Edublogs webinar – Global Student Blogging Challenge

Introduction

In this recorded session Sue Wyatt (@tasteach) gave us a fascinating look at the Global Student Blogging Challenge soon to get underway for its first run of 2012.

The Session

Sue started with a little of the history of the Challenge which has been happening for several years and has grown phenomenally since its inception.

Sue then shared  and talked about a variety of pages from the Challenge. She told us about how the Challenge works for students and teachers.  This included a look at some of the activities and answering our questions as we looked at the pages.

There was much interest in the mentoring aspect of the Challenge. Sue asks for volunteer mentors each of whom is asked to visit and comment on a number of student blogs.

If you are interested in the Challenge and are an educator, future educator or perhaps a retired educator then please consider volunteering as a mentor. With over 1,000 students in the last Challenge and more likely for March 2012 Sue needs 30-40 mentors. As Sue said in her presentation you don’t need to be an expert blogger – the role is more about visiting, commenting and sometimes making suggestions on what students might write about. Checkout the Mentor Registration Page and be a part of the Challenge!

There are already students and classes registering for the March 2012 Challenge so if you are a teacher with class or student blogs and you want to participate it’s time to think about registering right now!

Conclusion

A great session – the Global Student Blogging Challenge is such an exciting event. Each year I try to plan for involving at least some of my students and/or colleagues. so far this hasn’t happened. Partly this is because of the complexity (for me anyway) of initiating blogging with my totally online regional literacy students who often struggle with computer literacy as well. However this year we have a project which will enable us to try out a model for getting students started with blogs by using them as a simple e-portfolio. So although the March Challenge will not be possible I still have hopes for September!

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday February 16that 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday February 17th at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual BlackboardCollaborate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic.

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – blogs, wikis, twitter for classrooms

Introduction

The chosen topic for this session was a look at blogs, wikis and Twitter for classrooms, this was a clear leader in the voting. This session was very interactive with lots of audio discussion as well as text chat and whiteborad contributions. As always the session was  recorded although I was a couple of minutes late starting the recording and so went back to the start and reintroduced the topic. This happened in part because when loading slides I had accidentally clicked record for a few seconds – in the new interface the record button is right next to load content and is not red! As a result of this the excellent “Recording Reminder Window” closed.

The Session

The poll was between 5 topics with blogs, wikis or Twitter for classrooms combined with privacy settings on blogs and wikis being the chosen option. This was a very active discussion. As is often the case we started with a whiteboard for ideas on the topic

and this led on to a very productive audio and text disscussion around the points on the whiteboard with people talking about how they use the tools in their classes and sharing ideas and links.

With only a short time left we moved on to look briefly at privacy issues  and particularly the need with younger students to maintain confidentiality for their safety. This was linked with the need to establish good digital footprint habits. We also talked briefly about Twitter with thoughts about social media for rural students and also backchannelling and its various facets – a subject that perhaps deserves a whole session for discussion!

Conclusion

This was a great session with many thought provoking ideas. Something I really love about Serendipity sessions is that no matter how many times a similar topic is raised the particular participant mix in any one session drives the conversation in different directions so that there is always something new to learn and new aspects of the topic to consider.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session, this week in: “Why? When? How? Social Media With Students” we will take a look at why, how and when we do, or should, use social media with students. Join us on Thursday September 8th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning September 9th in Australia – in the usual Elluminate room

Edublogs webinar overview – Blog or wiki? Pros & cons

Preface

If you access the link to the recording it would be great if you would just leave a short comment on this post to let me know. I would really like to know if it is useful to people when I post the overviews & recording links

Introduction

This was a great session with a lot of sharing and plenty of  “take aways” and insights into how and why people use blogs and wikis in their teaching. We had a really good blend of audio contributions, text chat and whiteboard interactions with lots of links shared in text and through web tour.  We did a session once before (in late 2009) comparing Nings, Blogs and Wikis and I have found the recording link and added it towards the end of the post. So this week you get two recordings for the price of one!

