom Blog for student observations and contributions
  
• School Blog for parent and student communication
  
• Staff Blog for staff communication
  
• Club Blogs for school club activities
  
• Department Blogs for departmental collaboration

The first seed, a simple teacher blog, and Ms. Kline Online is now live, and ready for her even more lively students to visit.

Morning Videoconference

700videoconference
Originally uploaded by bdodge.

Here's a shot of our chat this morning with Anne Davis at Georgia State University.
I'm using this post to demonstrate how easy it is to use Flickr to add images to your blog. So many great tools for free!

A Picture Share!

Bernie at work

A Picture Share!

This is a picture I've mailed to the blog from my Treo 600 phone. This is a first for me!

To mail a picture to your own blog, go to the Settings tab and the Email subtab and set up a mail-to-blog address. Then follow the directions on your phone for sending pictures to an email address.

This feature isn't just for phones. You can post entries to your blog from any email client as well. Could be good for quick entries when you're on the road.

Pictures

This post is here to allow everyone to grab a copy of two pictures taken today: the morning videoconference and the class picture. We'll talk about grabbing pictures and uploading them to your blog later this afternoon.

Format for Blog Projects

It's clear from reading the draft ideas in your individual blogs that there is no single template that we can all use to organize your intentions. You're collectively doing a wide and interesting range of things! In most cases, the format commonly used for lesson plans will not be a good fit.

That said, I think there are some elements that all your plans should include in some form if the goal is to communicate your thoughts to other potential adopters. Here's a first stab at that list:

Title: Give a name to what you're doing. That way people can refer to it.
Author: Put your name here, along with your affiliation.
Summary: Put a 2-3 sentence summary of what this is all about.
Context: Where is your blog going to be implemented? With what users/learners?
Duration: Is this a 1 week project? 1 month? Or is it an ongoing environment into which you'll plug shorter term projects?
Goals: What do you hope people will learn or communicate through the use of your system? To the extent that your goals are instructional, specify what standards you'll be addressing.
Participants: Beyond the learners and you, is there anyone else involved? What roles will you and others play?
Process: What needs to happen before participants begin to interact with your system? What will you do first, second, third... etc. to make it happen.
Resources: What readings, web sites, other sources of information will you need to line up for this project to work?
Policies: What do you say to your users/learners about acceptable behavior?
Products: What will result from your system? What products or other outcomes?
Evaluation: How will you know that this was effective? How will you evaluate learning and other outcomes?

Captured Thoughts

Based on where we in the course, let's capture some ideas on how, in general, we might use blogging in education and training.

• Rotate responsibility for kids to summarize what happened in school.


• To deal with the lack of computers, use a single computer as a learning center, with students responsible for posting.


• Recognize and honor student work: i.e., type in a student's poem to showcase it.


• Use the comments feature for teacher (and others) to provide feedback.


• Use blogging to nurture dialog among teachers, kids, parents, and interested guests.


• Organize the use of mentors by bringing them in as guest bloggers.


• Allowing reflection time for quiet people; provide voice for the introverts.


• "Audience effect". Kids write more carefully for a wider audience that goes beyond the classroom.


• Start small. Don't develop a lesson or system with all the possible bells and whistles in place at the start.


• Get away from the notion that we're creating a website. Blogs are unique.


• Pre-selected audience (pre-arranged by teacher).


• Teaching the ability to dialog.


• To work within the present environment of NCLB, high stakes testing, etc., pick a single standard to work on for every project you develop.


• Pay attention to your local AUP on student pictures, identities, etc.


• Issue: needing email for kids. Possible answer: Gaggle.Net.

My initial thoughts on how to incorporate a blog into my district's culture

Background

These days I'm working with the office staff of 67 schools in San Diego City Schools. I'm involved with rolling out a new student information system to the district. My main roles are to conduct needs assessments, develop handbooks and job aids, and design the training for principals, VPs, nurses, counselors, clerks, and secretaries. Based on the limited human resource of my team of six, end users—the schools’site techs or power users, actually—are supposed to call the Help Desk when they need assistance. The Help Desk, however, has limited knowledge of the new SIS and also is inundated with calls on other topics. When the Help Desk receives a phone call, a ticket is generated. This ticket sits in a pool until an employee in the I.T. department can address it. Typically, the site tech ends up emailing or calling me, or one of the other staff members on my team. Figure 1 shows how reliant schools are upon the Help Desk.

