Did I say I was done?

Okay, this will be my final post in this blog. It has run its course. (Literally. Only those of you in EDES 501 will get that one.)

I couldn't leave the issue of "use this Gmail method" hanging. I would be ignoring my responsibility as an educator. It is actually a hyperlink error in Edublogs' instructions for creating student blogs.

Wait a second...

I just tried it again and it worked! It isn't an error on Edublogs part, it is an error on my part! I am so embarrassed - what a classic PEBKAC error! You see, I usually open hyperlinks in new tabs. This helps me quickly navigate back and forth between web pages and it also helps me keep track of where I've come from. But this particular hyperlink isn't intended to open in a new tab. It's one of those windows within a window types, like this:

Sigh...and here Pam and I thought we were so clever. We found the alternate Gmail method instructions in the FAQ section of Edublogs' Premium Support. Yup, Premium. I upgraded to a Pro account. It was the only way I could create the student blogs.
I was somewhat misled by a quote from one of my textbooks, which claimed student blogs were free. Or at least that is what I interpreted from this plug for Edublogs: "Set up blogs for students even if they don't have e-mail accounts. It is free and comes with 100MB of free space with 20 MB in size for image uploads" (Berger & Trexler, p. 107, 2010). In fact, plenty has changed in terms of what Edublogs delivers its Free and Pro clients. On the left is a quick look at the difference between Edublogs Free and Edublogs Pro. To be honest, the promise of "Safe, secure, reliable and trusted by over a million users..." is worth the extra $40.00 for the upgrade. For classroom blogging, I want a platform that specializes in creating a superior and worry-free educational experience for teachers and students. I am impressed by the user interface. Although not easy, it is fairly logical if you have had some blogging experience.

I would not recommend this tool to a colleague new to blogs and blogging, unless she was willing to put in considerable time with my support and guidance. And by time I mean about four to five hours. I would expect it would take at least this long to introduce the platform, learn how to set up the student blogs with the appropriate settings for privacy and administration, and then play around with the features like the themes and widgets. Blogging with students is not a project to take on the night before introducing it into a unit of study. I recommend at least a week of prep blocks, after school hours, and even a few evenings, dedicated to playing around with the platform and preparing for the inevitable "what ifs?". For certain, blogging in the classroom is the most complex Web 2.0 area I have explored to date. I am really honoured that Pam asked for my help and I am looking forward to implementing all we have learned with the Grade 9 students in the new year!

A look back...

...to my first post shows the tools I intended to explore on this Web 2.0 journey. I am so thankful that this was my inquiry project, and that there was some flexibility in my tool choice. I had no idea that to reach my goal of proficiency in each chosen tool would require so much time! It didn't take me long to realize that my intentions were unattainable. There will be plenty of details provided in my final reflection, which I will publish as a page on this blog. For now, I am pleased to say that I have no regrets. The tools I chose have served me well and are welcome additions to my Teacher-Librarian toolkit.

This is Jessica Levitt signing off for real! Thank you for reading.

References
Berger, P. & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. 

The future. . .

I made it!

My nine weeks of Web 2.0 exploration are complete.

I have forwarded my recommendation to my colleague, Pam, for her upcoming blogging adventure with the Grade 9s. The winner of the hotly contested Edublogs vs. 21Classes blog platform debate can be found here.

Pam and I are meeting tomorrow to create the student blogs with the Pro Account I purchased. It will be interesting to see how Edublogs works around the usual requirement for an active email account. In my initial attempts to set up the additional student blogs I see that an email account is "required", yet a few lines further down it instructs, "If your users do not have email addresses you can use this Gmail method to add your users!"So far, clicking on this Gmail method hyperlink takes me in a circle. Hmm! I will have to investigate this further. The details of this dilemma will not be known before this post's publication deadline - further evidence that a Web 2.0 exploration project never really ends!

This is Jessica Levitt, mum, wife, reader, tl, and BLOGGER signing off!

Platforms?

This question is bigger than I expected it to be. And it may be that neither Pam nor I can answer it. However, we can certainly form an opinion based on a comparison of services offered by blogging platforms designed with students in mind.

