Week 4 Week 6
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Threads for Week 5
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(Messages #988-#1074)
Visit our Delicious for all the links mentioned during Week Four.
Welcome to B4E Week 5
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#988
Dear participants,
After a wonderful wrap-up of week 4 with the inspired and inspiring chat with our special guests of the week, Konrad Glogowsky and Paul Allison at WiziQ, we keep evolving on our edublogtalk. The conversations have just started, so feel free to add your comments to Konrad's post and to write your own post (tag it edublogtalk). We mentioned during the chat today that we need to keep talking about blogging, reflecting upon our practices, our contexts, our needs. By doing that, we can bring our community of educators together in a common effort to enrich our classroom practices way beyond the classroom walls and across the continents.
This week we'll deal with the topic everybody has been addressing since the beginning of our session: how do we engage our students in blogging?
Through the tasks we propose, you'll have many hints and ideas of blogging possibilities.To better profit from this experience, we invite you ALL to give your share by posting your own idea for a blogging activity that could be engaging, motivating, creating passionate content developers, writers, owners of their voices, learner-bloggers. Join us for a blog talk!
This week's TAG: *edublogpractice *(remember, through tagging we can see each other and keep the flow of conversations!)
For the ones who are still catching up, don't worry! Take your time. How about focusing on this week's discussions and then getting back to what you missed on the previous weeks?
We'd especially recommend that you take a look at this week's wonderful Pageflakes extras.
Have you noticed we added a chest of blogging treasures as a special treat to this fantastic group?
http://www.pageflakes.com/Blogging4Educators/20664456
Warm regards from windy Key West,
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Carla Arena
On behalf of the Blogging Team
TAG of the week: *edublogpractice*
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Engaging students in Blogging
#990
Today, as I was preparing to blog a bit with my reflections, I came across this wonderful blogging piece by a student in YouthVoices<http://youthvoices.net/elgg/_weblog/everyone.php?filter=communities>
"When I sit at my computer, preparing myself to write virtually anything, I instantly feel as though it's easier to write. Like my creative juices are flowing more. When I sit in a class room full of other students, on the other hand, I feel different. Possibly because in class we are told what to write about, as where when you write for recreation the possibilities are endless." http://youthvoices.net/elgg/assessment/weblog/5636.html
As we discuss the possibilities for engaging students in blogging and seeing from a learner's perspective, how would we find a purpose for blogging in the classroom? How could we come up with blogging practiced that encourage the creative juices this student talks about?
Well, just some food for thought for your post tagged *edublogpractice*!
-
Carla Arena
The Blogging Team
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# 993
Very interesting Carla!
I started blogging when started my Masters. It was part of one of the subjects. Although not mandatory, it was advisable to. As I am a very hands-on person, I thought I would better, more, and definitely in a more meaningful way if I engaged with it. Most of my colleagues did the opposite and I di feel sorry for them, because most graduated without having a deep and personal vision of what blogging and the web 2.0 are all about.
Sometimes it is hard to get people blogging out o their free willing and that is why we come up with these all planned-out tasks, so students don't have a chance to ignore it. However, as everything in life, blogging does work better when taken as a free-willing activity. But it is also true that it is not easy at first. It takes time to get into blogging-mode! It takes time to find your own voice. As it also takes time, and courage, to have it surface and develop into blog posts and later on also into commented thoughts. The more you blog, the more you get into the spirit of it and the more you appreciate blogging and
commenting on others' blogs. But it is not easy? who said it was? It is not easy, but it isn't difficult either. It is just hard to take up a challenge, especially when it is related to something as personal as writing one's mind in the open. Challenges aren't easy, but they are great ways of exploring our capacities and of making us exceed what we thought to be our limits.
To be personally challenges make feel alive; blogging allows me to project my deeper feelings, analyze my-"self", and bring out the best of me. I am glad I found my voice. it is not a perfect voice, but it my attempt to improve.
