Category Archives: Blogging

Blogging, Issues, Technology, Web 2.0, Wikis

Global Connections and Flat Classroom Ideals in a Web 2.0 World

3 Comments

One of the things that jumps out at me as I hear various stories (we are in a circle introducing ourselves) is that Flat Classroom Ideals are perfectly suited for UbD curriculum and unit planning. Many of the teachers mention that the curriculum as it currently stands in their schools impedes the introduction of the kinds of projects Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis were able to construct.

What makes an effective international project? Julie and Vicki are interested in responses to this question.

Vinnie Vrotny says students need to “actively collaborate within in the same window of time.” How would this work with two (or more) groups spread across time zones?

Vicki mentions that a lot of the work they are going to have to do will necessarily be “asynchronous” simply because of time zone differences. Everyone seems to feel some synchronous collaboration is necessary.

Kristin Hokanson mentions the need for administrative support. Vicki says administrators need to “pull over to the side and let them pass” — administrators must get on board with Web 2.0 technology.

Take a look at the wiki Vicki created during the session: Global Connections.

One thing that strikes me upon reflecting over this session is the sheer excitement about teaching and learning I am seeing among teachers who are actively using Web 2.0 technologies in their classrooms. Having experienced it to a small degree myself, I cannot wait to try to be much more involved in the future.

[tags]edubloggercon07, ebc07gcfc, UbD[/tags]

Blogging, Issues, Technology, Web 2.0, Wikis

Expanding the Circle: Facilitating the Introduction of Educators to Web 2.0

2 Comments

I am Edubloggercon 2007 here in Atlanta, and I am in the first session — Expanding the Circle. How can we draw educators, reluctant or otherwise, into using Web 2.0 tools? Some educators are not just reluctant, but outright hostile about using these tools.

Some teachers do not see the value in using these technologies. Julia Osteen pointed out that in many cases, using Web 2.0 conflicts with some teachers’ beliefs about teaching. It doesn’t fit their style.

A huge issue for educators is time. When I presented a session on using blogs and wikis to my own colleagues, one of the first questions they asked me was how much time I spent doing this each day. The question inferred that these technologies take up so much time — is it really worth it, Dana? I gathered that they had already concluded they didn’t have time.

Steve Hargadon mentions that we are dealing with a wide variety of audiences — administration, teachers, parents, and students.

Tim Stahmer mentions that we can introduce teachers by showing them how many of the practices they are already buying into, i.e. journaling, are perfect for Web 2.0. He also adds that many teachers are afraid of allowing students to comment on their blogs. Is this insecurity?

Jim Gates asked how many of us have blogs blocked in our schools? Tim Stahmer mentions that Blogger is blocked in his. I don’t have as much of a problem with issues like this, as I teach in a private school, and I believe that many of these blanket blocking issues seem to crop up in larger schools and school districts, whereas smaller schools (like mine) still enable access to these sites. MySpace and Facebook are blocked at my school, mostly because the sites are seen as a distraction. Actually, when our educational technology teacher sent us an e-mail informing us of some blocking, he asked that we e-mail him if any sites we used were blocked. I found that Bloglines and my hosting provider were both blocked, so I e-mailed him, and he allowed access. Of course, I realize that with larger schools and districts, this involves much bureaucratic red tape. I think we initially blocked access to some sites when the big MySpace scare happened last year (and to be truthful, my husband contributed to our administration’s decision to block these sites because of a presentation he gave about being safe online to our students and faculty).

Our session ended on an open note, and it’s clear these issues are not resolved. Like Steve Hargadon said at the beginning of the session, however, I think many of us feel obligated to try to draw educators into Web 2.0 technologies because we ourselves have been transformed by them. I know my teaching practices have been transformed by the interactivity, feedback, and networking I have been able to do with other educators. I would like to draw my students into Web 2.0 even more next year.

[tags]edubloggercon07, ebc07ec[/tags]

Blogging, Issues

Site Scrapers

2 Comments

I have become extremely annoyed with site scrapers. These web sites exist solely to bring in ad revenue, and they derive all of their content through RSS feeds. I think the way that they work is that the operator of the site has configured the site to update using an RSS feed that is based on key words. I have noticed that certain key terms, at any rate, have attracted the attention of scraper sites. Why do site scrapers do this? Because their sites are littered with ads, and they want to generate revenue without doing any work.

I think publishing an RSS feed is essential. I rely on RSS feeds to keep up with all the blogs I read. If a blog doesn’t publish an RSS feed, I probably won’t remember to check it for updates. I have no plans to stop publishing an RSS feed. However, I think educators should be aware that publishing an RSS feed will leave your site vulnerable to scraper sites, and there really isn’t a whole lot you can do about it. Yes, most of the time, scraper sites are violating copyright law, but fighting them may or may not be worth the time it would take.

