CapEd Crusader Blog

School District to Monitor Blogs

2006-05-24T09:19:00.000-04:00

A report in Yahoo News indicates that school districts will begin to monitor blogs and MySpace sites.

Blogging Policies

2005-08-20T09:04:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Rebecca Blood for the list of links to websites with good blogging policies including IBM (a pdf file), Yahoo (a pdf file), and Harvard Law.

science and blogs

2005-08-04T10:55:00.000-04:00

Richard Gallagher writes a great article about how the science community has been slow to adopt blogs. He details how blogging could benefit the Life Science community - from pharmaceutical research to the research labs.

I see the educational benefit - what if k-16 students could tap into research ideas, data and thoughts? Wouldn't that be exciting to be on the cutting edge? emb

Blogs, podcasts, and education in NYTIMES

2005-08-03T15:58:00.000-04:00

The New York Times has an article on Room 208 and the blogs, podcasts, and new media in the classroom. (RMK)

Blogging for the blind

2005-07-05T10:26:00.000-04:00

The American Foundation for the Blind has a site on how to make your blog accessible to the blind. (RMK)

NECC handouts

2005-07-01T09:17:00.000-04:00

Hello to all,
Wow - the presentation was amazing. So many wonderful attendees gave feedback and ideas. Here is the address to the site to download the handouts, presentation, and blog reflection rubric.

NECC 2005 Program
I would like to add the terrific students that presented. We are fortuneate to have terrific students that are bright and dedicated to the teaching profession.
I will not be able to attend NECC next year (it's over the 4th of July holiday and that's family time for us), but will see you in 2007! emb

Philadelphia The City of . . . NECC

2005-06-29T22:06:00.000-04:00

Today marked our last day attending the conference. The morning began with a quick jaunt through the exhibit hall to check out the middle section that we had not yet journeyed through. Then it was off to grab lunch before meeting with Dr.'s B and K for a pre-presentation pow-wow[ :) ] We carried an AMC tradition and had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe [HRC] followed by the purchase of a Philadelphia marked HRC item. Following our enjoyable sit down lunch of which we had not managed to allow for the yesterday, we went over to the Lord and Taylor store on 13th street formerly known as the Wanamaker store where we listened to the largest pipe organ in North America. The consul is on the 2nd floor and the pipes range from the 2nd to 4th floors. It was truly a magnificent site. I was quite happy to be able to take this in since it was a highly suggested opportunity from those I know.

With the organ ringing in our ears we left to complete our final as well as first group organization of our presentation. I must admit that we were unsure how the presentation would go or how many people would be attending our afternoon talk. The results of both were pleasantly surprising. Even with a relatively small amount of group discussion the presentation flowed well together and I never felt as if we were speaking on top of one another or maximizing the speaking time. The audience was the largest surprise of all. The number was somewhere a little over 200 hundred people! People were everywhere on chairs, the floor, and standing in the doorway. The audience members covered from novices to a few expert bloggers. Many if not all members had heard of blogs. I believe the most beneficial part of the presentation for the novices, at least, was showing how simple it was to create a blog in a matter of minutes.

Personally, I love speaking and engaging in discussion with a room full of people. I find it a thrill to be able to present information to people and then to be able to react to their questions or comments. Next time I want to be able to contribute more to the discussion by having my own experience with working with blogs. I think I am going to start one myself and we will be more than likely starting one for undergraduate education students at Capital. There were a number of questions asked by the audience which helped to further define the use of blogs and what precautions schools may have to look into before beginning blogs in the classroom.

Afterwards you would not believe the rush of people to get copies of our presentation or CD copies as well. Many people we had to turn away and suggest looking for the posting of the presentation on the NECC website. I am hoping the post is on the site since so many people wanted to have access to the presentation.

I felt quite well after the presentation and knowing that our information in some way had impacted the audience if not to begin blogging but at least to give it some thought. Our debriefing session famous to Dr.B [so I hear] included some follow up we needed to do. I went out after that to the exhibit hall for a bit and then joined AMC and MSS for the bus ride back to the hotel.

With Dr.K out for the evening we made plans for searching out dinner and catching some sites of the city. We settled on a small restaurant before making our way all around the city. It was awesome to take in so many great sites in a short spance of time. We saw the Washington Square with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the location of the First Continental Congress, the first Bank of the US, Ben Franklin's grave, the US Mint, Independence Hall, and of course the Franklin Fountain for a little one on one with our favorite dessert, ice cream!!

