Blogging With Students

This post pulls together resources that can be used when blogging with students.

Overview of Blogging:
Blogs in Plain English says it all!

Resources for Evaluating Blogs:
Evaluating Blog Credibility, Steven Streight

Evaluation of Blog Content, Kathy Schrock

Evaluating Blogs, David Warlick

Blogging Guidelines for Students:
Do's:
* Use my first name only and under no circumstance reveal any personal information including but not limited to my last name, address, phone number, age, or family information.
* Use appropriate language.
* Treat all people with respect in posts. Never use information to cause harm or appear to cause harm to any individual, group, or idea.
* Check all posts for spelling, grammar, and use of words before posting.
* Back up my opinions with facts.
* Keep all posts education-oriented.
* Ask permission to use information or files created by someone else.

Do Not's:
* Reveal any personal information.
* Use pictures of myself or any other individual.

Writing a Great Blog:
Weblog Ethics by Rebecca's Pocket
http://www.rebeccablood.net/handbook/excerpts/weblog_ethics.html

How to Write a Better Weblog by Dennis Mahoney
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/writebetter/

10 Tips on Writing the Living Web by Mark Bernstein
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/writeliving/

Voices From the Third Grade

Learn about friendship, global warming, caring for your teeth, gymnastics, a community playground, safety patrol, retirement, and more . . . from the perspective of a third grade student. “Voices From the Third Grade” podcasts can be heard by visiting the Park Lawn web site at http://www.oasd.k12.wi.us/ParkLawn/index.oasd.

Over a five month period students selected, wrote, and recorded articles on topics that were of interest to them. They then chose two of their best articles and wrote introductory scripts that were recorded by other students; the scripts were typically conversations between two other students. To pull it all together students worked with a teacher to combine sound, introductions, and articles into podcast episodes. The podcasts were created for Ms. Wojcik’s master’s thesis which looked at the impact podcasting had on voice and organization.

This was the first time Ms. Wojcik and I worked with student podcasting and we probably learned as much as the students through the experience. As we evaluated the project we noted key points that we will keep in mind for next year.

What We Did Right:

- We received permission from parents to share the podcasts, even though students used “fake” names in their recordings.

- Students listened and assessed exemplar and not-so-exemplar podcasts recorded by other elementary students before they started their own podcast.

- Students learned how to use Audacity prior to recording.

- We provided copyright free MP3 music for students to select from.

What We Will Change:

- Computers will be designated for podcasting and will include a microphone and headphones. Stand-up microphones will be used for interviews, headset microphoness will be used for solo podcasting. We had a few microphones fail because they were moved, causing bent cords.

- Students will select and use their pseudonym from day one.

- Consistent files names will be used; articles will be named by the topic and final episodes will have a predetermined name.

- Audacity automatically creates file folders when recordings as saved. Students will be instructed to look for the Audacity file, identifiable by the headphones, and not to open the folders.

Student enthusiasm for the project was evident from day one. Although Ms. Wojcik has not completed her thesis, I believe she will see clear evidence of improvement in voice and organization through this digital project.

Super Hero Stories

“Diamond Girl” and “Meateater” were just two of the many “super hero” stories that were created by sixth grade students after interviewing their second grade buddies. Sixth graders used HyperStudio to write and illustrate the stories. HyperStudio’s multimedia capabilities allowed students to include hand-drawn illustrations, photos of their buddies and sound affects. It was gratifying to see the smiles on the young student faces as they read the stories for the first time last week. Many of the superheroes were creatively illustrated using a photo for the student’s face and the body drawn with HyperStudio tools and colors.

I believe that HyperStudio is one of the best software programs for students to show their knowledge and understanding of a topic. The program can be used in almost any curricular area from second grade through high school. This powerful tool allows students to create “stacks” that can include text, buttons, pictures, sound, animation, movies, and hand-drawn graphics. Student learning of content can easily be identified through the combination of these elements. At the beginning of the school year second grade students created stacks about the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly that included text and hand-drawn illustrations of each phase. Fifth grade students created a presentation on an award-winning book that showed more sophisticated illustrations and in-depth reflections on the story.