I know blogging is not for everyone, but I think that many people will give outstanding bloggers if they chose to give it a try. There isn't a recipe to motivate kids to engage with this approach...but one thing is for sure. Teachers that blog will have a better chance to convey that message than those who don't, simply because the passion is there. And I dare say: the teachers that remain in my heart are those who were able to convey the message with great enthusiasm and passion. All the others belong to my pass as do all the lessons I have already forgotten.
I think what I am also saying, is that we need more people who are keen on what they do...and this doesn't go only for teachers, but to everyone in general.
Cris
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Announcements
#995
Dear all,
We are thrilled to announce James Farmer's presentation "What's the blogging point? Why you, your students and your boss could all do with an edublog." at WiZiQ <http://tiny.cc/kLJeK> on Tuesday February 12, 22 GMT. James is the founder and CEO of Edublogs and has also taught education design at Deakin University in Australia.
During the presentation, he'll discuss some of the special features that make Edublogs a versatile tool that can help us build a meaningful learning environment for our classes. I'm sure we'll all profit form his deep insight into the pedagogical implications of blogging and on how we can use blogs to foster authentic communication and social interaction among students.
We look forward to another reflective and thought-provoking live session, so get ready to ask everything you always wanted to know about Edublogs!
Check out the details on Lives Sessions page on the wiki
Carla Raguseo
The Blogging Team
Invitation for an extraordinary conversation - A Challenge to all of you
#1038
Dear bloggers,
We all know that you're busy with your own classes, family, lives, plus trying to catch up with the resources and tasks we provided you.
We know it's hard to focus when there's so much out there.
We know the feeling of being overwhelmed.
We are almost there, getting to the peak of the mountain where we'll have the big blogging picture, so don't give up! Keep climbing! There's no bigger reward than to appreciate how far we've gone, how much we collaborated, shared and learned.
So, here's our challenge for you this week:
Task 4 - Write a blog post with an idea for a blogging activity for your students.
- Brainstorm some potential blogging activities which you think might be beneficial to your students' learning experience.
- Remember that you want to engage them in conversations, encourage them to express themselves, motivate them to write.
- Check some examples of blogging activities here http://www.slideshare.net/cristinacost/practically-speaking-bc-milan-nov07
- Tag your post: *edublogpractice*
See what happens at http://technorati.com/tag/edublogpractice?authority=n&language=en Interact with others!
We've already started to add our voice on the topic, but can you imagine how powerful it will be to have like a whole choir of educators adding their bit and bytes to our task of the week? Magic happens, then!
We hope to see MANY of you joining us! We're almost there at the Peak, so let us persevere.
--
Carla Arena
The Blogging Team
Tag of week 5: *edublogpractice*
Recording for James Farmer's WiZiQ Session available
#1019
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You can listen to the recording of James Farmer's presentation at WiZiQ here: <http://tiny.cc/qPxSG> or through the link to the session on the Wiki. Just click on "View Recording". You can skip the first part in which we were testing the tools by clicking on the "forward" arrows at the bottom of the screen. The presentation itself starts on Slide 10.
I apologize for the last-minute change of the session link, but I had made a mistake with the time zones when scheduling the original session.
I'd also like to thank the other moderators, especially Cris and Carla A., for their invaluable help and support throughout the session.
Carla Raguseo
The Blogging Team
Re: Recording for James Farmer's WiZiQ Session available
#1020
... Since the Wiziq recording includes the set-up chat before the actual presentation began and the Q&A afterwards, I thought it might be useful to let you know that the actual presentation begins on Slide 12 and he finishes his talk during Slide 28, folowed by a number of interesting questions and comments. In the Wiziq platform, the word "slide" actually means a 2-minute segment rather than an actual change in the slides used in the presentation.
...Just a pointer for busy people--I hope that helps!
Jane
Fw: Google Teacher Newsletter - Special Edition - Doodle4Google
# 1029
just thought I should share this with you. Please read below
It is such a great google-idea! :-)
Cris
Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Google Teacher Newsletter.