My Vision

My vision is that schools are more self-reliant and less dependent on the Help Desk, that they can build upon their knowledge base by learning from one another. My partner and I have tried a few methods to accomplish this vision:

1. Website. My partner and I maintain a website that has handbooks, job aids, and troubleshooting guides. But we can’t provide troubleshooting tips for everything. Things come up, like network and connectivity issues, that aren’t even SIS-related but affect the site tech’s job.
2. Email. I send often send bulk emails to all site techs. Often I’ll recap various issues I’ve heard from individuals so they can get a sense of what’s going on. However, because some site techs are out of their office for hours at a time, they may come back to dozens of emails. I’ve heard that some of them often “don’t have time to read their emails because I don’t have the time.”
3. Listserv. My partner and I set up a listserv for the power users. It was difficult to establish this as part of our support culture. It’s not often used.
4. Buddy system. The schools figured this one out on their own long ago. Some of them have “buddied up” and will call or email one another for assistance. This bypasses the Help Desk rut, but what happens when the buddy doesn’t have the answer?

A blog seems like an ideal tool to meet this dream model of obtaining technical help. Site techs could post questions and they themselves can offer solutions or tips. I could use it to communicate news, like when a server goes down, or if there was (yet another) data conversion error. The blog is in one place. The site techs would not have to wade through emails to get to the information about the SIS. (One may argue, if they’re not checking their email, then why would they go online? I’m not sure about that one yet.) A blog allows them to “see” the issues in the district versus experiencing something and wondering if it’s just happening to them. It also provides the opportunity to grow as a site tech community. Figure 2 shows my vision of the dream model, where site techs give and receive information as they blog.

My Questions

My next step was to list the questions I have regarding how I might go about accomplish incorporating a blog into my school district's culture. Here are the questions I have:

1. Who am I hoping will participate? Secondary schools and elementary schools together? Separate? Just secondary schools for now?
   I think that secondary schools would need to have a blog separate from the elementary schools. Their issues are so entirely different. As far as implementing this, I think it would be easier to focus on the secondary schools in the beginning. The elementary schools don't have site techs. Their "power user" may be a secretary, clerk, or other office staff member. Currently there are 22 high schools and 8 middle schools that are using the new SIS.
2. What are the purposes of the blog? What do I want the users to get out of it?
   I want to be able to disseminate information easily. I want the disseminated information easy to obtain. I want the users to be able to pose questions here, where others can respond to them.
3. How should I set it up? In Blogger? Or through a district webpage?
   I'm not sure. Please advise!
4. Do participants need accounts? Do they need to log in? Or is it open to anyone?
   I suppose if I want them to be able to create their own posts they would need to have accounts. This ties into how I handle Question 3.
5. How do I incorporate this? How will they know about it?
   There are three ways to go about this. (A) I could try it out with a small number of site techs, like the ones who I know would be more apt to use it. Then, we can try to build it from there, showing others how it works and how it benefits them. (B) I could email the site techs and say, "Hey, here's this new thing...here's how it works." (C) I could have a face-to-face meeting and model how it is used, hype up the benefits, and have them try it out. It seems that C is my best option.
6. How regulated is it? Do I monitor it or let it go? Will there be rules?
   I'm not sure. There's potential for chaos. Ideas?
7. What problems do I anticipate?
   I anticipate difficulties in getting them onboard with this idea. I can already hear, "I'm so busy already. I don't have time for this." And, as I mentioned in Question 6, I see potential for chaos and disorganization.
8. As a result of this, what is the best case scenario?
   The best case scenario is that the site techs are fired up on this idea and they use a blog to share tips and solutions, and build a community. As we roll the new SIS out to the rest of the district (only 100 more schools to go!), they hear about it and jump on board, too. They're happy because they don't have to call the Help Desk. The Help Desk is happy because they're not getting bombarded with phone calls. I'm happy because no one's calling me anymore.
9. What is the worst case scenario?
   The worst case scenario is that this totally flops. If there is no buy-in, no value, for the site techs then they are not going to invest the time to use this tool.

