Blogs and RSS

Blogging…. This thing is getting HUGE.

Some thought provoking quotes.

~ Blogging is the new poetry ~

Unknown

~ A blog is in many ways a continuing conversation ~

Andrew Sulliva

~ Where the Internet is about availability of information, blogging is about making information creation available to anyone. ~

George Siemens

~ A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world. ~

blogger

~ Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining 'blog' is a fool's errand. ~

Michael Conniff

REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING

It seems as though blo0gs have been around for quite some time now. In fact I have even tried blogging prior to this course. A few years ago when a group of friends signed up for a fantasy baseball league there was a blogging option on the Sporting News webpage that hosted the fantasy draft. I recall signing up for it and posting a few derogatory remarks about the Toronto Blue Jays. My hope was to get a rise out of some of my friends who were really big Jays fans. I recall how I was so surprised to have comments from complete strangers and even a couple followers. I wrote a few short blogs for this but then lost interest or could not find the time to continue with that and so it eventually disappeared. I tried to go back to the sight to see if it was still available so I could link this to it but I could not recall my user name. It was probably a name set up to disguise my true identity as I was a lot more paranoid of exposing my identity online back then.

With this experience however I still feel that I knew very little about blogging when we began this course. I did not realize that a blog was a website that was easy to create, open to anyone to create or comment on and even the structure of listing posts from newest first to oldest was unknown to me. Someone explained to me that a blog can be described as a cross between a diary, a website, and an online community.  I think this explanation sums it up well.

When the class started I asked around about which program to use for blogging and everyone I asked recommended Blogger. I went to sign up for an account without even realizing that it was part of Google. This made things so easy because I had been using iGoogle, Gmail and several other aspects of Goggle for about the past year and was quite familiar with the look and feel of this. I recall being a bit torn about the whole privacy online thing and not being sure I wanted to attach my name to it. I think that I felt more confident and used my real name instead of a pseudonym because it was Google and I was used to it along with the fact that I was doing this for a class and wanted the instructor and classmates to be able to recognize me. It was not difficult to set up my blog account nor to set up my page. It took only a very short amount of time and I recall being thankful that there was not a lot of expectations about content (nor marks) associated with the first blog post we were required to publish. This allowed us time to explore some of the features of the program and become familiar with it. I must add that the experience was dramatically different than my initial foray into blogging had been.

As the term progressed we were required to write a blog entry each week and to comment on classmate blogs along the way as well. I recall being excited to receive comments from others. I also am quite guilty of being more of a reader than a contributor to other people’s blogs. I know I should leave more comments as others probably have similar feelings of excitement to know that some one else had read their blog and has some thoughts on it. I can only imagine how excited young students would be to have comments appear on something they wrote!! I was eventually able to get around to and figure out how to add other’s blogs to follow. This made life a lot easier and now I can access the updates to blogs of my classmates much easier.  I also have 7 followers of my blog.

I must say that I really enjoyed this style of writing. When I initially saw the course outline I thought that this sounded pretty good. There were no big papers to write, no exams. This was going to be an easy class!!!! Wow was I wrong. I could not believe the amount of work that goes into creating a blog every week.  It is much more work and much more effective learning, in my opinion than traditional essays and papers. You need to really know your stuff well as it can’t be faked when you have to write about it. The week leading up to a blog is a blur of learning, research and experimenting. Then all of that learning and experience needs to be synthesized, organized and communicated. The communication needed to blog goes way beyond written words and includes pictures, podcasts, videos, links etc.

Throughout the course Joanne had made reference to “finding your blogging voice.” I was not sure what this meant but with the experience we have had writing blogs and the discussions that have occurred within our course it is starting to be clear. Not only do I feel that I am developing my own voice and getting better at writing, I can see development in the rest of the class as well.

By allowing us to use blogging throughout the class I have been able to do more experimenting with new things than with the other tools. I truly enjoy using this style of writing and think that it is much better than writing papers and doing test. It allows for differentiation of learning and allows the instructor to see the specific learning of each individual within the group. I have developed a confident in using this that was not developed when exploring and using the other tools. Perhaps that is a hint that I should keep with them and through use and experimentation I will gain similar confidence and expertise with the other tools we have explored as well.