Everyfew months, we reach out to tell you about how your fellow educatorsare using our products in their classrooms. Well, this time around,we'd like to change things up and ask you and your students to takeover and send us your ideas instead. Here's what we mean:
Picture this: You're standing in front of your class, but instead of keeping theireyes on the blackboard, the kids are all sitting there doodling.For once, though, they're actually working on an assignment –- namely, our Doodle 4 Google competition (www.google.com/doodle4google),which offers young artists the chance to play around with the Googlelogo and perhaps have their artwork seen by people all over the world.
The theme for our U.S. doodling competition is "What if...?"
What if...I could live underwater, or in outer space, or in Colonial America?
What if...I could see into the future?
What if...I could build any kind of invention I wanted?
However your students interpret our theme, we look forward to honoring their creativity. We'll display 40 finalist doodles on our site and invite the public to vote for their favorites. The winning doodler will receive a $10,000 college scholarship and their design will take over our homepage for a day (the winning school will also receive a $25,000 technology grant).
Want to get in on the fun? You'll find everything you need. including detailed lesson plans, at ww.google.com/doodle4google Registration closes on March 28th. We look forward to seeing some creative doodles.
Please be sure to pass this onto any fellow teachers who might be interested. And please stay tuned for the next, regularly scheduled Google Teacher Newsletter, coming soon.
Cheers,
Cristin Frodella
Google K-12 Education Outreach
Google for Educators
James Farmer meets the Blogging4Educators team Podcast
#1037
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If you want to download James Farmer's talk to your mp3 player or computer to listen to it, access it at http://www.webcastacademy.net/node/1933
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Carla Arena
The Blogging Team
tag of week 5: *edublogpractice*
**Important** EVO Survey- please take time to complete
#1071
Dear EVO Participants,
The EVO Moderators and Coordinators would like to thank you for taking the time to participate in this year's sessions. We hope you have found your time rewarding.
We would like to ask you to please take a minute to recognize the valuable time your moderators and guest speakers have contributed by taking a short (5-10 min.) survey that will help us plan for next year (link below).
<http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=7G3Ct8XKXCjG6DKWYV9N1w_3d_3d>
Thanks very much for participating in the EVO!
--Paula Emmert
For the Coordination Team of the EVO
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New blogs & old ones but new ideas and projects
#989 My new blogs and wikis! A handful?
Dear All,
I have learnt so much within these weeks from this group and others I belong to. I simply drink in the knowledge. The more I learn , the more I discover I have to learn. Herte are some blogs I have put up:
http://austen-advanced.blogspot.com
http://austen-youth.blogspot.com
http://elc-austen.blogspot.com
and a wiki at a very infant stage:
http://advanced1.pbwiki.com.
Please visit and leave your wisdom gem for me.
Austen
#1024 Re: My new blogs and wikis! A handful?
http://austen-advanced.blogspot.com and http://advanced1.pbwiki.com
Great projects! I was particularly impressed by your customisation of your blog template, great selection of widgets!
A couple of tips (MHO): I had the impression that your audience were teens. If so, excellent selection of the video for fun at the footer. Also, remember they need loooots of visual support (you might add an animated gif to your post to add colours and movement). Text must be short, to the point, and it'll help you get comments from them if you finish with a very simple question. For example, you could finish your first post saying "Tell us: Have you ever blogged before? For personal reasons or for school?" or something of the sort.
If you won't go to the computer lab with them, you need to add instructions to make sure they all know how to comment.
As for the wiki, the same applies. It can help if you edit the sidebar so that it's a clear index to all pages, and you can even set it to appear first by default (right now, visitors see the "Quick Start" tab by default.
Apologies for the long posting!
Gladys
#980 About new blog
I have started a new blog: www.11aclass2008.blogsot.com You see, I'm not only a teacher of English, but a class teacher too. This spring my students are finishing secondary school and will go to nearby towns or somerwhere else in Russia to enter higher educational institutions. I want to make a present to them- a class blog where we can meet and share our news. this is only a beginning of the process. I creat it again in an upside down form so that the entry will be at the top of the page. I would like to learn how to upload video and music to the blog.
Tatiana
#1027 Re: uploading music or videos to your blogs with Blogger
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If the video is in your hard disk, click on the icon that looks like a movie ("Add icon") and follow instruction on screen to upload it.