First of all, how do you know you’ve been scraped? The answer to that one is that you might not, but I have noticed some site scrapers’ links in Technorati results for sites that link to mine. Once I visit the site to see why I am being linked, I discover a blog with a series of posts on the same topic and a sidebar full of ads.

If you want to fight site scraping, my suggestion would be find out who hosts the domain of the website that is scraping your material. If the blog is hosted on Blogger, WordPress.com, or some other blog hosting platform, the blog is most likely violating the terms of service for those hosting platforms, and reporting the blog should take care of it. If the site is hosted independently and operated via WordPress, Movable Type, or Blogger (or some other platform), then look up the hosting provider. You can do this by searching Whois.net. You will find out who is the site’s host, owner, and registrar (if you searched huffenglish.com, for instance, you’d find that my host is Bluehost). Then you can visit the domain host’s site or even the abuser’s e-mail address and report the abuse.

I have found three site scrapers stealing my content lately. All three were registered by Go Daddy, who reported that they are not the sites’ host, and therefore, not responsible for content.  All three sites did list an administrative contact when I looked up their Whois information.  I will let you know what, if anything, results from my contacting these administrative contacts (two of the offending domains appear to have been registered by the same person).

And now it’s time to address the root of the problem. Blog ads. I completely understand why someone would want to make some extra money. The concept behind blog ads is that when readers click on ads, they will generate revenue for the blog owner. Let me go on the record as saying I hate blog ads. I will never put them on my blogs, and I don’t like it when I see them on other blogs. I know some people who have them, and my husband even tried them for a while, but found they were really useless in terms of generating revenue. If you want to generate revenue, you will probably earn more through generous PayPal donors than you will through ads. However, in order to receive donations, you have to provide content that people might feel is valuable enough to pay for. I only have donation button links on my pages that contain such content, but it is freely offered, and anyone who takes the material is not obligated to put a tip in the jar. I think ads have become the bane of blogging. Because of Google AdSense and its ilk, scraper sites find that it might indeed be lucrative to steal other writers’ work in order to generate income for themselves. Frankly, I don’t know; it might be. However, what I do know is that if it weren’t for blog ads, we wouldn’t have site scrapers. And if it weren’t for people who made blog ads lucrative — hapless readers who click on ads — we wouldn’t have blog ads.

I recently posted about comment spam at EduStat Blog, and one astute commenter, Pete T., noted:

Great post, but I’d like to bring another element to the SPAM control discussion, Education.

In 2006, 40% of all email was SPAM, 2200 messages per user costing $8.9 billion to US Corporations and $255 million to others. It’s estimated that 2007 will bring a 63% increase, why? Because 8% of the people who receive the stuff actually buy something.

Enter Web 2.0 with its Blogs, Wikis, and forums. These new media outlets open a whole new horizon for these spammers to not only to pitch their wares, but also to gain search engine link popularity (another form of spamming.)

Yes, we need to continually develop technology to identify and filter spam as the virus protection industry has done – but there needs to be an education campaign that teaches the community the risks of doing business with a spammer.

Legislation and filtering can’t do it completely, only when it’s not making them any money – SPAM will really go away.

The same goes for site scraping. I am not going to tell you not to put ads on your site, but I would ask you to think about it and be sure it’s really right for you. Educators are not paid a great deal; no one goes into education for the money. Another thing to think about is that ads are randomly generated. I think bloggers should be responsible for all the content and links on their site. I think that if the blog links to a questionable site, then it is the blogger’s responsibility to either take down the link or stand by their decision to link it and to weather whatever fallout results from linking to the site. Ads take away some of that control, and the possibility exists that the ads might link to sites that the blog owner (or his or her employers) don’t approve of.

Food for thought, as the cliché goes.

[tags]site scraping, scraper site, spam, blog ads, AdSense, whois, RSS, Technorati[/tags]

Blogging

Venting Online

7 Comments

I debated with myself about writing this, but I decided to go ahead. I am about to vent about venting.

I understand teaching is a difficult job with few rewards. I understand many of us are working in schools that offer us little support and with colleagues who drive us crazy. I understand the occasional need to vent. But every post? After a while, I start to wonder why you continue to work under such conditions and don’t try to find something more satisfying. You’re obviously unhappy in your thankless job, and understandably, you need to vent your frustrations, but I have reached the point at which I wonder if you like anything about your job, and I’m frankly worried for your health. You sound a lot like I did when I was teaching middle school in a nearby district, but the difference is that I didn’t spew forth all my frustrations online. Reading your blog is a little like watching a train wreck before it happens — if your employers ever find your blog, which I hope they don’t, I can’t see how you’ll escape being fired. To your credit, I don’t think I can ever remember you complaining about the students, but you really seem to hate your co-workers with a passion. It’s my hope you’re not blogging from work at all, or you’ll have some real trouble on your hands if your blog is discovered.