This is where I'm at with figuring out how to incorporate a blog into my district's culture.

Slammin' Poetry

I had a few different ideas, but I think I will take a chance and go with this one for this class. There are five parts to this blogging implementation, but I'll start with the background, and the connection to... lets here it for the STANDARDS! *cheers all around*

Background: Students will participate in a 3 week African American Poetry Unit in 11th Grade Amercian Literature class. The students in the class read at all reading levels, and 5 students are members of the Academy of Information Technololgy. After students have analyzed poems written by a variety of poets for stylistic techniques, they will start experimenting with poetry of their own.

*** Plan for "non technie" students: The AoIT students and myself will take 4-5 students under our wing. We will be in charge of setting up individual blogs, and answering technical questions for our assigned group. This way all students will benefit from the infusion of technology and Literature, and the AoIT students get "help desk" experience!

Standards : 2.3 Write reflective compositions:
a. Explore the significance of personal experiences, events, conditions, or concerns by using rhetorical strategies

1) Getting Started: I will set up a class blog that will be a place for students to post comments about the poems read in class. The poems are powerful and political, so students should be motivated to make their voice heard. Students will be able to add to the blog starting on the first day of the poetry unit.

2) Student Blogs:Students will set up their own blog and publish poems that they have written, or are in the middle of writing, to their blog. These individual blogs will be linked to the class blog. Students will be required to write a miminum of 5 poems to their blogs, along with 5 reflections (one for each poem), that reflect on the writing process: what inspired you? how did you choose your form? what author did you use as a model? Along with any links to cool poems or authors they found on the web.

3) Showcase: Each student will read one poem of choice that they have written, to the class while projecting that blog entry on the screen.

4) Publishing to the world: The class will vote on the top 5 poems in the class. Student will be given critieria on which to judge, so that it doesn't become a popularity contest. For example: which poem moved you emotionally? Which had the best rhetorical techniques? Which poem best modeled a famous American poet?

5) Extend:The winners of the class vote will be published to a Weblog: The MadTeahouse Poetry Slam where students will be able to receive feedback from poets around the world, and possibly win a contest.

Steven Downes article

I am reading the Steven Downes article and am interested in this debate about what constitutes blogging. I can see both points. But does it matter? So what if what the students are doing isn't true blogging, as long as it benefits them in some way. Yes, I realize that the regulation of the blogs stifles some of what they contribute and may not be a true blog. But hopefully most of them are being honest with their thoughts and feelings, even if sensored.

It does make me think now about my idea for my lesson plan: to have students write as a new character in one of their books, to keep a diary of the new character. Is that really blogging?

confused

After leaving class and giving this more thought, I think I'm confused on the assignment. Please help.

I know that I need to write a lesson plan and come up with a way for students to use blogging as part of their learning. I am also supposed to come up with some mentor blogs for examples. Then I need to actually set up the blog for my students to use.

Here is where I am confused:
Do I set up a brand new blog on blogger.com? or Do I set up a blog through my blog under members? My students are not set up with email addresses, so how do I work around that?

getting creative

How can I use more interesting templates than the ones provided by blogger? I found some online, but how do I get it up on my blog?

Student Bloggers

I am no longer a classroom teacher, so I searched for Student Blogging. I used GoogleAlert.com which is a free service that regularly checks for updates on the same keyword search.

• This project on bbc.co.uk has students in Essex blogging about their adventures. I linked to this because I think its a good example of how one of the largest media outlets in the world is using student blogs.


• Kairosnews.org is a "weblog for discussing rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy" this article on Kairosnews.org is about students not taking ownership of their blogs during shortened summer courses.


• Weblogged-ed.com is a good source for a steady stream of information about "Using Weblogs and RSS in Education"

Ribbon Cutting

It's opening day! The class meets this morning and I'm looking forward to a fun and intense week. This central blog will serve as a space for collaboration and consolidation. Each participant in the class will have individual blogs which will interact with this one. I've never done it this way before, but it looks like we're in for a good ride.

Welcome!