Hebrew Bible and Christian Scriptures

We’re just wrapping up the second series in our free and open professional development series we are calling Teacher Challenges.

The first was an introduction to blogging – 30 days to kick start your blogging. The second was 30 days to get your students blogging.

Next week starts a series on the best free web tools for education. We already have well over a dozen guest bloggers ready to share their favorite free tool. We’ll be keeping this challenge going for as many free tools as we can possibly share, so if you are interested in writing about one of your favorites, let us know here.

But what we really wanted to share here is what we, Sue Wyatt, Anne Mirtschin, Sue Waters, Ronnie Burt and Kathleen Morris, as the organizers of the challenges have learned from the experience.

So, here is a general reflection that we hope might be valuable to educators using blogs to teach in anyway and those participating in or managing open professional development opportunities.

The open concept

There’s a definite increase in the prevalence of open PD on the web for educators. Here’s a few comments we had related to it:

• We love how participants can pick and choose what they do. For example, with many cases, some of those who responded to one post weren’t active in the challenge as a whole. They would see a post that interests them and learn from it – and maybe leave a comment.
• The success depended on the level of comfort and familiarity users already had – especially when it came to brand new bloggers in our Kick Start Your Blogging challenge. Some probably needed face-to-face workshops with quite a bit of one-on-one instruction. That would only be possible if the schools organised the PD in conjunction with our programs.
• As we consider future topics, we will keep in mind that not all concepts really lend themselves to online PD as well as others.
• We did have at least one school participate as a group together! This way they were able to support each other throughout the challenge. Very cool!

Blogs as the medium

We are admittedly bias towards the power of blogs, but:

• More traditional learning management systems tend to create “walled” environments that limit collaboration and community on a global level.
• Blogs make it easy to create and publish content.
• Collaboration is easy and encouraged through comments and discussion boards.
• The social media aspect of sharing through facebook and twitter (which users are already familiar with on blogs) certainly contributed to the success of the challenges.
• It will be interesting to see as we move into challenges that aren’t about blogging if some of the benefits of blogs will be minimized – especially since it will be more difficult to ask participants to write on their own blogs.
• We found it easier to manage comments/moderation in the blog dashboard rather than on the front end of the blog.
• We will change it so that not all comments will be moderated – once you have been approved, future comments will go through.

Setting objectives

For each series, we spent more time coming up with the post topics and objectives then actually writing the posts! In addition:

• One of the more unique aspects of the first two challenges was the differentiated beginner and advanced tracks that users could choose from.
• It was surprising to find many users completing both tracks or switching between the two – this is great – individualized learning!
• We found it important to try and encourage participants to create something with each challenge post. This post itself is owned by the blogger – it is their personal achievement, reflection or sharing.
• Time constraints were difficult. We left some topics out (for example podcasts and audio in the advanced blogging challenge) but participants added them and shared them with others anyway.
• We had some lengthy and detailed posts that took a long time to both write and complete for users.  They were lengthy because they needed enough information and we like to be through, but perhaps that is off putting to some? It’s a definite catch-22 and something to continue to ponder.

Encouraging discussion and collaboration

The true learning took place with the discussions and sharing that occurred:

• Unlike traditional PD workshops, this wasn’t at all about the presenters (us) passing on knowledge to participants. More learning took place between and from participants than from us!
• Mentors and advanced users helped others – a true learning community was formed.
• A lot of the collaboration took place off of the challenge blog and on users’ own blogs where they posted reflections and challenge responses.
• We tried a separate discussion blog for the first series. Interest on this blog fizzled and more discussion began taking place as comments on individual posts. This is something for us to think about and tweak as we move forward.

Supporting participants

The posts were set up so that questions would come up and participants could get the help they needed:

• Truth is, the response and turn out for the challenges was much greater than we anticipated. It was hard to visit all posts and keep up with the needs of participants questions.
• With that, the community stepped up and supported each other – which is great for all involved!
• The mentor program worked well but was difficult to set up, recruit, and mange. As the first challenge progressed, some participants were left without assigned support. We’ll work on ways to ensure needs are met as the challenges continue.

Assessing outcomes

We all feel the overall the challenges went extremely well – far better than y expected:

• Within two hours of posting the first activity, several participants had already published their posts.
• Many of the advanced bloggers had a lot to share from their own experiences and the conversations and that networking that occurred was great to see.
• We wish we would have asked participants to take a screen dump of the blogs before we started as you can ‘see’ that they have made the blogs so much more effective after completing the majority of posts.
• There have been so many positive comments back on the challenges – we couldn’t be happier.
• In both of the challenges, the initial response and participation in the first few activities was slightly higher than those in the last. Our goals is to see that reverse.

