Blogger and other communication tools

Have you noticed that some of the templates in Blogger have a short panel of icons for other social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook as well as email and Blogger itself? This allows you to tie together different methods of communication and collaborating. Try sharing a particularly interesting post to Facebook (or Twitter when we get to it a little later). Do you think this would be useful in a school setting?

Have you also noticed that some blogs appear to elicit more comments than others? What makes you want to read and contribute to a blog (your classmates' or others')? Have you commented on the blog of someone you don't know? How woud you feel if you got comments from non-classmates? How do you think your students would feel if they got comments from someone outside the school?

Encouraging people to comment on your blog

You may have noticed that some people are getting more comments on their blogs than others. One reason may be that they post earlier in the week, so there is something to read and comment on, but it may also be that they offer a new way of looking at things, a practical example that others can relate to, or additional information about the topic. Think about how you can make your blog both a reflection of what you are thinking and something interesting for others to read and comment on.

Benefits of Blogs in Education

While blogging is a relatively new technology, there is already research that looks at benefits of using the tool in education. Here's just one example of some potential benefits. Check in ERIC or Academic Search in Badgerlink for many more.

Duffy, Peter and Bruns, Axel (2006) The Use of Blogs, Wikis and RSS in Education: A Conversation of Possibilities. In Proceedings Online Learning and Teaching Conference 2006, pages pp. 31-38

More Education Blogs

Although this list is over a year and a half old at this point, it may still have some blogs of interest to you as a teacher.

50 Must-Read Up and Coming Blogs by Teachers

Adding Widgets to Your Blog

Once you get comfortable creating regular blog posts, you may want to add some widgets to your blog just the way you could add a search box along the side using the settings. Top 10 Widgets for Your Class Blog suggested widgets such as a calendar, a polling tool, a Voki, and ways to track traffic on your blog.

Customizing your blog

Once you have the concept of adding a post to your blog, you may want to customize your blog. You do this by selecting Customize in the upper right menu and adding Gadgets (small pieces of code that add features to your blog). The Blog Archive is generally there by default, but you might want to add things like

• Useful Links (add your own links you go to often),
• My Blog List (add other blogs you want to regularly go to),
• Search This Blog (adds a search engine for your blog), and
• Followers (allows others to follow your blog).

Blogs have become such powerful tools that there are libraries and teachers that are creating their entire websites just using a blogging tool like WordPress. In unit 2, we'll look at how you can turn your blog into a RSS Feed that allows you to put it on any webpage or in a RSS feed reader so that you don't have to come back to the blog to read the posts, but can have them come to you.

Putting links into blogs

If you ever want to create an actual hyperlink in your blog, simply type the word or URL you want linked, highlight the words and then click on the little link symbol in the menu bar (It is right next to the T with the color blocks). Type the link in the box that comes up and you're good to go.

It will look something like this:

David Warlick's 2 Cents Worth Blog
Will Richardson's weblogg-ed Blog

Following Versus Subscribing

Following is a new feature of Blogger. Here is the difference between adding yourself as a follower and subscribing to a blog (which is really the same as adding it as a RSS feed).

Follow: This allows you to let the blog writer and others know that you are a fan of this blog.
To use:

• Click on the Followers widget.
• Choose to follow it publicly or privately.
• This will show your icon on the blog page and put it in your Reading List.

Reading List / Subscribing: Your Blogger Reading List, located under your list of blogs on your dashboard, enables you to subscribe to any blog with a feed. It will update instantly each time a new post is published on any blog in your Reading List.
(See Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=99761)

To Use:

• Click on the "Blogs I'm Following" tab under "My Reading List" on your Blogger Dashboard.
• Click on the blue "Add" button
• Insert the URL of the blog you'd like to follow in the URL box.
• Click the add button.
• You can follow publicly or privately.
• This will also add this blog to your Google Reader account.

Setting up your own blog

Everyone should have a blog set up by the end of the week. Make sure to post your blog URL and the email you use to the discussion group. Four more things you'll want to do:

1. Go to Customize tab and then Settings. Under Comments, either allow Anyone to comment or Only Registered Users. If you do the latter, you will have to add all of us by email addresses (see picture 1).

• Only Registered Users: if not logged in already, visitors will be prompted to log into Blogger before leaving a comment. If they don't have an account, they can create one.

• Anyone: anybody in the whole wide world can leave comments

2. Under Permissions, allow anyone to view the blog.

3. Set up a page on something like iGoogle, My Yahoo, NetVibes, or PageFlakes so that you can follow the blogs of each of your classmates and me. Put in the URL of each blog to follow it.

4. Go into each blog, read the posts, comment on at least one posting in each, and add yourself as a Follower by clicking the Follow button in each.

Value of blogs in education

If you are wondering if blogs have any value in your classroom, read Stephen Downes's posting on Blogs in Education (April 2009): http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/04/blogs-in-education.html. It provides an overview of some of the uses as well has benefits for students.

Another article to review is Anne Davis's Rationale for Educational Blogging (EduBlog Insights, 2007): http://anne.teachesme.com/2007/01/17/rationale-for-educational-blogging/.

Getting Started in Blogging

One of the most important features of Web 2.0 is the ability to not just read what is posted on the web but also the chance to share one's own ideas with others and get feedback. Many of us may be following blogs for news, personal interest or professional development, but few of us are actually maintaining our own blog.

For most of us, it is uncomfortable at first to share our ideas with the world, but if we expect our students to do it, we have to first become comfortable doing it ourselves. For this class each person will have a blog to reflect on what we are doing in class, communicate with others in the class, and begin to develop their own ideas on how web 2.0 tools might be used in classrooms and libraries.

Image uploaded on April 3, 2007 by acroamatic: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/239/445631409_39f3506540.jpg?v=0 (Creative Commons license)