Schooliblit

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Can Johnny Blog?. (VIa Jim Flowers), From the New York Times, Can Johnny Blog?

"This may be the year that school blogs come into their own."

"Blogs seem to be a natural way for teachers to maintain a class Web page and for students to handle research projects.>Educational Bloggers Network (www.ebn.weblogger.com)."

"One of the trendsetters among educators is Will Richardson, supervisor of instructional technology at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J., who made use of blogs in his journalism and English classes last year to foster discussion and collaboration as well as to showcase students' work."

COOL! And I love that opening line! By ppritchard1@woh.rr.com (PamP). [Edublog News]
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Blogging for Kids
Surfing the Net with Kids: Blogging Tools. Writing is essential. And what better way to encourage writing than with an online journal. Whether you call it a blog or a diary, I've tested the best of the free options, and created a sample journal in each. Take a look and decide which one is right for you. Remember, not all blogs are written for a family audience, so be careful out there. [Surfing the Net with Kids Headlines] Several blogs have pointed out that Surfing the Net with Kids has an RSS feed, to which I have now subscribed. I hope to share this site with my colleagues and figure out a way to share it further with parents. This post, about blogging, suggests good sites for kids or families to try out.
6:29:02 PM

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European Perspective
Information Literacy in Europe. A comprehensive review article about information literacy in Europe has been published in the current issue of Information Research . Virkus, S. (2003) "Information literacy in Europe: a literature review." Information Research, 8 (4). http://informationr.net/ir/8-4/paper159.html. [Information Literacy Weblog]
The article referred to in this post has some very good quotes that would be useful to anyone needing an overview of the importance of information literacy in today's world. (Does anyone need to prove that importance any more?) I'm interested in this article because of the European perspective, since Europe is where I live right now. I need to deal with my prejudices and stereotypes that have only recently allowed me to acknowledge that good work in my field is coming out of Australia. What chauvintists we Americans tend to be!
6:12:25 PM

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Writing for an Online Audience
A Young Writers' Round Table, via the Web. Many young students struggle with writing. But online technology is helping students improve skills by offering them an audience for their work. By Lisa Guernsey. [New York Times: Education]

The attraction of having a peer audience is so strong that many students have started writing essays and stories that are posted during after-school hours to teenage e-zines, Weblog diaries (or blogs) and Wikis (blogs with multiple authors), often without their teachers' knowledge. "Young people have not waited for schools, they have not waited for adults," said Mr. Bloome of the National Council of Teachers of English. "They have gone and moved ahead."

So we need to catch up. One way is to make use of blogs and e-zines and wikis, but it's not easy to get teachers interested. I'm considering how I might create some kind of after-school activity that would give students the chance to try out some new online techniques and demonstrate them to teachers.
4:16:52 PM

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Technology in a New School Year
With the Apples Arriving by E-Mail, Teachers Adapt. Teachers learn new tricks as the Internet expands their professional horizons. By Barnaby J. Feder. [New York Times: Education] Here we go! I wonder what new ideas and trends will blossom in the coming school year!? This article even mentions weblogs, which makes me hope that someone at my school will begin to see the uses.
4:05:18 PM

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Two weeks later...
A combination of travel -- visiting family and friends around the Northeast U.S. -- and new computer -- I traded my 3.5-year-old PowerBook for my son's 1-year-old iBook -- has kept me from blogging for more than two weeks! I was just reading a magazine article about internet addiction, but I guess I'm safe if I can stay off for so long. I apologize to anyone who actually looks for new postings on here. My email and news aggregator are full of interesting stuff that I hope to post and/or comment on in the next few days.
4:01:54 PM

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