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Week 4: Making your Blog Unique

During this week, participants will:

- focus on Content:

• Explore approaches to help students develop their blog content.
• Understand the importance of Networking and reading other Blogs in Education
• Focus on their blogging tone and uniqueness

- focus on Design:

• Add files (audio or other types) to their entries
• Identify the main areas in blog templates and their functions
• Learn the basics of HTML code in order to provide a personal touch to their blog templates, embed multimedia widgets and  in their blogs, and/or any other useful applications which will fulfill the participants' blogging purposes

Extension: Useful tips to template customization

                  Learn about Edubloggers' Communities ( eg. http://edubloggerworld.ning.com/  and others)

Task 1 - Discussion Topic: How to Grow a Blog

a. Watch Konrad Glogowsky's presentation on "Initiating and sustaining Conversations: Assesment

    and Evaluation in the Age of Networked Learning" where he discusses some pedagogical considerations on how to 

    scaffold the blogging process of our students.

b. Visit our blog to read Konrad's introduction and the post has written for our session and take part in the

     conversation. This is a unique opprtunity to exchange ideas with the author himself, another one of  the

     amazing possiblities of the participatory web.

c. Read Paul Allison's experience with his class as his students' blogs develop and "bloom". How does it relate to

     the previous presentation? Have you had a similar experience? How would you use the “Be a Blogger!” Matrix in your

     setting?

d. Share your reflections on this topic by writing a post or posting an audio file (see task 2) on your brand-new blog.

    Tag your post edublogtalk and we'll be able to follow the conversation through  

    Technorati http://www.technorati.com/tag/edublogtalk?authority=n&language=n. 

    Both Konrad and Paul are looking forward to our feedback!

e. Visit other participants' blogs and leave a comment. We can help them grow by sharing and caring!

Task 2 - Adding voice and other files to entries

Task 3 - Personalizing templates

Optional Tasks

Blogs of the Week and Extension Activities

Check our pageflakes

Office Hours 

Visit http://www.timeanddate.com to check what time that is for you.

Live Sessions

Presenters of the Week

Blogging4Educators meet The Women of the Web 2.0

Click here to get your own player.

This is the podcast of a wonderful talk with the Women of the Web2.0 and participants of the blogging4educators EVO session 2008 on blogging.

The recording with photos and chat transcript is available at WiziQ

Topics:

• The Women of the Web2.0 blogging stories
• Making mistakes
• Taking risks in blogging
• Finding a blogger's tone and voice
• Commenting
• Favorite blogging tools (Vicky's great tips!)
• Feedback
• Tagging and Technorati
• The Writingmatrix (Vance Stevens and team concept)
• Networking
• Mystery Guest activity
• Blogging strategies in the classroom
• The "Important person" factor (Sharon Peters talks about the importance of a true audience for students' motivation and willingness to take a step ahead in their writing)

The blogging4educators Team would like to congratulate the amazing WoW2.0 for being there for us and sharing a bit of their own stories, successes and failures with us. Yes, they are, indeed, transparent learners!

Women of the Web2.0 (WOW2.0) http://www.womenofweb2.com/whoweare.htm

Sharon Peters is a former middle and senior school English teacher. Over the years, Sharon and her students participated in several award-winning global online collaborative projects with classes around the world. She has presented topics about 21st century new media literacy skills at a number of international conferences and regularly webcasts shows for educators. Sharon's role at LEARN includes overseeing the design of learning and evaluation situations in ELA and providing resources for ELA educators. Name: Vicki A. Davis Home: Camilla, Georgia, United States About Me: I'm a teacher, entrepreneur, edublogger, conference presenter, and freelance writer. I am an avid reader, technology "geek", and heart-felt Christian. Locally, I've been Camilla Chamber president, a Rotarian, and a Leadership Georgia graduate.My class wiki has won many awards and media recognition. I am a Tech Learning blogger, co-founder of  Women of Web 2 and co-host the WOW2 show Tuesdays at 9 pm EST at Ed Tech Talk. I co-authored the Flat Classroom Project and Horizon Project. See my complete profile       Jennifer Wagner..... was looking for an interesting way to collect data for a science fair project and posted her question to the EdTech newsgroup board, and the O.R.E.O. Online Project was born. The Project is now in its NINTH year and TechnoSpud.com hosts many online projects during each year. She was the top finalist in the Global SchoolNet Foundation Teacher Award in 2005 for her online projects and effective uses in teacher telecollaboration and has won various other awards for her innovative use of technology. Her TechnoSpud website has a monthly newsletter with Useful Links, Technololgy Facts, and a 30-Minute Technology Tip for teachers to use immediately in their classroom or lab. She is an enthusiastic conference speaker and enjoys sharing the power of technology in and out of the classroom. Jennifer has just published her first book, 35 Tech Tips for Teachers! Websites: Technospud.com, TechnospudProjects.com, TheBloggersCafe.com, Online Projects 4 Teachers Blog: http://www.technospud.com/blog       Hello, I am Cheryl Oakes, I live in ME, USA, my blogsite is located @ Weebly, http://www.cheryloakes.com I am a Collaborative Content Coach for Technology in Wells, Maine in the Wells Ogunquit Community School District a member of Webheads 2005, SEEDLINGS, teacher, webcaster,  and mom. Here are my websites: http://www.cheryloakes.com http://www.wocsdtechtalk.blogspot.com I blog 2 times a month for www.techlearning.com/blog It is all about conversations and sharing.

February 7th,   at 2GMT   listen to the recording at WiziQ

Check the tutorial on how to register at WiZiQ.