The Session

As usual the session was recorded and we started with a look at what participants would like to gain from the session

BlogWikiToTakeResize

and also a look at where everyone was coming from in terms of using blogs or wikis both with their students and for their own use. Interestingly all participants in the room at that point used blogs but not wikis for their own professional development and/or resource sharing with other teachers.

We then moved on to take a look at some of the reasons for choosing either a blog or a wiki and how these characteristics relate to each of the two tools.  Next we shared through whiteboard text and some fascinating audio input some of the reasons we use blogs and/or wikis with our students. From my personal perspective it seems that the characteristics are increasingly overlapping with time as the providers of these tools expand the available  options for users and also as users become more inventive and knowlegable about them.

Although the session was about blogs and wikis we also took a brief foray into alternatives to these as there are an increasing number of alternative ways of publishing on the Internet for both public and closed group contexts.

We moved on to web tour a few great examples of blogs and wikis used for specific purposes including: information and “how to” sharing blogs; blended reflective life and work blog; professional and personal development blogs; multiple author blog; resource sharing wiki; and collaborative planning wiki. If you checkout the recording the links for these are live on the relevant whiteboard and there are many other shared links in text chat.

Lastly we took a look at what we might do as a result of the session followed by feedback and “take aways”.

Here for anyone who is interested is the recording link for the session comparing Nings Blogs and Wikis that we did back in late 2009 – when Nings were still free!

Conclusion

We had a really good blend of audio contributions, text chat and whiteboard interactions with lots of links shared in text and throughweb tour, so if you missed this session it is well worth catching up through the recording. Also interesting to compare with the older session from 2009.

Next Webinar

SerendipitybsmallOur next session is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday Feb 17th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (6pm USA EST, Midnight BST) or Friday Feb 18th at 1am CEST, 7am West Aus, 10am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Elluminate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic of the day. If you want to propose a topic in advance then visit the Serendipity Wallwisher and add your topic.

In the Future

If you are a regular visitor to our webinars you will know that we alternate “Fine Focus” sessions on specific topics with “Serendipity” the unconference sessions where we choose a topic by poll at the start of the session. Sometimes the very fact of being asked for “hot topics” or other ideas for discussion or learning tends to make our minds blank. This has prompted me to start a Serendipity Wallwisher for topic suggestions. Please visit the wall and add your ideas for Serendipity topics so that we have more choices to consider. Some of these ideas might also form the basis for future “Fine Focus” sessions.

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – class blogs

Preface

If you access the link to the recording it would be great if you would just leave a short comment on this post to let me know. I would really like to know if it is useful to people when I post the overviews & recording links

Introduction

This was a timely session, recorded as usual. The choice of topic was class blogs and there are two blogging events relating to this that are either underway or soon to start. The first of these is the Teacher Challenge the current challenge is getting started with blogging – its not too late to join this challenge right now if you want to! The next challenge will be getting students started with blogging in preparation for the Student Blogging Challenge itself.

The Session

We started the session by sharing the links to our own blogs, and talking a little about class blogs. In my opinion (and I think that of many others) no-one gives better or more comprehensive information about blogging with students than Sue Waters of Edublogger fame. So logically as we didn’t have Sue with us the next step was to use Application Share and share some of her fantastic posts on class blogs and student blogging. The posts gave us the answers to many questions on the whys and wherefores of class blogs and students’ own blogs.

Conclusion

A really interesting session where the focus was very much on knowing where to find what we wanted to know rather than anyone knowing a huge amount about the topic.