Where to go from here?

There is always room for improvement, and here’s where we hope to start:

• Making the challenges and activities easier to find on the main challenge blog.
• Be consistent with the posting schedule and share the schedule in advance.
• Continue to improve the discussion topics and collaboration among participants.
• Include live webinars a couple times during each challenge to provide times for participants to get help in real time.
• Improve our response time to comments and how we manage them – perhaps recruit help in keeping up with them as well.

So that is that.

What do you think?

Are there other questions we should be asking ourselves or points you’d like to add?

Leave a comment below we’d love to hear from you!

- The Teacher Challenge Team

PS:

This is the first post since an updated look for TheEdublogger.com. Complete with new threaded comments!

What do you think of the new digs?

The  September 2010 Student Blogging Challenge is nearing the end and the students have been working REALLY hard on their weekly challenges!

We now have 136 class blogs and over 900 student blogs registered from 17 countries of the world

It’s time to celebrate while using it as an opportunity to collect examples of student work!

So we’ve decided give away thirty Edublogs Pro 12 month subscriptions which you can use on your own blog or give away to a reader.

How to Enter

Any class or student blogger can enter, including bloggers not currently participating in the September 2010 Student Blogging Challenge!

Just write a post based on any of the topics themes listed below:

1. Your story of how blogging has helped you connect to a global audience? What this connection has meant to you?   e.g.  the friends you have made, what you have learnt about other cultures, how you are able to share your passions with others, how you are able to use blogging to share your views on topics
2. What difference has blogging made to your life at school and home? e.g. how has it changed how you learn, the challenges of blogging and how teachers might make the process easier
3. What was the best weekly challenge task you completed in the September 2010 Student Blogging Challenge e.g.  what did it involve, what did you learn and why did you enjoy it the most?
4. If you were in charge of the Student Blogging Challenge — what are some of the weekly challenge tasks you would include and why?
5. Your own choice of topic.  Here’s the chance to demonstrate how creative you can be!

Once you have written your post:

1. Leave a comment on this post letting us know you have entered, with a link to your post plus your grade/year level.
2. Explain in your post which topic you are writing about and link back to this post so that we receive a pingback advising us that you have written the post (read this to understand What’s A Pingback? And How To Write Links).

For example you might copy the following into the bottom of your post and just change the topic enclosed in the qutoation marks:

This post has been written on “my story of how blogging has connected me to a global audience” as part of The Edublogger’s Share Your Blogging Experience“

What you could win

The six best posts for each topic will win an Edublogs Pro 12 month subscription which you can use on your own blog or give away to a reader.

You can submit posts for as many topics you like!

And off course all winners will get a badge they can add to their blogs

Remember we’re looking for the best — so here is your chance to demonstrate your blogging, writing and creative skills!

You have until Friday Dec 3 to enter.

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!

This post was written by Sue Wyatt for the Student Blogging Challenge.

Well, we are now into Week 4 of the March 2010 Student Blogging Challenge.

Students have been creating their blogs and making it their own by adding widgets and avatars; they have written about their country, state or town and many have visited other class or student blogs.

Many have written about why you should visit their blog and should they use a real photo as opposed to an avatar when they are on the net.

Every time the challenge is on, I try to visit each individual student blog at least 3 times over the period of the challenge.

It’s becoming harder each time we run the Challenge to visit all the student blogs — due to the numbers of students participating!

So I am putting out an URGENT HELP ME PLEASE!

The Problem

We now have about 700 individual student blogs in the following age ranges participating in the challenge:

• Age 8-10: about 60 blogs
• Age 11: about 110 blogs
• Age 12: about 130 blogs
• Age 13: about 110 blogs
• Age 14: about 110 blogs
• Age 15: about 50 blogs
• Age 16: about 50 blogs
• Age 17+: about 70 blogs

And this isn’t counting the 60 class blogs participating!

With more and more students taking part with their own blogs, it’s becoming harder for me to visit each of their blogs as often.

But comments on their blogs, especially from others outside their class, are very important for motivating and providing guidance.

How You Can Help

By the end of mid April, I would like each of these blogs to receive at least one, preferably two, comments from:

1. Teachers, pre-service teachers  or people in the education sector
2. Students who have blogging at least a year and who have participated in at least one student blogging challenge
   

So we are looking for volunteers who are willing to leave least one, preferably two, comments on student blogs such as:

1. A few clues about how to set up their blogs would be great for the newer students who have only had their blogs less than a week or so .
2. Alternatively choose a post they have written or look at their about page to leave a comment for them.