Quite aside from the point I made that you are playing with fire — complaining online about your colleagues — your posts are a real downer to read. Is there nothing energizing, interesting, or exciting going on at your school? In your classroom? If I can lay it on the line, you’re depressing. You kind of remind me of Debbie Downer on SNL. The trouble with that assessment is that it isn’t congruent with what else I know about your personality. You can be pretty funny. You seem to enjoy life. You strike me as an outgoing person.

I don’t think it’s possible to always be happy with your job, especially if you’re a teacher. This time of year is especially difficult as teachers look at the calendar and freak out over what wasn’t covered and students look at the calendar and think it says June, not May. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that teacher bloggers will never complain on their blogs, but frankly, I don’t want to read anymore when that’s all they do.

[tags]venting, blogging, teachers[/tags]

Blogging, Delicious and Diigo, Web 2.0

How to Get Something out of Education Blogs

10 Comments

Though I have been blogging about education for almost two years, I still do not flatter myself with the notion that I’m an expert; however, in those two years of blogging and reading others’ blogs, I have learned a few things that I think make the experience better for everyone, whether you blog yourself or not.

How to Find Blogs

The best method I have found to find blogs that you like is to check out blogrolls. Most bloggers keep a blogroll, or list of blogs they link to, in a sidebar to the left or right of the text on their own blog. If you find a blog you like, chances are you might like some of the blogs listed in their blogroll.

Another good method for finding good education blogs is to visit the Carnival of Education every week. EdWonk’s blog is the home of the Carnival of Education, but he has encouraged other bloggers to host it on many occasions.

Read Blogs Written by Teachers in Your Field

Two years ago, I would have to say that the edublogosphere was somewhat dominated by English teachers. It is, I suppose, our natural inclination to write, so that is perhaps not surprising. Today, however, bloggers can be found in every discipline, whether K-12 (elementary, middle, and secondary) or college, math, history, English, foreign language, social studies, science, and more.

I would encourage educators to read a few blogs written by someone who teaches the same subject matter for the same reason that we all have departments and department meetings in our own buildings — we share ideas with one another and our shared subject matter means we will be teaching the same things, more or less, so we would do well to listen to one another.

But Don’t Neglect Blogs Outside Your Subject Matter

Just because the blogger teaches science and you teach history doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from his or her blog. Whether it’s commiserating over the teaching craft and the shared hurdles all teachers face or just branching out and learning how someone else approaches his/her subject, you can learn a lot from bloggers outside your subject.

Engage in the Conversation

Don’t be afraid to leave comments and ask questions. If a teacher describes a lesson that you want to try, but you’re not sure you understood all the particulars and want more information, just ask! I think edubloggers as a whole enjoy the conversation on their blogs. At the same time, if you disagree with an edublogger, go ahead and say so, but stay within the bounds of civil discourse, or the blogger won’t listen to you. I know I wouldn’t. Would you?

Don’t Worry Over Bloggers You Don’t Like

Time for me to fess up. Two prominent edubloggers get on my last nerve, as they say here in the South, so I don’t make myself more furious by reading their blogs, even if they link to me. I won’t go so far as to link them or tell you who they are. If you have a blog, don’t feel compelled to link to or read bloggers you don’t like just because other bloggers do. This bit of advice might seem like a big no-brainer, but I can remember actually reading the blogs of these two edubloggers I don’t like for some time, my dislike intensifying all the time, just because I was sure I was missing something since everyone else linked them. With all the choices available today, trust me, you’re not missing anything.

Use an RSS Aggregator

I mentioned using RSS aggregators or feed readers in a previous post, and won’t rehash all of that here, but suffice it to say it will make it easier for you to keep up with your favorite blogs.

Try Technorati

If you’re looking for posts on a certain subject, you can discover new blogs through Technorati. You can search for certain tags. For instance, let’s say you want to read about Geoffrey Chaucer. You can search for Geoffrey Chaucer at Technorati and find out what bloggers are saying about Chaucer. You might run into lesson plans, comments from readers about Chaucer’s works, or even Chaucer’s own blog, but the point is that you will most likely find interesting blogs through Technorati.

Follow the Links

Bloggers link to sites within their posts for a reason — whatever they linked to will help you get more out of their posts. Again, this might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t bother to check out the links.