The night was tons of fun and provided the chance to get some memorable pictures. Overall, my experience at NECC was inspiring and exciting. I cannot wait to do it again and know even better how I want to schedule my time. The sessions in general were informative and gave me some token things to take back to school. I definitely would like to present again if not at NECC at least somewhere else. I cannot think of a better way to get your feet wet in technology and gain the professional experience of conferencing. Here is to NECC 2005 and hopefully NECC 2007!!

*LBD*

And so the Journey Continues

2005-06-28T23:39:00.000-04:00

At the end of the day I must say that I believe I saw and listened to as much as I could on my first official day of conferencing. The morning began with parading through the first couple isles of the exhibit area. It is an unbelievable space filled with salespeople upon salespeople. It is a thrill though to go through seeing programs you have never heard of and well, of course, getting the free stuff. There are so many pieces of paper and pamphlets thrown into your hands that it is difficult to process all the information that you are receiving. I don't want you to get the impression that I dislike the exhibits; actually it is one of the more interesting things of the conference. It is a place where you meet people from all over the country looking to know who you are and demonstrating how their products are the best for you.

After prematurely filling my conference bag, I went to my first session which was about the use of integrating technology into elementary classroom where the number of computers may or may not be limited. I found the session to be quite informative. It began with differentiating what true technology integration is within a classroom and with the students. Then, it delved into the types of possible integration such as groups, pairs, or individuals and what type of activities for varying subject areas could go with each group. With the activities suggested for the core areas the presenter had created templates to have audience members participate in the short activity. I am looking forward to the CD-ROM that we could receive through the mail with the activities used in the presentation along with other helpful technology templates. The activity I valued the most was a template for a reporter at the beginning of the class day held possibly at the morning class meeting. There were sections for the weather, news, word of the day, and jokes that a student could find and then read to the class.

The remainder of my day was spent at two other sessions and the exhibit hall again. Although I enjoyed the first session the most the next session opened my eyes to the implementation of handhelds in the classroom specifically with literacy [a little bit of classroom management was also included]. The session spent most of the time talking about software and how students as well as teachers benefit from a class set of handhelds. My last session for the day discussed using video technologies in the classroom and the available resources online for student video making including KitZu and Adobe Premier Elements. The process would require devotion and patience by both the teacher and students. I think it would possibly be a neat thing to try as long as you were incorporating the project across multiple subject areas.

The day ended with a wonderful night in Philly filled with the ultimate cheese steak from Jim's, a walk on the pier, ice cream at Franklin's Fountain, and well a new experience at Warmdaddy's. Tomorrow should be busy as well since there is more to see and our presentation to perform!

*LBD*

June 28, 2005 AM A Student's Perspective on NECC

2005-06-28T23:36:00.000-04:00

Today is the first day we will be attending sessions at the conference. Yesterday we took the opportunity to register and listen to the opening keynote speaker though we were not in the same room he was delivering his speech. I also began looking over all the different sessions one could attend while here. Wow, there are so many that sound interesting and somehow beneficial to my career as an educator. I have narrowed my list by this morning with only one time slot where I have several I want to peek into. I want to use this conference to learn some new things about technology which I may not get exposed to at Capital. I think this goal will be accomplished since technology was not something that was routinely implemented in my early educational experiences. I feel as if I have only touched upon the many resources that are available to me through technology and the Internet. I am really looking forward to this one session about using your palm in the classroom. The palm, as I have discovered, is an amazing thing with a multitude of possibilities. I think this session will help me learn about this new toy I have and how students or myself could use them in the classroom. I hope I can gain much knowledge today and cannot wait to get excited about technology!!

*LBD*

Enter to win a free........(fill in blank)

2005-06-28T23:03:00.000-04:00

Being a "newcomer" to NECC/ISTE I really had NO idea what to expect of the conference. Yes I knew that there would be venders and sessions, but even explanations did not help me comprehend the fact that there would be vendors and vendors and sessions and more sessions. My brain is currently trying to process all my new knowledge and is on overload. The exhibit hall was more than I could have ever imagined. I had attended Ohio schoolnet so I had an idea of the type of information I would receive but I was not prepared for the volume. Every booth had a drawing for some sort of prize. I believe that I entered to win an ipod, a projector, a trip, exc., but considering the fact that 16,000 other people did as well I don't think that my chances are to high. What I did enjoy about the exhibit hall is learning about what is out there. I love seeing what I am hoping to implement someday in my classroom. Often being called a "techie" myself I really enjoy getting into conversations with the representatives at the booths and being able to communicate with them in a common understood language. I attended a few very informative sessions, but the one that I enjoyed most was my session on grant writing that was sponsored by TI (Texas Instruments). I have heard from several of my professors that you can always write grants for money, but they never say how or when. It was very useful to walk away with an entire packet of information that outlined all the major do's and don'ts of grant writing. Plus I am the president of the Education Society on campus and will use the information from the workshop to create a program for my peers back at Cap. I am very excited to dive back into everything tomorrow and see what other information and giveaways :) I can get!