Just as we were about to head into our week on blogging about blogging one of my catalyst teachers pointed out an update from Blogger. Google has been developing an update to their blogger site and is making it available to try in a draft site. If you have not tried it you must. It is called Blogger in Draft and this short video highlights some of the features that it provides.

I gave Blogger in Draft a try and find it to be pretty good. I tried out and included some more gadgets. In particular I have added a gadget that will allow you to search through my site. I also have included a poll. This week it is about the upcoming baseball season. If you haven’t participated please try it. You are able to create a new poll whenever you chose.

I found that the Blogger in Draft has a lot more flexibility and choice. I have changed my template, design and background. You can easily adjust the width of your blog with sliders. There are many more choices and things are even more customizable than the original blogger site.

As usual the trailfire for blogging was another great source of learning. I only wish that I would have thought to explore it in the first week of the class. One of the neat things I came across there was a slideshow called The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging... And When To Use Each One. I thought that the information it contained was worthwhile sharing in this post so I wanted to imbed it as I have learn to embed YouTube videos. There was no similar feature to do that but a blogger button appeared below the slideshow. This is a presentation created at a site called slideshare. It allowed me to “post to Blogger” which asked my blogger account for permission to access it then posted the slideshow on my blog. Very neat. You can see this in the blog directly below this post. (Sorry not sure how to or if I can link to other posts within my blog or I would do that.)

The other part of this blog is supposed to include discussion and learning about RSS. Well I have known about RSS for quite a while now but never really understood it and never used it either. The trialfire for RSS was very helpful in explaining RSS. As I have found with most of their videos, the Common Craft video - RSS in Plain English did a wonderful job simplifying and explaining it.

Just like Blogger I was very happy to learn that Google had a Reader. I had used a lot of the Google features and was set up with an account so it was not difficult for me to get onto using the Google Reader feature. Reader allowed me to keep track of blogs, websites, news, sports, professional sites etc. Instead of me going out to check on each of the sites I followed or was asked to follow they would come to me. Reader does a pretty good job of organizing all of this material for you.

We were asked early on in the semester to add and follow a few blogs. These are the some of the 25 feeds that I have added and have been following with my reader.

_ Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog

_ Will Richardson’s Webblogg’d Blog

_ David Warlick’s 2 Cents Worth Blog

_ Adventures in Web 2.0

_ NationMaster - Canadian Education statistics

I added the ones that were recommended including blogs for this couse plus thought I would add a few that were related to my job. I found that it was just too much to follow initially. I thought that I should be reading each one and did not have time. I think that this will be a wonderful tool but I will need to reduce the number of feeds I subscribe to after this class is complete so that it becomes a bit more manageable.

I really like the features and flexibility that is allowed with Reader. You can easily search through any of the feeds you have and we all know about Google’s ability to search. You can easily manage your feeds and add or delete anyone that you want to follow. You can view and organize groups of feeds or display any one feed if you choose. It is a very useful tool but I need to work at it a bit more to develop the skills to use it as effectively as it should be used.

PERSONAL LEARNINGS

When I reflect on how and if I will continue to use blogs in my future personal use I have difficulty understanding that question. There are two ways to “use” blogs. One can create or author them and one can read and comment on others.

I am not sure if I will continue to be an author. I may since I enjoy it but I am not sure if I have anything that anyone else wants to hear. Perhaps that is not true. Once the dust settles from these classes I can see myself doing some blog writing. I will need to search out and find a group on the web that has similar interests and before long I may acquire a vast following. If I don’t create blogs I will however be much more confident in my ability to write and use blogs. I will not hesitate to comment on blogs I find interesting.

I will also encourage my children to take it up. They are not actively using blogs in their classes yet but that day will come. By practicing and writing more and more they will be developing a skill that they will definitely use somewhere down the road in their lifetime. It may be in higher education classes or perhaps in their future jobs or maybe just for pleasure but there will definitely be blogging in most you people’s future.

The other side of blogging is being a consumer of blogs. Over the past year things have dramatically changed. Blogs have become the main tool of journalism and news stories. Major news networks such as CBC, and CNN, and even sports networks like TSN do much of their reporting as blogs. They have become so sophisticated that you can’t tell the difference from a story or a blog unless you really look closely at how it is written. This has really opened journalism up to a whole new dimension. It is no longer a one way street with them reporting a story. The ability of readers to comment and add new insights, perspectives  and thoughts to a story have really changed the face of news. Because of this I think that it is obvious that I will continue to use blogs in some way into the future.