Try Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is an online bookmarking system. In the early days of Firefox, I noticed that my bookmarks would mysteriously disappear every once in a while. I love Firefox, but I hated having to find my links again. Plus, I didn’t have the same links saved on my work and home computers, so I sometimes got confused looking for sites. Del.icio.us solved all of that. I have all my favorite links stored at del.icio.us. Try browsing del.icio.us for education links, and you will find some great new blogs. If you find a del.icio.us user with a real knack for finding great education websites, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for their education tag and be notified when they add new links.

[tags]education, blogs, RSS, del.icio.us, Technorati[/tags]

Blogging, Professional Development, Technology, Web 2.0, Wikis

Classroom 2.0

I was invited to join the Classroom 2.0 community by Nani. I wanted to try it out for a few days before I wrote about it here just so I could be sure it would be something I’d stick with. Several familiar “faces” have joined up with Classroom 2.0. One of the interesting things about Classroom 2.0 to me, however, is the number of unfamiliar faces. The community is built around the subject of using Web 2.0 in the classroom, and I think it could be a good resource for anyone who wants ideas about integrating blogs and wikis (and other similar applications) into their curriculum.

[tags]Classroom 2.0, wikis, blogs, education, technology[/tags]

Blogging

Tracking the Conversation

3 Comments

Recently I wrote about using RSS to keep up with your favorite blogs (education-related and otherwise). Some blogs publish additional feeds for their comments, but I have never really been interested in following an entire comment feed. Some posts I feel compelled to comment upon and want to know if others respond to my comments, but others I don’t, and I don’t want to have a bunch of comments in my RSS feed reader that I’m not interested in reading. I heard about CoComment from Bud Hunt, but I didn’t start using it right away. When I finally decided to try it, I was really happy with it.

CoComment has a Firefox extension that makes tracking comments really easy. When new comments have been posted in conversations you’re tracking, you will see a little red envelope (just like Gmail’s icon) in the lower corner of your browser next to the CoComment button. If you don’t use Firefox, you can install CoComment’s bookmarklet, but it doesn’t have the same notification function as the Firefox extension — you would have to go visit CoComment via the bookmark, whereas the Firefox extension notifies you when new comments have been posted.

If you choose, you can display your CoComment conversations on your website. I haven’t chosen to do that, but if you really care about what I’m saying, it should be easy enough to find. You might want to start with the guided tour so that you can determine whether CoComment looks like something you want to try. I personally have found it it a lot easier to keep track of comment threads, and it has actually encouraged me to comment more than I have in the past.

[tags]CoComment, commenting[/tags]

Blogging

Raising the Level of Civil Discourse

2 Comments

K. Lehman at Ed Tech in the Classroom pointed me toward a movement (and article) about Timesraising the level of discourse in the blogosphere. All of this discussion seems to stem from the Kathy Sierra incident. Considering the awful things people felt completely comfortable saying to and about Kathy online, you had to wonder what kind of people these folks were. My contention is that they are probably normal folks who feel empowered to be mean when they’re online. I’m not sure what it is that comes out in people online, but I have noticed that people tend to say things online that they would never say in person. In many cases, commenters level the equivalent of verbal abuse upon people they don’t even know. I have to wonder if they would say the same things if instead of commenting on a blog, they were in a lecture hall discussing an issue or at a town hall meeting. I don’t think most people would. I would like to think that the majority of people out there are pretty decent folks. But for some reason, they sometimes act like they’re 9 and back on the school playground again. I fully support a Blogger Code of Conduct, and when it is developed, it will be implemented here (I already have policies regarding comments that I strictly adhere to).

Do I feel this is censorship? No. If that person wants to post what he said, he or she is free to do so. But I am free not to have it on my site that I pay money to maintain. I have no problem with someone who disagrees with me. I have a big problem with someone who can’t do it in a civil manner and then expects me to keep their inflammatory and abusive remarks online or else I’m “censoring” them.

By the way, I have installed a new spam plugin called Spam Karma. I want to warn you that until you build up karma through the plugin, your comments might not immediately post. It doesn’t mean they won’t appear — they will simply be moderated.

[tags]Blogger Code of Conduct, blogging, comments[/tags]

Blogging, Technology, Web 2.0

Teachers and RSS

9 Comments

I would be willing to bet there are three teachers at my school who know what RSS is — the two IT‘s and me. My colleagues are intelligent, capable teachers, but like many teachers, they are neophytes when it comes to certain aspects of technology. As far as I know, I’m the only teacher blogger at my school. A few other teachers are beginning to use wikis after my presentation, but my wiki usage is most extensive. I’m not bragging; I have simply had more exposure to blogs and wikis than they have. I have been writing online, in some form or other, for nearly six years now.