Preferably we would love it if you would write comments where they need to reply to keep the conversation going on their blog.

Here’s example of the types of comments we are looking for:

1. Mrs Yollis’s comment on Abbey’s The Wonderful State of Indiana
2. Great examples of conversation between student and teachers on:
   • Mr Miller’s The Golden State
   • Lojo’s Best Place in the World!!! California
   • Super Scooper’s Our Place in the World

What we would like to do is allocate about 20-30 student blogs to each volunteer.

Benefit of Being a Challenge Helper

This is excellent for teachers and preservice teachers (student teachers) who are:

• Wanting to increase their understanding of how blogs can be used with students.
• Unable to participate with their students in our current Challenge but who want to learn more about the Student Blogging Challenge.

And off course, we appreciate how busy everyone is so we’ve decided to give away twenty free Edublogs Pro 12 month subscriptions (formerly known as Edublogs Supporters) to our twenty best helpers!

You can use these free Edublogs Pro 12 month subscriptions on your own blog or give away to a reader.

To Volunteer As a Challenge Helper

Please leave a comment on this post if you would like to volunteer your services.

Can you please include the following information in your comment:

1. Your name and a bit about your teaching background
2. Your blog URL or website (if you have one)
3. What student age you would like to leave comments for.

Once you have done this we will leave a comment on the post telling you which student on our March 2010 Student Blog list page we would like you to start with and where on the list we would like you to work down to.

Make sure that you tick the notify me of followup comments via email before you submit your comments — so you receive our replies

Please note:

• We recommend that you work directly from March 2010 Student Blog list to visit your student blogs
• Our March 2010 Student Blog list is updated everyday and sorted by age, so new students are added at the end of each age list automatically.
• If you find a link doesn’t go to a blog, could you please copy the line in the student list and email it to Sue Wyatt at tasteach56[at]gmail[dot]com, — so we can fix it
• If you have any questi0ns contact Sue Wyatt by email at tasteach56[at]gmail[dot]com

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!

We’ve opened registration for students to register their personal blogs to participate in the challenge which starts in March.

It’s all about having fun, improving your blogging while connecting with a global audience!

About the Student Blogging Challenge

We’re now into our 3rd Year and 4th Challenge.

We provide weekly tasks for 10 weeks to help you connect with student bloggers in other countries and improve your blogging.

It’s a really great way to learn more about each others cultures!

You can read more about it here:

1. About the student challenge
2. Student Blogging Challenge FAQs

Your blog doesn’t have to be hosted on Edublogs to join.

Students using any blogging platform such as 21classes, Blogger, Blogmeister, Wordpress, Primary Blogger, Creative Blogs etc, can participate!

So far 44 Class blogs from 10 countries (Australia, Argentina, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, New Zealand, Normay, UK, United Arab Emirates, USA) have registered.

Register your student blog now!

Follow these TWO simple steps to register:

STEP 1:  Register Your Personal Blog Using the Google Form

Complete the Google Form below by adding:

1. Your Name as First name and initial of Surname
2. Your personal blog URL — for example my blog URL is http://theedublogger.com/
3. Country
4. Your age
5. A few of your hobbies  so other students with similar interests can connect with you

Please Note:

• Please register from home if you can’t see the Google Form on your school network!
• You only need to register once!
• If you are having trouble registering please leave comment on this post so we can help you.

STEP 2: Check your registration details!

Go to the March 2010 student page a couple of days after you added your details to the Google Form to check that your name and blog is on the page.

If your name is not there, it’s probably been removed because your blog URL was wrong.

Please note:

• The delay in adding your information to the March 2010 student page is because we need to check your details before adding.
• If your details haven’t been added please leave a comment on this post with your blog URL so we can sort it out for you!

Final Thoughts

Teachers and class blogs need to register following the steps in Student Blogging Challenge – Time for teachers to register their classes.

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Welcome to Student Blogging Challenge (March) 2010!

All about having fun, improving blogging and reflective writing skills while connecting with a global audience!

Now into our 3rd Year and 4th Challenge!

We provide weekly tasks for 10 weeks that are like a buffet — you pick and choose what works best for you while we guide you and your students through the process!

Your students don’t need their own blog! You can do the activities using your class blog or by commenting on other class and student blogs.

The Student Blogging Challenge is coordinated by Sue Wyatt and Sue Waters.

You can read more about it  here:

1. About the student challenge
2. Student Blogging Challenge FAQs

Register Your Class!

We’ve opened registration for teachers to register their class to participate in the challenge which starts in March.

We’ll be inviting individual student bloggers to register next week!