If it's on YouTube, Googlevideo, or the like, use the embed code provided in each case in the same way you've already done with Slideshare.
For music, the idea is basically the same: upload the file from your computer or embed from podcasts.
But... mind copyright! -)
(apologies for the delay in replying to you!)
Gladys
#1040 Cbox widget and url that did not show up
Here are the URLs that did not come up in my former mail about Cbox. I used the link feature of yahoomail but it seems it does not work in the group mails, so here they go:
http://www.cbox.ws/
http://blogging4educators.pbwiki.com/Week4
http://tinyurl.com/2v2ylz
http://readingatusb.blogspot.com/
http://readingatusb2.blogspot.com/
Berta
Re: To Berta, Cbox widget ...
#1041
... Cbox is one widget we've used successfully on our school website for a "customer's service". We put it on our page when we were available to answer and then parents and students could ask any questions, sometimes related to bureaucratic matters, others about tests, grammar. It was just a very interesting experience.
I just checked your blogs, and they are so instructive, so much we could explore there. Certainly, treasures that worth being explored.
Carla Arena
The Blogging Team
#1042
A Valentine message from the Blogging4Educators moderators
Dear all,
Listen to our little Valentine's message to you. http://explorations.bloxi.jp/a/happy-valentines/
Carla Arena
On behalf of The Blogging Team
#1043 New Week - New Class - New Blog
... As Week 5 is peaking, I started a new class, a Business English class. I was thinking of what Carla posted earlier to the group about creating a blog post with a task for our students when I realized that in order to engage my students, they need a special place for themselves. This is why I created a new blog http://lilianbusiness.edublogs.org/. The first blog post there is asking the students to tell me what they are expecting from our course. I sent them an e-mail telling them about the purpose of the blog and that it's gonna be our area to share and talk, and may have extra tasks that aren't covered in the textbook we use. I hope this will engage them to comment and speak out what they think.
Forgot to tell you that my students are on a 9-month scholarship to study IT. This week will be their final General English level before we start the BE component next week, for 90 hours in 3 weeks. Very intensive, yes.
I'll post the same entry on my regular blog for all of you to comment and tell me what you think of the whole thing. I'm counting on your professional support and comments to have a really engaging blog for my students. I'm not a blog expert yet, so I'd love to hear your comments.
Lilian
http://lolitablog.edublogs.org
#1044 The weekly challenge
... It's been a very demanding week, both here and at BaW. Anyway, I did my best and you can see the result in my blog. My semester starts next week, so I wrote for a fictional group of students. I tried to tell a true story about myself and then invited the students to join with their own stories. The topic is not very original (embarrassing experiences), but if you find it interesting, feel free to contribute with your own stories. Oh, and while you are there, take some time to look at my holiday snapshots. I am rather pleased with the way the slide-show looks. It took me a good hour to work out how to put it there.
Natasa
http://lunas994.blogspot.com
#1045 Custom Made quizes for your blogs!
I have just created a free account with Hot Potato and created a multiple choice quiz I also posted on my blog for my ESL American Culture class. http://dvmunca.blogspot.com/
It's a very easy, user friendly software. You should all try it!The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is not freeware, but it is free of charge for those working for publicly-funded non-profit-making educational institutions, who make their pages available on the web
http://hotpot.uvic.ca/
If you are looking for more software for quizes and puzzles, read the following article:
http://www.tesol-spain.org/newsletter/pereztorres.html
Daniela
Re: free account with Hot Pots
#1049
Just to share a reminder on copyright: "Hot Potatoes is NOT FREEWARE.
Hot Potatoes is free for use by state-funded educational institutions which are non-profit making, or individuals working for them, on the condition that the material you produce using the program is freely available to anyone via the WWW."
More info at: http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/hot_pot_licence_terms.php
Hope that doesn't go against anybody's plans!