*MSS*

Day one in Philly

2005-06-28T22:45:00.000-04:00

So today was the first full day of the confrence. For some reason, I thought that by coming for the second year, things would be less exciting and less surprising, but that was definatly not the case. I came to the NECC/ISTE confrence with the intention of being more focused in the sessions that i was choosing, and I was not going to try to "do it all". The sessions I chose today were ones that I could directly use in my classroom. The first session i attended was focused on the storm tracking capabilites of Weather Bug. the only problem was...to use the software, the school must purchase a weather station and subscription. It still gave me some ideas on teaching weather in my classroom, especially after focusing on weather during my jr. field experience. The next session that I attended was with a very dynamic man named Hall Davidson. He works for PBS and the Discovery Channel. With these 2 jobs he has come up with a free way to make videos on line even if a classroom that does not have video cameras. It is amazing to see what students can do, and even cooler to find out that the materials on his site are free!!! After the video session and a wild goose chase around the convention center I finally found the Texas Instruments room. Here, I learned about grant writting. This was very important to me. In my classes I hear often, "oh you can get a grant for that", or "oh when you write that grant...." The speaker gave us ideas for places and even the hints about what not to do. It turns out that Texas Instruments actually has grant writters who will read grants that outside people submit. Very Very good fact to know. The only problem with confrences like this is that by about 3 o'clock, my brain is swimming with ideas and has a very hard time soaking new ideas in. Its alot of information, but a good nights sleep and some good "philly" food will help me be ready for the big day tomorrow!

~AMC

Primary Science education

2005-06-18T08:28:00.000-04:00

The Early Years is a blog sponsored by Science and Children. They have postings, and then teachers give comments. One of my favorite had a question from a new teacher about how to grab students' enthusiasm for sciemce. The teachers that commented had ideas from a unit on birds to classification. A site not to miss! - emb

Legal guidelines for bloggers

2005-06-16T22:47:00.000-04:00

This is a great site for help on the legal guidelines for bloggers. - Legal Guidelines emb

Prototype: Learning to use blogs in education

2005-06-04T09:25:00.000-04:00

Prototype has great information about using blogs in education. Crawford Kilian, a high school English teacher, reflects on the blogs he uses for his courses, how students are using them, and just general good ideas! (emb)

Blog for Early Childhood science

2005-06-01T17:26:00.000-04:00

The Early Years is a blog that focuses on Early Childhood. It has a science flavor, but addresses all issues in teaching (management, learning, integration, high level thinking, etc). The questions are posted by NSTA's Science and Children editors and practicing teachers comment with helpful ideas. (emb)

Blogging pays

2005-06-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

Blogging is a skill that pays money, according to the Wall Street Journal. Blogging in the classroom as workforce education??
(RMK)

blogs for integrating technology

2005-05-28T16:41:00.000-04:00

Here is a blog that has information and links to information helpful for integrating technology into the classroom,
Socrates Technological University by Ronald Ayers. He is quite a leader in the field!
There are postings on the use of laptops in the classroom and Tablet PC's.

Safety and job security

2005-04-10T09:50:00.000-04:00

Blogging is a great way to share what is happening. Many teachers benefit from reading the experience of others.
However, job security is also important. While we benefit from the experience of others, no one wishes for someone to lose their job because they posted something not so flattering about their district or administrator.
That having been said, there is a great article with advise on how to be safe when blogging and what things to consider when sharing experiences. Some of the advice includes not revealing your location or mention names. I know my students use invitation only blogs. They are required to follow good etiquette.

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Anonymity/blog-anonymously.php

Blog ideas

2005-04-10T07:46:00.000-04:00

Blogs are one of the great levelers. They require little technological expertise, yet can potentially be thoughtful and intellectual.
Educators are beginning to see blogging as a tool for learning. As we start to consider the possibilities, examples and ideas emerge.
Here is an article that shares some thoughts about blogs in education. It includes some outstanding examples.

Preservice Teachers blogging

2005-03-10T20:42:00.000-05:00

One of the beautiful things about blogging is the ability to maximize experiences. My juniors are in the field and are blogging for their daily reflections. This enables them to learn through reflection and also learn from each other! Very cool.