Follow these THREE simple steps to register (Teachers Only!):

STEP 1:  Add your email address to our mailing list

Complete the form below.

We’ll be using this to send classes newsletters without Sue Waters or Miss Wyatt having to do separate emails.

STEP 2:  Register Your Class Using the Google Form

Complete the Google Form below by adding your Name, Class Blog URL, Country and Student Age.

Please register from home if you can’t see the Google Form on your school network.

STEP 3:  Check your class details!

Go to the March 2010 Classes page and confirm your class details are correct.

Please leave a comment on Miss Wyatt’s post or mine if you are having any problems or need to ask questions!

FINAL THOUGHTS

We’ll be inviting individual student bloggers to register next week!

Here’s some tasks that will help prepare your class blog for the Challenge:

1. Week 1 – Create A Class Blog
2. Week 2:  Set Up Your Blogging Rules and Guidelines
3. Week 3 – Add A Visitor Tracking Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
4. Week 4 – Add your student blogs to your blogroll
5. Week 5 – Add Students To Your Class Blog So They Can Write Posts

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The next Student Blogging Challenge starts in March and this time we’ve decided there are tasks that need to be done BEFORE your class actually takes part in the challenge.

So each week for the next six weeks we will give you a new task, with how-to info, to help you with your class blogging.

This week’s task is to create a class blog.

Why Have A Class Blog

A class blog is always a good starting point if you want to blog with your students.

It gives you to time to increase your skills while gradually introducing your students to blogging and educating them on appropriate online behaviour.

Start initially with you being responsible for writing posts, and the students responding in comments. As students demonstrate both keenness and responsibility give them their ‘blogging license’ where they earn the right to write posts on the class blog and/or get their own student blog.

Ultimately even if each student has their own blog it is always a good idea to have a class blog.

Blogging isn’t just about writing posts; it’s about sharing your learning and reflecting on what you have learnt.

Important parts of the blogging process include encouraging students to:

1. Read each others posts
2. Interact and comment on each others posts  by challenging each others thoughts and views
3. Write posts in response to each others posts

The class blog is the central hub that connects your student blogs together; making it easier to share their learning, interact with each other and a global audience.

Aspects To Consider Before Creating Your Class Blog

Username and Display Name

Your username is what you use to sign into your blog dashboard and is displayed on posts and comments you write. While you can’t change your username, most blog platforms do allow you to change how your name is displayed.

In most cases it’s better to choose a username that makes it easier for others to relate to you as a real person. For example, compare spwat3 with suewaters — which is easier to relate to?

On a class blog you need to consider what is an appropriate username for you to use.  Most don’t allow students to use first and last name online so some prefer to model this by using names like Miss W or  Mrs Waters.

Blog URL

Think carefully about your blog URL.

Once your blog has an established audience you’re less likely to want to change your blog URL and educators often use the same blog for the next year’s class.

Ideally you want to keep your blog URL short, easy to remember and suitable to be reused for several years.

A simple option is to use your name in the blog URL as these educators did:

1. Ms Cahusac (http://mscahusac.edublogs.org/)
2. Mrs Burton (http://msvrburton.edublogs.org) have done.

Alternatively use something unique that has meaning like Jan Smith (http://huzzah.edublogs.org).

Blog Title

Think about the name of your blog.

Choose a name that reflects the purpose of your class blog and your students can relate to.

For example, Mrs Burton’s blog title Blog, blog blog blog, blog some more is very clever.  Check out our class blog list for titles that other educators have used!

Check Out Class Blogs

Coming up with ideas on how you might use your blog with students can be hard to visualize.

Make time to check out how other educators use their class blogs to get ideas on “what works”/”doesn’t work”.

Here are some blogs for you to look at:

1. Network Nine (Year 4)
2. MrToft.ca (Grade 5)
3. Grade 5e (Grade 5)
4. Huzzah (Grade 6/7)
5. Blog, blog blog blog, blog some more (English I)
6. Endless Questions (Grade 6-8 languages)
7. Or check out our class blog list (over 200 class blogs separated into grade and subject area)

Creating Your Class Blog

Now you’ve done all the research it’s time to set up your class blog.

Here are the instructions to follow if you would like to set up your class blog on Edublogs:

1. Signing up for your blog
2. Logging into your blog dashboard
3. Using your blog dashboard
4. Changing Your Blog’s Look
5. Writing your First Post

You will find all Getting Started With Edublogs information here!

FINAL THOUGHTS

You can read more about the Student blogging challenge here:

1. About the student challenge
2. Student Blogging Challenge FAQs

If you have any problems or questions while setting up your class blog just leave a comment on this post — I’m always happy to help!

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