Our Next Session

FineFocusSmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. This week in “Graphic Organizers – Stimulating Our Learners’ Minds”  Shelly Terrell will give us a heads up on some online graphic organizers and cool websites for collaborative mindmapping. She will also share tips on integrating graphic organizers to stimulate discussion and support discovery learning.  Join us on Thursday Jan 27th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (6pm USA EST, Midnight CET) or Friday Jan 28th at 7am West Aus, 10am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Elluminate room

In the Future

If you are a regular visitor to our webinars you will know that we alternate “Fine Focus” sessions on specific topics with “Serendipity” the unconference sessions where we choose a topic by poll at the start of the session. Sometimes the very fact of being asked for “hot topics” or other ideas for discussion or learning tends to make our minds blank. This has prompted me to start a Serendipity Wallwisher for topic suggestions. Please visit the wall and add your ideas for Serendipity topics so that we have more choices to consider. Some of these ideas might also form the basis for future “Fine Focus” sessions.

Serendipity Webinar Overview – Blogging With Students

Introduction

This session was a sharing of ideas about blogging with students (recording here). As is often the case we used a mix of audio, text and whiteboards so catch the recording for the full flavor!.

The session

We started as usual with deciding a topic and the consensus (by poll as usual) was to talk about blogging with students. We talked briefly about some of the pros and cons of student blogging.
ProsAndCons frmed

Then we moved on to look at how we might manage blogging for students, touching on a range  of issues including: deciding whether to use class or individual student blogs; managing/moderating content; safety for the students; the need for guidelines for students; and the possibilities opened up by joining activities such as Sue Wyatt’s  (@tasteach) Global Blogging Challenge

Conclusion

Blogging with students is a huge topic with so many facets that it was impossible to do more than brush the surface of some aspects in one session, but we certainly enjoyed trying! Most of the areas we touched on would justify a full session to themselves!

Next Week

TechieSmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus!” session a “Techie How To” – “Imagine Your Image” an interactive session in which we invite you to explore with us a simple to use, free image editor (Photofiltre). Ninety nine times out of a hundred when I or my students need to edit an image we just need to do something simple and don’t need advanced features such as layers. For example we mostly just need cropping, resizing, adding labels or simple image enhancements. So when I construct a simple “how to”, modify an image for my blog or for use in a learning resource I use Photofiltre.

Join us on Thursday July 1st at 23:00 GMT/UTC (7pm USA EST, Midnight BST) or Friday July 2nd at 1am CEST,7am West Aus, 9am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Elluminate room

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Challenging Students to Blog!

This week’s recorded Edublogs Webinar was presented by guest speaker Sue Wyatt aka tasteach. Sue describes herself as “a nearly retired teacher bringing the world of web 2.0 into her classroom”. It would be fair to say that through her Blogging Challenge she has brought the world of web 2.0 into many classrooms around the world! The challenge began with about 500 students from 8 countries and has now developed to over 3000 students from 15 countries. Beginner bloggers, veteran bloggers, commenters and classes take part. Each week a new activity is posted and teachers may use as they wish in their classroom and hopefully link back to the original post.

BlogChallenge

As usual we had global participation and as usual this and the great subject gave rise to a lively session with a very “busy” text chat throughout as well as the polls and whiteboard interaction. Sue told us how she started blogging herself and then very soon progressed to blogging with her students, and then how the whole challenge went global with the invaluable help and support of Sue Waters.

In the next part of the session Sue took us on a Web Tour giving us a look at a variety of blogs that have been part of the challenge over the last two years and showing how the Challenge as developed and grown to encompass so many participants.

Finally Sue gave us a “heads up” on the Challenge due to start in early March – registration forms will be available for you to register your class and/or individual students from tomorrow (Sunday 31st January 2010) on “Challenge Yourself to Blog”.   In preparation for the new Challenge Sue Waters is writing a series of posts (the first is on creating a class blog)  on the activities that are useful to do in advance tof taking part in the Challenge. As usual these are full of excellent advice and are a great read whether you plan to take part in the Challenge or not.

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs Serendipity – unconference session so bring along your hot topics and burning issues and throw them into the melting pot for the poll to choose our topic in the first ten minutes

Thursday February 4th at 23:00 GMT (6pm USA EST, Midnight CET) or Friday February 5th at 7am West Aus, 10am NSW. Join us here in Elluminate as usual – look forward to “seeing” you!