Software MacKiev purchased HyperStudio and announced that they would be releasing Version 5 in late Summer, 2007, first for the Mac and later the PC. I am hoping the Version 5 will be released in the imminent future since it is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful software programs for enhancing classroom learning.

The full press release on HyperStudio 5 can be read at: http://hyperstudio5.com/press.htm

Wikis and Learning

To encourage collaboration and see the impact on student learning, I created and used wikis with students this year. My “letsshare” wiki was used by three different book clubs. The Diary of Anne Frank and Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry was used by fifth grade groups; On My Honor was used with a fourth grade group. The wikis were structured to promote high level thinking and included pages with guiding questions, reflections, comparisons, predictions, character analysis, and links to outside resources.

The “ancientgreecemuseum” wiki was used by a sixth grade class to share information about the Cultural Universals of Ancient Greece: artistic expression, authority and government, basic needs, daily life, geography and climate, power, recreation and leisure, technology, and trade and economy. There was a page for each Cultural Universal where students shared their research and reflected on how the Ancient Greeks used human ingenuity to change their society. They also used the space to brainstorm ideas for a museum they were designing as a culminating project. It was fascinating to see how the trade and economy group used font colors to distinguish important concepts in their research; a key identified pink text as items that the Greeks traded; blue text was where they traded; and black text was money or other.

The wikis supported collaborative learning, yet the page history provided a level of individual accountability. Students were told that their pages could be viewed by anyone and letters were sent to parents inviting them to view the content. I believe that this “world audience” was highly motivational for students and gave them a sense of responsibility for the information, and final wiki pages contained high quality content.

My experience this year has shown that wikis provide a venue for organizing and presenting information in collaboration with others and are highly motivational for students.

If you would like to view the wikis, visit http://letsshare.wikispaces.com/ or http://ancientgreecemuseum.wikispaces.com/.

Just Dig In

How many of us read the user manual before digging into a new software program? I confess that I do not. I usually work through the program, and then go to the user manual to clarify and extend my knowledge.

Recently I used Audacity with students for the first time, and of course did not read the reference material ahead of time. Third grade students wrote news stories that they recorded; sixth grade students wrote and illustrated stories in HyperStudio and used Audacity to record parts of the stories.

Recording was intuitive for the students, but they ran into a few snags when they came back to listen to their recordings. When students opened their file, many inadvertently went to the project folder and panicked when they discovered bits and pieces of their recording rather than the entire piece. I quickly realized that when you save an Audacity project, the program automatically saves the Audacity project file with the .aup extension AND a project data folder which contains small segments of the recording. Users should look for the .aup, Audacity project file, which contains the Audacity icon when editing a recording.

Yes, this information is in the user manual, but I would still be perusing the guide and not using the tool if I had not been willing to dig in and try it.

Aha Film Festival

The video production class Joe Fatheree and Craig Lindvahl developed and co-teach in Effingham, IL is more than curriculum, it is a culture in which high school students feel comfortable to express themselves creatively and openly through film making. I had the opportunity to attend the fifth annual Aha Film Festival highlighting the top 29 films the evening of March 31. My favorites included a documentary on “Plow Day;” a deeply moving film on the life of a man after killing a young child in a drunk driving accident; a young teen dealing with her mother’s diagnosis of cancer; and a stirring interview with a student who shares her obsessive compulsive disorder of pulling her hair out.

The day of the event Mr. Fatheree, Mr. Lindvahl, their students, and guest speakers shared ideas in a variety of workshops. I attended a workshop by Apple and another with Mr. Fatheree in which he shared the growth of his program from a few outdated PC’s to where it is today. Joe Fatheree is passionate about the program, would like to see other schools embrace it in their curriculum, and is willing to help in any way he can.

Read about the festival and films here: http://www.effingham.k12.il.us/aha/.

Collaboration

Our sixth grade is participating in the “Square of Life” collaboration project sponsored by CIESE (http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/squareproj/index.htm) this spring. Students will work in groups of three to identify living and non-living things they find in their “square” and share their findings with member schools. The project addresses many curricular standards, is not time consuming, and connects students to others around the world. I am anxious to see the impact world-wide collaboration has on learning.