Making blogs "by invitation only", is advantageous in many respects (privacy, stranger issues, freedom to express thoughts, etc). But it does make it challenging for those of us looking for exemplar blogs :-)

Here is an outstanding blog resource: African American Teachers' Lounge.

Wikipedia has great blog history and terms

2005-02-15T20:41:00.000-05:00

Check out Wikipedia and search for "blog" to get an excellent entry on blogs.
(BK)

OSN Tuesday Part II

2005-02-15T18:22:00.000-05:00

I saw a presentation on "Limiting Legal Exposure While Embracing Digitality" from Eric Johnson at Squires, Sanders & Dempsey law firm. This was a fascinating legal perspective on things like AUPs, CIPA, NCLB and other alphabet soup laws. Despite their pleadings to not leave scared of being digital, the complexity of the issues and the possible consequences of seemingly innocent actions left me a little afraid! Nevertheless I have some great notes from their presentation which I may or may not post later (if I can figure out the legal ramifications of doing so!!)

Then I saw Morrie Reese, a VP of education at Apple (23 years experience working at Apple - wow!) presented on "eleven tools for cross-platform portfolios." While I think I probably knew most of what was going on already, the examples of things from digital portfolios reminded me that many students are doing some amazing digital things like claymation, recorded performances (band, vocal, theater, athletic), animation, etc. What were the eleven things?
* iMac, eMac, or iBook *Audio recorder * Digicam * DV Camcorder * Scanner * Appleworks * iMovie HD * Quicktime Pro * iPhoto * Adobe Acrobat AND *Web authoring software. Think he works for Apple??

Lastly, Deborah Kuchey from Xavier University in Cincinatti presented a treasure trove of resources for early childhood mathematics education using technology. These included the TI-10 and TI-15 calculators, software, Web resources, and online organizations that catalog lesson plans. I will try to post lists of these at a later date.

At the end of the day I went to my favorite coffee house to get a cup of decaf. Ooops. Forgot to say decaf! Looks like I'll be up all night! I'm not used to caffeine - it has pretty rotten effects on me. Grrr. Tasted good though.

The presentation is tomorrow. The folks at SchoolNet have put on a pretty good conference so far - I've been impressed. BUT, they failed to put my presentation in the book AND in the addendum as promised. Hence I am presenting at the last time slot of the conference in an unadvertised session. Anyone reading this... PLEASE COME! I'm making final preparations now. Maybe a big door prize?
(BK

OSN Tuesday Part I

2005-02-15T09:53:00.000-05:00

This morning, I saw Marty Bowe, from Perry Local Schools present (or "brief" as he says - he's ex-AF) on Administrator concerns for making technology work. It was a very structured, top-down approach that probably wouldn't translate well to environments like higher-ed where academic freedom is such a big issue. However, and I hope the IT guys at Cap aren't reading..., it made me sensitive to many of the issues IT folks face regarding standardization, cost/benefit analysis, etc.

I hoped to learn about how to bring faculty to technology, but it really ended right before that. It answered the "what do I need to have in place before technology integration can take place. Admittedly I don't have control over that at Cap., but I now understand the issues surrounding the bargaining and negotiating that takes place in working things out with IT.
(BK)

OSN Monday part II

2005-02-14T19:35:00.000-05:00

I talked with a couple of teachers who are experts in using technology in grades K-6. Betty Cavanaugh and Donna Johns are teachers at Claymont City Schools and put together a fabulous resource book that I can’t wait to share with Stefanie. Lot’s of great activities and suggestions for lessons.

This afternoon I sat in on Granville MS’s group that put together a Quicktime VR tour of their school. They did it on the cheap with some very inventive hardware and equipment and it looked terrific. The students that presented did a fabulous job. I'd love to urge you to check out their website to see what I mean but I can't find it! Help!

Then I saw Clint Funk, Acrobat Consultant. (And no, I don’t mean “should we do trapeze or highwire). His presentation was on Acrobat 7 and ranged from beginning to advanced features.