Another related aspect that I see me continuing to use is the Google reader. This will become the way that I get my updates on news and sports and even entertainment. I no longer buy newspapers or magazines and find that I watch much less TV than in the past but instead I spend more time on the web. The use of reader will allow me to streamline and customize my experience.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Richardson (2009) argues that blogs should definitely be used in schools. He does a great job outlining how they can be used in a variety of ways and the benefits of using them with students. I can’t agree more. This is a wonder way to show your learning and allow one to be creative.

Huffaker  (2005) believes that the use of blogs is a way of promoting literacy in the classroom. He notes the popularity of blogs with the youth.

           

“Adolescents make up a large part of the community of bloggers, often referred to as the blogosphere. Perseus Development Corporation, for instance, finds 51.5% of all blogs are being developed and maintained by ages 13–19 (Henning, 2003). A similar study finds that 40.4% of blog authors are under age 20 (Herring, Scheidt, Bonus, & Wright, 2004). A visit to the statistics page of Livejournal.com, one of the most popular bloghosted web sites, discloses the largest distribution of blog authors also falls below age 20.”

Because of this he feels that we should be utilizing this medium in our schools to promote and develop literacy. He says,

“Weblogs provide an excellent opportunity for educators to advance literacy through storytelling and dialogue. Storytelling and literacy are the foundation of language development, and more so, the foundation of learning. Telling stories remains important from childhood to adulthood because stories allow people to express experiences and feelings in an engaging way, help them to understand the world around them, and develop and sustain peer relationships. Furthermore, storytelling promotes verbal literacy, one of the most important aspects of education.”

Laurel Clyde (2005) explains that teachers should follow blogs because some are written by experts and have the added feature that others (perhaps additional experts) can comment and add to content. She claims, “Blogging provides students with a venue to publish online and for an audience and to engage in collaborative activities.” Students get and give feedback to each other. She sees blogs as “a virtual extension of the classroom”

Our school division has had a major focus on literacy for the past two years. This year a big part of that focus has been on writing. Because of this our team of e-learning catalyst teachers wanted to promote blogging as a means of promoting and supporting this writing focus. Surprisingly it was not well received by those leading the writing initiative. They had their own perceptions of writing and did not see nor understand the strengths that blogging could add to their development. Their focus was on more traditional forms of writing. We have discussed resistance to these Web 2.0 through out the course. This resistance just highlights the struggles that we will continue to have trying to move the paradigm of the “school” into a future that is better and more relevant to students.

Even without a lot of support we went ahead and tried to promote blogging where we could find some interest. One of the concerns that was expressed was the lack of privacy that existed when students used something like Blogger (This will be a seemingly impossible hurdle to overcome as we try to advance toward web 2.0 tools). One of our elearning catalyst teachers tried out some school blogging sites. Two of the sites she explored were 21 Classes and Class Blogmeister. She was most impressed with the Class Blogmeister site. It allow a teacher to set up a class for blogging within a controlled closed environment. There are some issues with the site but this is the one she recommended so if you are wanted to do some blogging in your schools it might be a good place to start.

Another great use of blogs is for communication and professional development of staff. Our e-learning catalyst teachers use blogs for this purpose. If anyone wants to follow a great blog we have one called Cal’s tech tips. He creates a weekly blog on a variety of technology hints and suggestions that teachers follow and look forward to reading about. It is a great way to provide ongoing technology professional development. Teachers should use RSS to follow this and to help monitor blogs and expert websites that they should follow to provide that ongoing professional development that is a must have in these times of rapid change.

References:

De Groot, J. (2010). Trailfire: Blogs, Blogging for PD, and RSS. http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/61578

        http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/58016       

Huffaker, D. (2005). The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote

literacy in the classroom. AACE Journal, 13(2), 91-98.

Laurel A Clyde.  (2005). educational blogging. Teacher Librarian, 32(3), 43-45.  Retrieved April 3, 2010, from CBCA Education. (Document ID: 805270341).

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. 2^nded. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

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