Monkey scribbles …

Did you know that ….. Thursday 15 October 2009, is Blog Action Day! This is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. The overall aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

The link to be involved with this activity is:-  http://blogactionday.org/ and the topic for discussion is ‘Climate Change’.

By being involved in this activity on the same day, the blogging community hopes to effectively change the conversation on the web and focus audiences around the globe on that issue – interesting!

Maybe you would like to check this link out and blog with everyone else …?

Posting to a weblog can take many forms. The possibilities as Richardson (2006, p.29) identifies in his text “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” are endless. By their very structure blogs facilitate what Richardson (2006) thinks is a new form of genre that could be called “connective writing”. For those that are hesitant or still wondering about what a blog is and why it might be worthwhile to record some of our thoughts, discussions and reflections on different things that we see, read or hear about technology, then check out the following YouTube link which provides a really clear, user friendly and constructive overview of Blogs in Plain English

Fingal (2008) refers to “the challenge with education technology is not in finding a nifty tool that will engage students in the classroom” … rather … “it is finding a way to integrate that virtual gadget into the curriculum in a way that both engages students and broadens the learning experience”.

An interesting tool that educators are starting to use in the learning process is Wordle, a tool that creates a “word cloud” by analysing usage and frequency of words. The more times that a particular word appears in the text or list, the larger it will be in the Wordle. Sprankle and Wright have used Wordle in different aspects of their teaching with students, each commenting in  their respective blogs about the work tasks completed. 

What do you think this tool might highlight about your own teaching and learning practices, in particular your usage and emphasis on certain words or phrases?

Reference

Fingal, D. (November 2008). Tools that Create Buzz. Learning & Leading with Technology. 36,(3), 23.

As a newcomer to the world of blogging, I am intrigued by the how and why of setting up a blog. Questions arise like what to call my blog, what is the purpose of my blog and the many other different and varied aspects of operating in this area of e-world living and communicating and why I would use this as one tool amongst many to support my interactions.

A blog example worth sharing is Em’s. She has introduced herself as someone studying Primary Education at UTS in Sydney. Her blog is described as being “my personal learning space for an e-learning subject where I can record my educational discoveries this semester and voice my opinions on children’s creative use of learning technologies … this blog will largely consist of my personal thoughts recorded in response to [...]

Through her selection of topics, Em has looked at what I will refer to as the 3Es – Encountering E-learning Education. This blog is worth looking at and can be found at http://emma86.edublogs.org/

When exploring and reading Em’s blog, I found the following quote …

“I think it’s the most beautiful tool of the world and it allows us the most magic thing…”

Florence Dassylva-Simard, fifth-grade student.

What are your thoughts about blogging as a tool for communicating in classrooms?