Gladys
#1046 New Blog Project
With the beginning of the semester Danubia and I have decided to dare and start a new project with our Inter B students. We´re going to help them create their own blogs and have them visit each other´s blogs. It´s still at the initial stage but anyone interested is welcome to drop by. This project is also going to be part of a project developed by Larry Ferlazzo http://esleflsisterclasses.edublogs.org/ in which different groups of students will be in contact during the year.
Our blog Project: http://ourblogproject.blogspot.com
I guess this could be part of Week 5 Task.
anamaria
http://lifefeast.blogspot.com
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Questions & Answers
customizing the blogroll
#1003
... it doesn't seem to be an option offered by Edublogs - but does anyone have a (quick!) way round the problem. Hope to be there this evening
Elizabeth
#1004 Re: customizing the blogroll
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why not using the feevy widget to display your students' blogs on your own blog? http://www.feevy.com/
It is a dynamic blog roll. The most recent updated blogs appear at the top of your blog roll. I love this feature. I have just made it part of my own blog.
Cris
#1025 Re: customizing the blogroll
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You can set a number to rank the links in your Edublogs roll. That will determine the order in which you want them to ppear. First you have to set the rating for each link by editing it (it's the last option within "Advanced", at the very bottom). Then you must set all your links to appear as "Ordered by rating", and update.
Gladys
Week 4 WIZIQ and URL problem
#1011 s
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I am trying to watch week 4 allison wiziq. i have clicked the tinyurl link and then from there clicked the wiziq link. once on wiziq, i login and hit the play recording button.
I then find that there is nothing on all of the 70 slides but the header on the power point. there is no voice and no recording.
can anyone update me with another way to get it or are the difficulties now also with tinyurl and wiziq?
kim
#1013 Re: Week 4 WIZIQ and URL problems
... In fact, we're having problems with the recording of week 4 session and have already written to WiziQ. Let's see what they reply. I hope they have a backup as it was just a fantastic chat!
Carla Arena
The Blogging Team
HELP: add tags etc...
#1032
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I don't know how to do things like: add tags etc... everything since week 3! I've followed all u'r instructions but even so I'm lost!
HELP ME PLEASE!!!
Velma
#1033 Re: HELP
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Tags are very easy to use. You do that while editing your blog posts. There will be a field in your blog dashboard - when you are editing a posts, where you can provide tags (sometimes also known as labels, in blogger, and categories in Wordpress.
Tags can be very powerful because you will eb able to search content through it. As we have been trying in he last few weeks, if you add unique tags to your blog and other members do the same, you will be able to google all the content
tagged with that unique tag in a much easier way.
How do you create an unique tag?
TRICK:
Think of a tag you consider might not have been used by anyone else so far. Check it in technorati http://technorati.com/ by using it on their search engine. If you get: "no Results for (your tag" - that you got yourself an unique tag you can use.
Also check Carla's GREAT presentation here http://tinyurl.com/3baz4d
And please keep asking questions and we will keep answering them. we are also available in skype.
My ID: navysternchen
Cris
Need help with edublogs
#1066
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I know you can add one to a post by using www.vizu.com (you get an embeddable code).
Not sure of the options for the sidebar, I'm afraid!
Gladys
Lilian Farag Allah wrote:
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Do you know how to add a survey or a questionnaire to edublogs?
...
BOX?
#1063
HI. I AM LISTENING TO THE FARMER WIZIQ CLASS. HE MENTIONS AN ONLINE SITE THAT STORES YOUR "MY DOCUMENT" FILES. IT HAS THE NAME BOX IN IT. WHAT IS THIS SITE? AND WHAT DOES IT DO? I AM SO INTERESTED.
KIM
#1064 Re: BOX?
... James referred to Box.net <http://www.box.net/> a file storeing and
sharing application. I've never used it but I guess we can check it out.
Carla R.
#1065 Re: BOX?
... My students and I used Box.net and Thinkfree.com to store all texts we would use to create text-typology e-portfolios. I invite you to visit our Wiki and see how these storage sites work. http://ingles2componentedocente2007.wetpaint.com/
Evelyn
Re: NY Times article + Twitter
#1067
I'd say the author has 2 problems:
1. she's not tried Twitter long enough. Any new tool gives us the same feeling and headaches at first, until we can integrate it with our other tools and gradually discover what it can do with it which we couldn't do before.
