Letting Your Hero Grow

Friday, October 19, 2012

Build it and they will come.

You can leave with just knowledge... You just can't. Your assignment is to try one of the following tasks:
1) Create your own blog for consumption by students, parents, or your coworkers. Newbies can follow the directions at Almost Everything You Can Do With Blogger*
2) Post to your blog a reflection of what you learned here and what you'll try when you get back to school.
3) Collaborate with another teacher here to create a blogger project for your students.

Whatever you come up with post a comment below about what you created and how you are going to apply your new knowledge when you get back. Feel free to tweet it out too. We'll share our work around 2:20pm.

Students as the Blogger

A couple things to get out of the way as you encourage students to be bloggers

Expect fear and mistakes.
Give them examples, clear guidelines (at least to start), and feedback. All without being too restrictive...
You need a reader and a system to check the blogs.

Web based

Apps

Protect students.
It's about the proces, they need to find an "in", allow them ownership (http://wwwh2011-12.blogspot.com/2011/12/blogosphere.html).
Be amazed.

Blogger as a Notebook

safe place to keep notes
turn in assignments
summary class, notes, and homework

Examples:

Student blogs as safe place to collect notes.

http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-i-want-students-to-blog.html and http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2010/06/more-on-why-i-want-students-to-blog.html

Student blogs as a class summary and homework reminder.

http://smithewl1213.blogspot.com/
http://www.hcchrisp.blogspot.com/2011/02/test.html
http://leclaire2english.blogspot.com/2009/04/gatsby-fishbowl-chapter-3.html

Blogger as Reflections and/or a Journal

connections to the content
connections to the to other classes
connections to the the outside world

Examples:

Student blog as a reflection on the content, learning and the learning process.

http://blogs.isb.ac.th/haleygrey/

Blogger as Project(s)

in character writing
allow for creative/flexible space
showoff work to the outside world

Examples:

School newspaper.

http://centraltatler.wordpress.com/

You as the Blogger

Here are three great ways to use a blog with you as the blogger.

as a message board.
to communicate with a specific audience.
to communicate with fellow educators and the general public.

1) As a message board:

You can find the actual blog post at http://wwwh2011-12.blogspot.com/2012/03/scrabble-for-classroom.html.

2) to communicate with a specific audience:

You can find the actual post at http://wwwh2011-12.blogspot.com/2012/02/student-spotlight-ren-art-project.html.

3) to communicate with fellow educators and the general public:

You can find the actual post at http://fiftynineminutes.blogspot.com/.

You can find the actual post at http://englishbormann.blogspot.com/

Help us fill this form in with great blogs for educators!

Why Blog?

It's really simple....

"The quality or essence of a blog is given meaning only via what the author does with the blog and how the blog is responded to.

And in my mind what this means is that I blog and what I blog -- and how that message is received by others -- tells me what I think.

And it tells me how I think."
-- Shelly Blake-Plock formerly of TeachPaperLess

My first blog post cerca Spring 2008...

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Welcome

Welcome to the #superhero12 breakout session Letting Your Hero Grow | Expanding Your Classroom Beyond Physical Walls Using Blogger. The following posts act not as a traditional blog but as a roadmap to this breakout session. Feel free to go back to, pass on, reuse, and steal from these posts.

Hold off on this until we get together around 1pm (Gold Villa D).
To get us warmed up... #superhero12
What drew you to this breakout session?
What expertise do you bring to our group today?
What do you hope to leave this session with?

Don't be alarmed the other posts are being release as we, as a breakout session, get to them.