• Windows only: Print multiple e-mails from Outlook to one pdf file – this is then organized by sender, by date, etc. via bookmarks.
• Add attachments to a pdf file – xls, doc, etc.
• Make pdf of Webpage – not new, but Flash animations appear animated (and some animated GIFs), links active, etc.
• OCR (from scanner) – (was paper capture in v. 6)
• Security- (you can use public key certificates – new to 7), save settings as a “policy” use passwords to limit access OR changes OR even limiting to Low Res printing) also allow (or Not) someone to copy and paste text from the PDF,
• Digitally signing things – didn’t say much about this.
• Organizer – view pdfs by when you last looked at them, by HD location, or collections (like a bookmark folder).
• Embed QT movies. Record screen moves with other app (demo purpose)

And yes, Virginia, it's still raining...
(BK)

OSN - Web Logs in Education

2005-02-14T09:21:00.000-05:00

I just attended a presentation on Weblogs by Mark Kernohan at WVIZ/PBS in Cleveland. The audience was very involved and it is obvious to me that there is great interest in blogs (though I admith my sample was self-selected!) though there are real concerns about security, safety, accountability. Questions arose about whether or not the school districts would block these sites (like blogger.com) because they are similar (their claim) to chat rooms, because of bandwidth issues related to posting videos and pictures, etc.

Mark had wonderful examples of uses, of ways to involve parents AND students using blogs, and I can't wait to get a copy of the presentation from him (a promised e-mail) at which point I will be able to share some of those links.

Other issues raised include: free speech vs. school's (especially private) right to limit, podcasting was mentioned as an example of new technologies (cool!)...

Meanwhile, outside the rain continues to pour..
(BK)

Kidzlog makes blogs easy - Follow up

2005-02-10T10:45:00.000-05:00

I have successfuly posted a Kidzlog blog example at My Website so that you can see what it does. It gives children an opportunity to write AND draw for each post. Parents and/or teachers have the ability to secure the publishing process with a password so that the only things published are those things already reviewed by the parent/teacher.

See for your self! The website is fairly instructive. The only thing that I was confused by is that the post window has a button that says "Publish" which I clicked to post it to the Website. Doing so changes the button to say "Don't Publish." It turns out that this button is a toggle. When it reads "Publish" that blog entry will be published otherwise not.

Great product. Easiest blogging client I have set up to date and it is available for Mac and PC.

(BK)

Kidzlog makes blogs easy

2005-01-28T15:40:00.000-05:00

The same creators as my favorite "KidzMail" program have published KidzLog as a really easy blog publishing utility. It's Zuper. Find more really helpful information about it and other programs at About.com's terrific blog site.

Blogs in ESL

2005-01-28T15:37:00.000-05:00

Aaron Patric Campbell has posted a review of blogs in ESL classrooms. (emb)

Definitions

2005-01-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

Ah, to be blogging. It's kind of like building a snowman. You start out small, then start thinking about the sculptures you could build...
There is a great site that has some information useful to bloggers, potential bloggers and blog users. It's called "Blogs on Blogs": http://caxton.stockton.edu/BlogOnBlogs/

Analyzing a blog and considering its usefullness in the classroom can also help to formulate how one may integrate a blog with your lessons.

Keep weaving!

EduBlog - an unabashedly mathematical blog

2005-01-15T21:53:00.000-05:00

Todd Edwards has produced a nice blog that uses mathematical images in the entries. Check out his work on pentominoes and also paper folding.

Blogging your way to a pink slip

2005-01-08T11:40:00.000-05:00

Wired reports that blogging may cost you your job.

Inaugural Entry

2004-10-06T08:15:00.000-04:00

Capital University, in Columbus, OH, is dedicated to providing pre-service and in-service teachers with cutting-edge tools to empower excellence in teaching and learning. As part of that commitment, this blog provides a centralized location to chart the dynamic world of blogging and its uses in K-16 education. We are by no means authorities on blogging, but we are motivated by several features of blogs:
* They are ubiquitous, free, and of growing popularity among our target population of students.
* They deconstruct the very idea of authority, by making recapturing the "author" in "authority. Blogs have the potential of participating in the finest of democratic education, giving voice to those who might not share their voice in other, face2face contexts. This also means that we won't feel bad about not being the world's foremost authorities on blogs.
* They are easy. Really, really easy. It took all of six minutes to set up this blog as I downed a blueberry muffin and had some coffee.
* The audience is the imagined "other." At the same time the noone and the everyone. Blog entries are a string of messages sent out in bottles into the ocean of the Internet. There is great excitement arising from the mystery of who may be reading.
* Blogs revel in the informality of cyberspace. CUL8R!
* The use of blogs in education can be an inclusive practice that embraces and celebrates individual student strengths while creating networked communities of blog enthusiasts (a group of devoted readers of different kinds of blogs).

Blogging is not without its dangers. We will talk more about ethics, risk, ettiquette, (and muffins?) in future posts.

...more to come as the string of bottles grows!