There are several "names" in the student blogging business. Berger & Trexler (2010) suggest "Blogger, Class Blogmeister, Edublog, Live Journal, Moveable Type, WordPress, and 21Classes" (p. 107). Now I'm fairly pressed for time, with the deadline for this assignment arriving in less than a week, so I was pretty ruthless and not at all fair in the process of narrowing it down to my top two contenders. First, the castaways...

Blogger: We've been friends now for nine weeks, and I have yet to read anything student or teacher friendly about you, other than the fact that you are free. It's nothing personal, but you should really step it up if you want to tap into a seriously big market.

Class Blogmeister: I am sorry but I didn't even scroll down on your home page: I was turned off by your font choice and colour scheme, and I physically recoiled from text overload.

Kidblog: Sorry, the Grade 9 students will never go for it! They are waaaayyyy to mature.

LiveJournal: I think you might have moved in a new direction since the publication of Berger & Trexler's text? If you are still into blogging I suggest you make it a little clearer on your homepage.

MoveableType: You're a little too sophisticated for my simple needs.

Wordpress: Oh, you were tough to let go. Most of the educators I follow have their blogs hosted on your platform, and I find their visual appeal stands out from all other providers. But I think that you are the genius behind one of my top two contenders?

Which leaves . . .

Edublogs and 21Classes in the running.

Will there be enough time to squeeze in a detailed look at these two options? Can I produce one last post? Check your RSS feed later this week!

References 
Berger, P. & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Promises!

I promised my colleague, Pam, I would explore blogging options for her Grade 9 students. This is the same group of students to whom I introduced to Diigo earlier in this Web 2.0 inquiry project. Due to their enthusiastic response to that first Web 2.0 tool, I want to make their introduction to blogging just as positive. Now that I am a seasoned blogger, with 17 (almost 18) posts published and widely read, I feel poised to pass on some advice. And just in case I am not as blog savvy as I profess to be, I did check in with a few trusted, academic sources for guidance.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect for me in regards to students getting into blogging, is that "blogging in its truest form has a great deal of potentially positive impact on students" (Richardson, 2010, p. 20). Richardson goes on to list six aspects of pedagogy which blogging can positively influence:

• Weblogs are truly a constructivist tool for learning;
• they expand the walls of the classroom;
• blogs archive the learning that teachers and students do, facilitating all sorts of reflection and metacognitive analysis;
• the Weblog is a deomcratic tool that supports different learning styles;
• the use of Weblogs can enhance the development of expertise in a particular subject; and,
• blogs can teach students the new literacies they will need to function in an ever-expanding information society (p. 27)

Now, I know a little bit about the process required for getting to the stage where one is "blogging in its "truest form", and I know this is a process that requires the learner to struggle. I want to help Pam's students with this struggle. They will need some scaffolding. Richardson believes older students

can be asked to begin using Weblogs for extended study and reflection on a topic. They could be asked to reflect and build on previous ideas, incorporate feedback from readers, synthesize reading s from a number of different sources, and advance new ideas or interpretation of the topic (p. 33).

I am certain this group of students is up for the challenge, but I have a little confession to make. You see, I taught this group of students in Grade 6. I was their English teacher before I moved into the Teacher-Librarian position. I don't think I did a very good job of teaching them the skill of synthesis.

In Bloom's taxonomy, his classification system for the hierarchy of education goals, synthesis is one of the higher-order thinking skills.



In Bloom's revised taxonomy, which was developed by a team of psychologists, including Lorin Anderson, a former student of Benjamin Bloom's, synthesis is needed throughout the hierarchy.



 So, how best to teach synthesis? To the right is a scaffold model I wish I had when I was a Grade 6 English teacher (Zawilinksy, 2009, p. 658).

It illustrates, in a simple step by step process, a plan for students to follow. I would expect initially, the end result to read fairly prescriptively, but if this had been introduced in Grade 6 and reinforced across the Middle Years Program (Grades 6-8), by the time Pam got this same group of students in Grade 9, in the GYP (Graduate Years' Program) they would be natural synthesizers. That much more prepared to segue into creating their own blogs and experiencing all that blogging can offer a learner. Sorry for the extra work you are going to have to do with this group, Pam!

References
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Zawilinski, L. (2009). HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking. The Reading Teacher, 62(8), 650-661. doi: 1707486871