Introduction
Like other Web 2.0 technologies, blogging connects people and ideas. There are, of course, blogs addressing pretty much every topic imaginable: Personal interests and family, education, politics, news, entertainment, arts, culture, sports, lifestyle, hobbies, social causes, technology, business, self-help, etc... Technorati's "State of the Live Web" for April 2007 reported tracking over 70 million weblogs and counting. If you can think of it, someone's most certainly blogging about it.
Blogging is more than writing. Blogging is reading, reflecting, questioning, researching, synthesizing, linking, conversing, teaching, sharing and expressing ideas. Blogging is about writing, but blogging begins with reading.
Photo source: On the Internet... uploaded on April 20, 2007 by cogdogblog.
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Discovery Exercise
Read at least five of the blog posts below. They are intended to give you just a tiny sampling of a few voices and blogging styles (BY NO MEANS EVEN REMOTELY REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL THAT IS OUT THERE!) of teachers and students in the "EduBlogosphere," which is the category encompassing education-related bloggers and blogs. Take some time to read the comments as well, as commenting is one of the most significant aspects of blogging. In the next "thing", you will set up your RSS reader and subscribe to a few blogs that spark your interest.
As you read, consider the following questions (feel free to adapt and expand on any of these or add your own):
- What do you notice about the genre of blog writing in general?
- How is blog reading different from other types of reading? How is it similar?
- How is blog writing different from other types of writing? How is it similar?
- How does commenting contribute to the writing and meaning-making?
- Is there a "blogging literacy?" How does blogging affect the way we read and write?
- How can blogging facilitate learning?
Sample Blog Posts (Select Five)
- dy/dan (Mr. Meyer): Why I Don’t Assign Homework
There are 86 comments on this post as of January 31, 2008. You don't have to read them all - says something about the provocativeness of the post, though! - Mrs. Edmison's Class: Questions for One of Our Favorite Authors: Grace Lin>> Third grade students receive a special blog comment from a beloved author answering their questions about writing.
- Mark’s Edtech Blog: Is this SSR 2.0?
A third grade teacher describes a "new" kind of Sustained Silent Reading. - SP-817 Math Blog: Boeun's Scribe for December 4th
This is an example of a "Scribe Post," as "invented" by calculus teacher Darren Kuropatwa, in which a student (8th grader in this case) reviews the classroom learning for the day or week. The teacher sets guidelines for the quality of work and students who exceed the requirements have an opportunity to be nominated into the "Scribe Hall of Fame." - CoolCatTeacher (Vicki Davis): Spies Like Us
Vicki Davis talks about the realities of teaching in a society where every cell phone is a recording device. Vicki Davis is someone you want to know about! - Extreme Biology: Imagine Turning On the Faucet and Nothing Coming Out
Classroom blog of a high school biology teacher in an Atlanta-area private school. Students post about different topics related to the study of biology. This is the most-read post on the blog. Check out the comments in response to the student's question at the end of her post. - EduBlog Insights (Anne Davis): A Rationale for Educational Blogging
Anne Davis, an edublogging pioneer from Georgia State University, has been blogging with elementary school students since 2002. In this post, she enumerates her reasons for blogging with students. - Discourse About Discourse: The Ripe Environment
A proposal for getting beyond the tools to the teaching and learning. - Students 2.0: Teaching Brevity
The author of this post is a fourteen-year-old. The Students2oh blog is collaboratively written by a group of high schoolers from across the U.S. and beyond. These outspoken, articulate students have garnered a huge following in just a few weeks of publishing. - NeverEnding Search: PowerPoint Reform - A First Chapter
High school librarian Joyce Valenza shares highlights from her presentation for senior English classes on how to stop making miserable PowerPoint presentations.Good points and good resources. - Patrick's Update: 5th Grade
This post was written by an at-risk fifth grader who struggled with writing and school success in general. Anne Davis shares it as an example of the importance of comments in blogging. - Weblogg-ed (Will Richardson): Why Can't We Do This?
Ed tech visionary Will Richardson takes a break from "blog-vangelizing" to ask a question about plastic grocery bags. - Andy Carvin / Learning NOW: An Open Letter About Cyberbullying
Andy Carvin responds to a nerve-striking "humor" article in Wired Magazine. - Wandering Ink: How To Prevent Another Leonardo Da Vinci
An argument about the ways in which the current education system and adolescent culture discourage creative thought. (If this interests you, you may want to view Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk: Do Schools Kill Creativity?). - Duck with a Blog: Second graders Write About Our Missing Duck
Award-winning elementary blog about an unexpected guest. Be sure to click the duck to read the students' stories.
Learning Activity:
PART 1: Create a blog post in response to the exploratory reading and questions listed above. Feel free to reflect on anything that struck you about the posts themselves itself or the genre of blogging in general. Be sure to include a link to any post(s) you refer to and include "Thing #4" in your post title. (NOTE: Because blogs are frequently updated, the "front page" content is always changing. When linking to a blog post, you need to use the Permalink, which is the direct, permanent link to that post.
HELP video: Adding links from blog posts
PART 2: Visit the blogs of two participants in our Learning 2.0 group (listed on the sidebar of the Learning 2.0 site or within our Google tracking spreadsheet) and contribute a comment in response to one of their posts. Try to include specifics in your comment, relate to your own experiences and even ask questions. Include a link to your own blog in the website. Early finishers may have to check back later in the week to find blogs to post to.
HELP:
- How do I leave comments on a blog?
- How do I enable comments on my blog?
- How do I moderate comments on my blog?
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