You know, even as a child I would get a diary and let it sit for the entire year with only a few pages that had anything written on them. My children have baby books that are incomplete. I am not one for writing things down. I am the world’s worst at corresponding with others via snail mail or email. I’m much better at email than snailmail, but I don’t sit down and compose thoughts too often.
I am having some difficulty with edublogs in getting things to look just the way I want them quickly. I actually created this in April 2008 for use with my classroom, but preferred the wiki instead. I had a ton of files to upload and couldn’t figure edublogs out quick enough to get it done. It’s something I will definitely play with this year.
I really want to allow my students to post this year. I’m currently looking at gaggle.net & ePals for school accounts. I will need to upload around 500-600 names when I do this, and am looking for an easy way to do it. Most likely, I’ll create a document with Word or Excel using STI to do it. I’m also looking at permission documents at other schools to send to parents to get permission to do all I want to this year. Our county policy only lists internet use and email use–I want student work, pictures and voices added to my policy (no last names with anything.) When I uploaded all the files for the wiki last year, I had to go through each one to make sure they never said their last names or used them in their file names. It was really time consuming, but a necessary thing because not everyone followed the directions. Imagine that!
I would love to use blogging as a Q & A tool to begin with in order to get the students to write. I would start with a question such as “What was your favorite thing you did this summer?” or “What would you like to learn in computer class this year?” and see the responses. I guess it would be like a journal activity. Eventually, with the 3rd grade book project, I’d like to post a book slideshow, and have the students write positive feedback about it. (Just for their classmates.) As I learn more about edublogs, I figure I’ll learn how to best incorporate files. I’m looking forward to the correspondence with students.
I have a draft copy of the new COS for technology, and this is what it’s all about–digital tools, collaboration, etc. I’ve really got to get with the program!!!
