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What inspires you to blog?

This fortnight's blogging corner challenge was topics for blogging. What inspires you to blog? Do you have a central theme, or do you blog somewhat randomly?

I tend to be a somewhat random blogger, although I do tend to stick to blogging about ICTs in education. I also tend to blog about people or idea which inspire me. I am not one for coming up with these brilliant ideas myself but instead I try to make my own meaning by re-blogging what they are talking about. By re-blogging I hope to soldify by own ideas and thoughts and maybe even suggest other resources or people who are thinking the same stuff.

So, here are a few topics I have blogged about this year. As I said, tend to blog when I am inspired by the work of others:

• Creative Commons

• The Development of a PLN

• Music Education meets the web

• Dr. Michael Webb and the MMGS

Tags: blogging bloggingcorner09
Posted at 03:03PM Mar 10, 2009 by Alison Hall  |  Comments[0]

Blogging with students

The blogging genre is, although a more public medium for writing and publishing, I would argue a more informal style of writing. Bloggers typically write about the thoughts, opinions and discoveries. For students (and teachers!) this style of writing can be liberating. I also think that blogging also allows small glimpses of personality can shine through, whereas in many academic forms of writing this is discouraged. That is not to say that blogging work is not as polished, but I feel because of the authentic audience, there is more consideration for allowing ideas to float and evolve through audience engagement and feedback. I personally find blogging an instinctively natural genre!

Why blogging is suitable for the engaging students:

• Blogs can mould to a variety of uses and audiences of uses
• Form part of a journal style presentation for an individual
• Can be frequently or infrequently
• Can be presented in an informal or conversational style
• Can incorporate a range of commentaries
• Can integrate a range of tools including video, audio, text, pictorial through embedding
• Can draw together a learner's online presence into one spot through rss feeds and plugins

• Blogs can be used as e-Portfolios to present student work
• Reflection of learning activities as part of an assessable journal
• Class portals - learners can access class work, homework, resources, feedback and announcement platform
• Public face to the classroom - display what is produced in everyday classroom activities, student achievements, goals, involvement in projects either offline or online
• Encourage collaboration between two distance schools/institutions
• Blogs invite comments from others which can then stimulate conversations, debate and reflection

Blogs of Note:
So lastly I have done a little investigative work and selected a few classroom or student blogs of note. Most of them are lower primary but hopefully I have made up for that by pulling together some international examples. I have also tried to find a range of blogs which use different tools and plugins and blogs where the teacher has set up the space for slightly different purposes and audiences.

Mrs Cassidy's Classroom Blog (Canada)
Tools used: You Tube, Audio messages using Vocaroo
 
Wojtera's Words (USA)
Tools used: Looky Book, Voicethread, Shelfari

Year Two Blog (UK)
Tools used: Teacher Tube, weekly "blogstar" featured , Follow the adventures of Sam the Class Tiger
  
Little Voices (NZ)
Tools used: Capzles, Blogger video, FeedJit Live traffic feed
 
Mrs Toa (China) -
Tools used: Google Translator plugin, Photos fed through with Picasa, Flip cameras, Blog roll
 
Mrs Millers 10 Classroom Blog (USA)
we read, we think, we discuss... we post
Tools used: Due dates calendar, Google Reader RSS of interesting things to read, Wiki plugin
  
2M Gems (AUS)-
Tools used: Skype, Google maps, Voki, yackpack

So, do you have any student blogs from sectors other than school that you have come across? Do you have any great examples to add to my list? What do you feel are the benefits or disadvantages or students blogging?Feel free to leave a comment!

Tags: bloggingcorner09 students blogs blogging corner
Posted at 01:21PM Feb 24, 2009 by Alison Hall  |  Comments[0]

Blogging Carnival launched

The first blogging corner carnival has been published on edublogs!

Feburary's carnival is now open for submissions.

Tags: blogging bloggingcorner09
Posted at 09:11AM Feb 02, 2009 by Alison Hall  |  Comments[0]

Blogging Carnival widget

There is a widget which you can add to your blog so you can easily post to edna's Blogging Corner Carnival. Note that embedding the widget into your me.edu.au blog won't work because of the html code, so you will have to embedd into one of your other blogs. Hopefully this will remind you and also encourage others to participate in edna's Blogging Carnival.

After the publishing deadline each month your post will appear on edublogs. The widget is also on edublogs page so you can go and read other's postings and then submit your own from there.

Here's the widget code to embedd in your other blog spaces:

Tags: bloggingcorner09 blogging carnival widgets
Posted at 12:15PM Jan 09, 2009 by Alison Hall  |  Comments[0]

Roll up, roll up!

To kick off Blogging Corner for 2009 we have set up a Blogging Corner Carnival!

At the beginning of each month there will be a post with contributions from educators and we really hope that many of you will participate.
To start off with, we are looking for blog postings you have done on that you would like to share with other educators. A general guide on topics are:

• Challenges and Events
• Classroom Blogs
• Personal Blogs
• Useful Tools
  

Let us know if you what you are thinking of linking to would not fit into any one of those categories.

What you will need to do to participate:
 Go to http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_6037.html and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see the Submit an Article form. Chose a blog post you have done which you would like to share with other educators.

The first Carnival will be published on February 2nd on an specially set up edublog space at http://ednabloggingcarnival.edublogs.org/ Submissions close on Wed 28 January.

If you miss the submission deadline, you can always submit a blog post into next months Carnival - all educators are encouraged to post to the Carnival, even if you are not a Blogging Corner fanatic (in which case you are more than welcome to join the group!)

If you have questions please don't hesitate to contact myself of Kerrie Smith via our whiteboards!

Tags: blogging bloggingcorner09
Posted at 04:08PM Jan 08, 2009 by Alison Hall  |  Comments[0]