KimP’s Blog

Oh, I See!

May 14, 2008 at 10:12 pm | In Blogging, Class, Learning, Reflecting | 7 Comments
Tags: Blogging, Dean Shareski

 

 Dean Shareski recently posted about blogs that succeed, and listed five simple ways he’s discovered to help students and teachers blog successfully:

Blogging is mostly about reading

• Provide as much time to read blogs as write
• When writing make sure you are responding to something you’ve read, seen or heard

To make a friend you have to be a friend

• If you want people to read and respond to your work, you will need to read and respond to theirs
• We have 2 ears and 1 mouth!

It’s personal

• Write about what you know
• Don’t lose the concept of conversation - it must flow from personal meaning
• Write stories that others can relate to and contribute to

Hyperlink

• Validity of blogs without links?

Get graphical

• Words are only one way to express ideas
• Embed video, audio and images
• Communicate beyond just words

I’ve been struggling a bit lately with finding the impetus to write, and I think its because I’ve over planned the whole “story” too much.

I’ve also been doing lots and lots of reading but not responding in any way - just thinking “Yeah, I agree with that!” and moving on to the next post.

Maybe I need to explore graphical ways of communicating - try out some new applications so I can use them/show them in class as well.

I shared Dean’s suggestions with my class and they had a lively discussion about the ideas raised - we’ve all agreed to get down and serious about improving our blogging this term, just you wait and see if we don’t  

The Why To of Web2.0

May 11, 2008 at 10:14 pm | In Blogging, Conferences, Reflecting, Web 2.0 | No Comments
Tags: education, judy o'connell, mindmaps, web2.0, westley field, will richardson

How the Web Transforms Everything

An exciting day spent listening to some of Australia’s premier edubloggers:

• Judy O’Connell
• Westley Field

plus the blog guru himself - Will Richardson!

A great opportunity for our school group to hear and see first hand how the web is transforming learning and teaching, and to consider why we must embrace and work with web2.0 to keep learning in schools relevant - for our students and for ourselves.

Co-create

Share

Empower

Transform

Question

Networks

Deep understandings

Change

Improve

……….. just a few things on our “to do” list when we are back at school…………

Here is a mind-map I jotted out at the event, a way of sorting the information/thoughts/opinions from the esteemed presenters