Bloggers who make a difference

Harley is one of my favorite bloggers. He puts a lot of joy in classrooms and really gets kids actively engaged in learning. Recently he posted about the process of making maple syrup for a group of fifth graders in Georgia. He had read some of the analogies that the fifth graders were creating and he incorporated that into his post. What great reinforcement for these kids! They got to think and apply their learning in such a fun way and many of them tossed analogies back to Harley. Harley’s first post brought 53 comments from the students and his second post now has 41 comments! I’m betting we will see even more comments. Plus many of the students went on to create their own posts as they excitely shared all that they were learning. Wow! Talk about connections!

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TRLD Conference

I was fortunate enough to get to attend the TRLD (Technology, Reading, and Learning Difficulties) conference in San Francisco again this year. Once again, it was a great experience. My only complaint was that I didn’t get to have dinner with Chris and John. That was such an added bonus last year! I did make a silent toast to them as I enjoyed my “Chop Chop” salad one evening. The other downside of attending this conference is that I will be unable to attend NECC this year. Some choices are tough but the type of
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UbD Educators: Suggestions?

I have mentioned before that the UbD Educators wiki has grown quiet.  I think there may be two reasons for this:

We’re all busy educators who have difficulty finding the time to create, post, and/or comment on others’ posted UbD units.We’re not getting what we need out of the wiki.

It’s not in my power to alleviate the first problem, and believe me, I hear you there.  However, the second problem is much easier to address.  The wiki is only as good as we make it.  If you need a feature that the wiki doesn’t have, add it.  If you have trouble keeping up with new pages and discussions, try subscribing to the site’s various RSS feeds (you can keep up with all changes or just changes to one page).  If you want to make a change, but you aren’t sure, ask the wiki members about it on the Suggestions page.  the majority of the wiki’s members have not yet contributed either unit plans or discussions.  I want to hear your voice!  I don’t mind lurkers, but we have the potential to make this wiki a huge repository of ideas and discussion about UbD, and we can only do that through teacher contributions.

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Podcast Show 11 - Loudblog

Loudblog is a content management system for publishing media files on the web. It does not claim to handle all your blogging needs, but in fact specializes in media files of many different flavors. In this podcast I walk through the wonderfully easy install (web-based) and some possible uses for this software. It is fully open-source and I really liked it.

It claims to integrate with Wordpress, but I have not tried that as of yet. I am currently using podpress to handle my podcasting needs, and have found it to be robust, but I will investigate this further just for kicks.

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Mediator enters Tosa teacher talks

Mediator enters Tosa teacher talks Health care costs, pay scale are top topics to settleBy DANI McCLAIN
dmcclain@journalsentinel.comPosted: April 8, 2008

A mediator will help the Wauwatosa teachers union and the school district try to reach agreement on a new contract as talks resume today after negotiations stalled over salary increases and health insurance benefits.

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Putting knowledge on mobiles is key for new generations

From a New York Times article today full of lament about the frustrations of the young Middle Eastern generation, there are hints in these excerpts about something that can help:

Stymied by the government’s failure to provide adequate schooling and thwarted by an economy without jobs to match their abilities or aspirations, they are stuck in limbo between youth and adulthood. . . . With 60 percent of the region’s population under the age of 25, this youthful religious fervor has enormous implications for the Middle East.

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Blogging and Writing

Mark Bernstein, Phil Wolff, Nathan Edelman and Pat are a part of a panel on the importance of Web logs with writing, and it’s spurring some pretty good threads dealing with the issues of implementation, privacy, plagiarism, etc. One obvious issue that I’m noticing is the difference between personal blogging and educational blogging, especially on the K-12 level. A lot of us use Web logs with our students, but how many of us really have students that are “blogging” in the essential sense? In fact, the question may even be can our students really “blog” at all given the limitations imposed by school districts and the fears of teachers and administrators? I’m not discounting the worth of using Web logs to teach writing (and other things), but I guess the distinction to remember is that we’re really not teaching blogging. My issue is that I’d love to teach blogging…

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Different perspectives and a little humor

Comparing viewpoints is so interesting, especially when you are trying to teach. Also humor in the classroom helps learning and I love when I get the opportunities to combine the two. This comment from Michael on one of his posts made me remember a previous post from Will. We have an interesting comparison here. Will is charged and excited about making Google Maps. He begins talking about google map directions and tells us to check out step 19. (which by the way appears to be step 15 now). Will says this is “too funny.”

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Podcast Episode 15 - Blogging

This podcast is a bit of a downer, I have to admit.

This is a recording of a session I did at the SC ETV Technology Workshop. I had a room full of teachers interested in blogging with their students, having heard so much about it.

I have a draft post called Students should not blog, that I will post some time soon, and ultimately the conclusion that I draw is that there is not a widely available tool that enables student blogging with appropriate levels of teacher involvement. I think Class Blogmeister was on track (and could still be), and I certainly this DrupalEd is there, but it’s not for everyteacher.

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Save the date - EduCon 2.0 in Philadelphia

Educon 2.0 is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School 2.0 conference. It will be an innovation conference where we come together in person and virtually to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the big dreams.This is the perfect way for school leaders, teachers, tech coordinators and district teams to spend a weekend learning together.

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