Lorelle recently posted about RSS feeds via e-mail; she quoted a statistic from FeedBlitz which indicated that only 11% of web users use RSS aggregators (link). I’m not sure where this statistic comes from, as the most recent study I could find with a similar statistic dates to October 2005, which is ancient in ‘net terms (pdf). However, I think it is safe to say, judging by my personal experience, that lots of people use RSS, but don’t realize they are doing so. They use My Yahoo, My MSN, Google Personalized Homepages, or a similar homepage to collect their favorite websites, bookmarks, games, news sites, weather, and more. All of this is dependent on RSS.

When I gave my presentation on using blogs and wikis in classroom to the faculty at my school, our IT was giving a presentation on RSS. I was really excited because I think teachers can really benefit from using RSS aggregators. When I asked faculty members about his presentation (which, unfortunately, ran concurrently with mine, so I couldn’t attend it), they told me he told them about Google Personalized Homepages. They didn’t seem to have a clue what I meant when I mentioned RSS. It’s not his fault, as I’m sure he was measuring his audience and decided to do the most helpful thing he could for them.

I think teachers could save a lot of time if they used RSS aggregators to keep up with content on the web. Before I started using an RSS aggregator, I checked my favorite websites for updates every day, which can be time-consuming. As a result, I know that I followed fewer websites and probably missed out on some interesting information. An RSS aggregator allows you to gather all the websites you follow in one place, and it even tells you when they’ve been updated. News on Feeds has a list of web-based aggregators (same things as RSS aggregator, different term). I think the most popular aggregators on their list are Bloglines, Google Reader, and My Yahoo. Subscribing to an RSS feed using any one of these aggregators is really simple in Firefox: you simply click on the orange square in the right side of the location bar (address bar). You will be asked if you would like to use Bloglines, Google Reader, or My Yahoo to subscribe to the feed. You may need to login to your RSS aggregator if you haven’t already done so during your surfing session. In Internet Explorer 7, you will notice the same orange square near the address bar. If the website you are viewing has an RSS feed, you can subscribe to it using Microsoft’s feed reader. I don’t much like this option, as I think it’s a perfect demonstration of Microsoft’s propensity to make things more difficult for users who don’t want to use a Microsoft product to do something. My suggestion is to copy and paste the feed URL into your own favorite RSS aggregator, which is not as easy as Firefox.

When you login to your RSS aggregator, you can see a list of feeds you follow, and it will be easy to see any that have been updated with new stories or posts since you last logged in. My personal favorite feed reader is Bloglines. I have organized all the feeds I follow into folders labeled according to the types of blogs in that folder (for instance, Education is one of my folders). I don’t have to visit all 93 (!) feeds that I follow every day. I just visit Bloglines and look at the ones who have updated. Can you imagine how much time it would take to check 93 sites every day to see if they’ve been updated?

Most blogging software programs come bundled with RSS feeds, so you are probably publishing one, even if you don’t realize it. If you aren’t, you can easily create feeds for your blog or site by using Feedburner. I would suggest that you allow your users to read the full post or story in their feed reader. My husband won’t do this because he feels it cheats him out of website visits. I contend that if a user wants to visit your site to see the pretty template you made, then they will. If you force your reader to visit your site to finish reading what you’ve wrote, you might put some RSS readers off. Ultimately, it’s a decision you have to make, but you should ask yourself this question: Which is more important, accessibility to readers or hits on your website? If readers feel compelled to comment upon what you’ve written, they will visit your site to do so. I know how cool it is to see those high site statistics, but it’s also pretty cool to see the number of feed subscribers go up. One thing you know about your feed subscribers is that they are reading what you say. Visitors who Google something and wind up on your site, only to find the information they were looking for isn’t there (most likely because the majority of people don’t know how to search wisely) aren’t reading anything. Those site statistics can be misleading. In my opinion, what you really want to do is develop a loyal readership, and RSS feeds make that easier for some.

RSS also makes it really easy for you to find out what others are saying about your blog, business, or product. Technorati makes it easy for you to see if anyone new has linked to your site. Technorati runs on RSS. When you update your blog, you can use its tagging system to allow Technorati users who are looking for information to find your blog. For instance, at the bottom of this post, you will see one of my Technorati tags is “RSS.” This will enable Technorati users who are interested in reading about RSS to find this post easily. Of course, this will help you increase your readership, too.

RSS is a good thing. Try it out.

[tags]RSS, education, RSS aggregators, Bloglines, Technorati, My Yahoo, Google Reader, Feedburner, feeds[/tags]