2. She believes her family wants to communicate with her... In my view, they don't. Like most of my teen students, they want replies to their questions when they ask them, but they don't want to hear from others otherwise...
That's not the way it works!
2 resolutions:
1. I'll start following slatalla on twitter, if she's still around... Maybe I can observe her learning curve!
2. cross my fingers so that the people who are following me on Twitter are not like the author's daughters and respond to @gladysbaya to help me collect answers to the question "why use technologies with young learners?" before my meeting tomorrow with some of the teachers in my school, so that I can impress THEM with the power of Twitter!
Are you on Twitter? Share your twitter id! (I'm gladysbaya, as at so many other places!)
Gladys
# 1056
Gina Webster wrote:
...article about Twitter in yesterday's NYTimes
...
re: .gov, .edu, .net, etc..
#1073 Re: to Kim
Hi Kim, all,
I found this: [hope it helps!]
Each domain has an extension called a TLD (Top Level Domain) of (.com/.net/.org/.gov/.mil etc.) These TLD's are commonly used to delineate a particular category of business i.e.:
.com is short for commercial for profit enterprise.
.net is short for network and is generally used for Internet and telecommunications network providers.
.org is short for organization and is generally used for industry groups or non profit organizations.
.biz is short for business and is another general purpose domain.
.info is short for information and is used for websites that educate and inform.
.gov and .mil are reserved exclusively for government.
The most popular TLD is .com and represents 74% of the total world market. There are other TLD extensions for different foreign countries and new TLDs like .name or .pro .are expected to be available shortly. Although most businesses are commercial, there is nothing preventing you from purchasing all TLD's that are available for your domain.
Holly (Dilatush)
# 1072
...can you tell me when a url ends in .net, what does it refer to? i am only familiar with endings of .org and .com
kim
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Messages of Gratitude
#1005 to # 997 Re: To Cris and all, Engaging students in Blogging
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I was just reading Carla's words on this post<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blogging4educators/message/997>which took me back to my first post in my blog. I compared learning to blog with watercolour painting. I said it was a question of learning to observe things around, to watch carefully into and through things, nature, people, colours, highlights that change along the day. Well, I'm happy because it seems I was right.
Carla says: " One point that you mention and that I'm always saying it out loud is the fact that blogging is about habit. Educators and learners just don't start blogging. It takes time to find your voice and your pace. Mine is still a hoarse voice, but I'm there, revealing myself and learning more about myself and my teaching style. It's about an encounter with your inner voice that sometimes you didn't even realize it was there. It's funny because that nowadays little facts that happen around me call my attention and I keep thinking to myself, "oh, this could turn into a nice blog post!" or "oh, I HAVE to blog this! I can't just see this and keep quiet". Time is always an issue for us, but still not an excuse for not trying it and seeing how it feels. Yes! As you said, we need to be passionate to inspire our students!"
The main difference between watercolour painting and blogging is that for watercolour you use paints and brushes to express you rideas and thoughts, whereas for blogging we must go round words and thoughts, words and thoughts, which means reflexion in our own learning, until it becomes a habit. The cycle is endless, observation, awareness of the subtleties of communication, of our emotions, the intricansies of interaction, the discovering of 'the other', the reader, the user, the learner's needs, then searching for the appropriate language to express our thought, to communicate effectively, purposely, to be able to engage others in that endless thread. It's amazing!
Thank you Carla for sharing you learning experience. I think you are a very able communicator!
A warm hug from the Beautiful Misiones
Vicky (liliamprytz)
# 1007
Wow! What an inspired message! I just loved your analogy, and just as I mentioned to Cris, I think your ideas here would be a wonderful and passionate blog post! You really got the essence of blogging. I'm here smiling to see everyone's progress from week 1 up to now. This is the beauty of collaboration and sharing, seeing everybody evolving and finding their own unique ways.
Keep blogging.
Carla Arena
The Blogging Team
Tag of week 5: *edublogpractice*
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James Farmer (live presentation)
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