Coalfield Writers SI

The next Technology Inservice will be coming soon. Consensus is that podcasting should be covered in more detail, so that is the plan. Tia did a great job with the morning prompts and graciously recorded her Write What You Know prompt so that I could use it as a sample. Enjoy!

Write What You Know

Benefits

• Students are already blogging (and love it).
• Students who lack reading and writing skills probably also lack the motivation to practice reading and writing. They will, however, read and write with their friends on chats and social online sites.
• Students love to see their words published on the web.
• Students who blog can engage in meaningful writing on classroom topics in a familiar medium.
• Students who know their audience includes more than their teacher will write more carefully, accurately, and credibly.
• Blogs allow others to respond, providing essential feedback to the authors.
• Blogs are easy to create and maintain!
• Blogs are easy to track and assign points/grades/credit for content.

If your students or their parents google you, will they find you on the web? Will you be pleased with what they find? Google can be your best friend or… I asked because I know our students don’t think about the power of what they write/post on the web. If they don’t talk about their conversations, published photos, videos, etc., to their parents/guardians, then they think they have privacy! I propose that we use online time with our students to help them use the web as a resume: get them to think about what college admissions counselors will find when they google them, or what prospective grant givers would want to find, or what future employers will find, or what future customers will find. The list goes to infinity, and the data they are putting out there is eternal. What can we as educators do to help our students use the power of new technology for good?

• Your Blog – Bio

1. In a new window or tab, go to your own blog and login. (Click on the login link in the META section. If you see Site Admin instead of Login you are already logged in.)
2. Click on Manage on the Dashboard.
3. Click on Pages below the Manage link.
4. Click on Edit to the right of the “About” Page.
5. Enter your professional biographic information. (What do you want us to use to introduce you when you do your demonstration?)
6. Click Save.
7. Write a Post describing how you think you might use your blog.
8. NOTE – If you want people to be able to comment on what you post, you must check ‘Allow Comments’ under Discussion at the right.

• Create a Weblog

1. Visit edublogs.org and create your own weblog (blog). A new window will open so you can toggle back and forth between these instructions and edublog. Fill in each blank. Your username becomes part of your url, so choose something you can live with. Everything else can be changed later, so don’t belabor those decisions. (Use the online instructions or the handout.)
2. Check your email and follow the instructions.

Welcome fellow educators! Blogging is ubiquitous, but is it necessary? Will adding another technology based thing into your teacher life add or detract from your service to your students? The following list shows how some of our peers blog.

• Copy Paste/
• http://www.ahistoryteacher.com/wordpress/
• http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/
• http://www.speedofcreativity.org/
• http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/
• http://www.teach42.com/
• http://borderland.northernattitude.org/
• http://hickstro.org/
• http://thereflectiveteacher.wordpress.com/
• http://rpassman.wordpress.com/
• http://secondaryworlds.com/
• http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/
• http://www.teachertube.com/