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

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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.

Overview Edublogs Serendipity webinar – Skills for online teaching

Introduction

For this  recorded Serendipity unconference webinar we took a brief  look at the skills needed for online teaching and at how we could gain those skills.  Unusually for our sessions all of us attending were based in Australia – I suspect this was because most of the USA has just had a clock change with clocks going back one hour. Changes to and from “summer time” always have an impact on the geographical locations of our attendees for a couple of weeks.

The Session

We used whiteboard and text chat a lot during this session as well as audio because we had people without microphones, so it was very much a blended session. Lots of ideas and suggestions were made on the whiteboard both for the skills needed and how to gain them.

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From my perspective this session was particularly interesting for two reasons:

  • at the moment my teaching is entirely online with regional students that I never meet
  • we didn’t initially seek a common interpretation of teaching online so this meant that in discussion we  “blurred the edges” a bit and went partly into the skills needed to use tech in teaching

This is a good thing for me to reflect on as I often suggest once a topic is chosen that we seek a common interpretation before we start the discussion. However in unconference webinars such as Serendipity should I even be doing this? What do you think?

Conclusion

This session was fun – we went a bit feral at the end and played with Elluminate giving everyone Moderator so that they could see the extra tools available to moderators.

Exciting News – Upcoming Conference!

Remember to check out the sessions at the Global Education Conference happening all of this coming week.  There is no registration required you just click on the Elluminate link (these will be available from the session information).

The theme is “globally connected education” and is totally cross-sectoral aimed at anyone involved in any way in education and/or training. There are sessions on many different aspects of online collaboration and connection betweeen students, educators and the wider global community.

There are around 350 presenters from all over the world (including a session about our Serendipity/Fine focus webinar series at 01:00 GMT/UTC on Friday – one hour after the end of the usual Fine Focus session).

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We would love your input/participation in the session, especially so if you have participated in the Serendipity/Fine Focus series of webinars as they have evolved. This is an opportunity for us to look at where we are and consider our future direction!

Our Next Session

FineFocusSmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. This week in “Conferences – they are a’changing” will be a discussion about the changing face of conferences and some of the pro’s and con’s of the old and new style of conference.

.Join us on Thursday Nov 18th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (6pm USA EST, Midnight CET) or Friday Nov 19th 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.

Webinar Overview – Motivating the Unmotivated Learner

Introduction

The recorded Edublogs webinar of the 20th/21st of May was a fantastic session led by guest presenter Lynne Oakvik of the Learning Resources and Instructional Media Department, Broward County Public Schools, Florida.

I really enjoyed this session for the content and activities but also because I was able to participate more in text chat than is often possible while Lynne led the session ably supported by Phil Hart.

The Session

After the usual preliminaries and some introductory words from Lynne she took us straight to the heart of the matter by asking us to brainstorm the factors influencing student motivation. We had a very full whiteboard very quickly!

Impactson Motivation

This first activity set the scene for a lively and well paced session. We moved on to look briefly at some of the possible overarching institutional strategies for supporting unmotivated (at risk) students. Next we shared individual strategies we had used with students. This again produced a well filled whiteboard as well as a busy chat stream. Lynne then summed up by showing, and asking for our input on, the outcomes from a report suggesting items that might be fundamental to keeping at risk students in education,

Conclusion

All in all this was a very interactive and thought provoking session and our thanks go to Lynne for giving us all such food for thought in such an effective way. As with most of these sessions this overview is no more than a fleeting glimpse and you will get much more from the recording.

Next week

SerendipitybsmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs Serendipity – unconference session so bring along your hot topics and burning issues (what makes you spit with anger or thump a tub with passion) and throw them into the melting pot for the poll to choose our topic in the first ten minutes.

Join us on Thursday May 27th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (7pm USA EST, Midnight BST) or Friday May 28th at 1am CEST,7am West Aus, 9am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Elluminate room

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Serendipity – Non-Tech Teaching of Tech Topics

The topic chosen in Edublogs Serendipity Webinar this week was “Teaching technical subjects in a non-technical way”. This generated a really interesting discussion with many great ideas expressed in text, on the whiteboard and over audio, Catch up with the recording for all the details – the Wordle below gives a flavour of the discussion.

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TechieSmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs “Techie How To!” session “Add-on Value to Firefox” by guest presenter Shelly Terrell, Shelly (technology teacher, trainer and social media consultant) will explore some of her most valued Firefox add-ons.

Join us on Thursday February 25th at 23:00 GMT (6pm USA EST, Midnight CET) or Friday February 26th at 7am West Aus, 10am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Elluminate room.

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