In a previous post, I examined blogging software for educators. Most teachers will probably want to go with a blogging service, especially if they don’t have their own domain and would like to attach to a sort of community. Several good, free blogging services exist, and many of them are great for teachers.

If I didn’t have my own domain and wanted to blog either with or without my students, I would select Edublogs as my blogging service. Their service is geared toward teachers and students. They are free. They run on WordPress, and have a large variety of themes (templates) to choose from. Teachers who blog with Edublogs also receive a Wikispaces wiki bundled with their account. No advertising will appear on your account. You can upload pictures and embed videos. You have an easy WYSIWYG editor. The support forums are helpful. What I really like about Edublogs is that you are surrounded by a community of educators, which is not the case with some other blogging services. This means that surfing around the site should be safe for you and your students.

WordPress has a hosted blog service called WordPress.com. Many of your favorite teacher bloggers use it, including the Reflective Teacher, Jennifer Breaux, the ELAR Classroom, and A. Quiram. Quite a community has developed among WordPress users, whether they have installed the software on their own sites or use WordPress.com to host their blogs. WordPress.com blogs do not have as many features as blogs running on WordPress software, but they still have quite a few features, including 50 MB of storage space.

Arguably the most popular blogging service for educators and everyone else is Blogger. Blogger blogs are as easy as WordPress blogs to obtain. As a bonus, you can become part of the largest blogging community in the world. As I mentioned in my last post, you can use Blogger to post to your own domain. If you choose to host your blog with Blogger, your blog will appear on its Blogspot domain. Blogger has some nice features, including clean-looking templates, access to editing templates (the more HTML and CSS you know, the better), and makes it easy for you to display your profile, which can stand in for an About page. However, I have quite a few problems with Blogger. Now I get ready to make some education bloggers mad at me . First of all, I hate Blogger’s commenting system. As the largest blog host, Blogger is surely the target of comment spammers, and Blogger’s solution to this is to offer Word Verification in the form of CAPTCHAs. I hate, hate, hate CAPTCHAs. I loathe them with a deep and abiding passion. I can’t always tell exactly what the “word” says, which means sometimes I have to enter comments more than once. I find this frustrating. Blogger’s comment system does not invite users to comment. Many Blogger users, such as EdWonk, have abandoned Blogger’s comment system in favor of Haloscan, which integrates nicely with a number of blogging systems. I also don’t like the fact that the comments pages on Blogger do not look like the blog’s template. Maybe this doesn’t matter to some, but I like some fluidity of theme. Haloscan can solve that problem easily, but I don’t think one should have to go outside of one’s blogging service in order to get a decent comments system. Another thing I really hate about Blogger is that navigation bar along the top. It’s very easy to wind up on a sex blog or other inappropriate blog simply by clicking the “Next Blog” button. Given what has happened to some teachers who didn’t know their way around a computer and wound up on porn sites, I think this is a dangerous window to possibly inappropriate sites. You just never know what that next blog is going to be. Unfortunately, many school networks have picked up on this unsavory aspect of Blogger and blocked it on their networks. Considering how many really good blogs are hosted by Blogger, I think this is a real shame, but it is something to consider when selecting a host. By the way, my husband tells me that you can either disable the navigation bar or select a template without one (which also disables searching your blog — a valuable feature for your users), but a random sampling of education blogs I checked all had the navigation bar on the top. Of course, you can always add Google “Search within this site” to your blog. I contend you shouldn’t have to just to get around a feature you don’t want or like.

WordPress.com and Blogger both allow users to associate multiple blogs with a single user name or profile, which is a nice feature if you have more than one blog (like me). I think most users of either service would find them similar. You can also switch between the two services without too much trouble.

Typepad is also popular with quite a few teachers, and I have to confess, I don’t understand why. A basic level blog (one user, one blog) costs $4.95 a month or $49.50 per year. When so many free blogging services exist, I am not sure why one would pay for Typepad. I personally think Typepad URL’s are somewhat clunky: username.typepad.com/blogname. Typepad runs on the same software as Movable Type, but one big bonus is that you don’t have to install it; Movable Type’s difficult installation is one of its biggest drawbacks. Typepad blogs look nice. You also don’t have to rebuild your pages when you make changes, which as far as I know is still necessary with Movable Type. Some bloggers who use Typepad, and therefore probably more inclined to share its good points, are Fred the Fish, Bud the Teacher (if you two hung out too much, you’d sound like mobsters!), K. Lehman, Liz Ditz, Shamash, NaniRolls, and Tim Frederick.

If you plan on sharing your education blog with students or parents, I would recommend steering clear of blog hosts such as LiveJournal, Xanga, MySpace, or Diaryland. These sites are blocked by school networks sometimes, but aside from that, they tend to be rather insular in nature. The user audience in many of these sites also tends to skew young. On the other hand, some teachers I know have made a real go of using one of these services. Laura Huertero has a great blog hosted by Xanga.

If you have an opinion to offer about a blogging service, feel free to share in the comments.

[tags]blogging, education, Blogger, WordPress.com, Typepad, Edublogs[/tags]

In my previous post, I examined several wikis/wiki services for educators, and I promised a post on blogs for educators.  I actually feel more well-versed in this particular topic, but I have some pretty strong opinions on the matter.

Just like wikis, blogs come in two main varieties: those you host on your own or your school’s domain, and those you host through a blogging service.  I will examine blog software in this post and blog hosting services in a subsequent post.

If you have your own domain or plan to use the school’s domain, I strongly recommend WordPress.  I currently use WordPress to host all of my blogs (I have quite a few).  WordPress has some beautiful “themes,” or templates, and a ton of great plugins (add-ons).  I think WordPress is the Firefox of blogging software.  I try not to wax poetic when extolling it’s many virtues, but it’s hard.  Other teacher bloggers who use WordPress include Robert Talbert, David Warlick, and Will Richardson (so that means I’m in good company, technologically speaking and otherwise).

I had to be converted to WordPress by my husband.  I used to use Movable Type.  Movable Type is OK, but it can’t touch WordPress in terms of ease of install.  Movable Type installation brings out a streak of blue language in me you’d never believe unless you heard it.  I always had problems upgrading, and their forums are most unhelpful.  If you have a free installation, they are absolutely disinterested in helping you with anything.  Also, you have to “rebuild” your blog when you make changes, which is more time consuming than making any changes on WordPress.  I wouldn’t recommend Movable Type to new users, mainly because it is difficult to install.  To quote Robert in my comments on Wikis for Educators, who believes that it’s important that “technology doesn’t get in the way of creating the content — and I guess that’s the ultimate litmus test for tech like this.”  One thing I don’t like about Movable Type is that commenters are strongly encouraged to register with Typekey in order to comment more quickly.  WordPress’s solution to handling new (and potentially abusive) commenters is to put their comments in moderation so they don’t appear on the site until approved.  Once a commenter’s comment has been approved once (assuming they give all the same information the next time they fill in the comment form) their comments will appear automatically for their subsequent comments.  I don’t know why Movable Type can’t do this, too.  I found that commenters on my site back when I had Movable Type by and large didn’t login to Typekey to comment, and I had to approve every single comment.  I thought this was a pain.  I haven’t found any education bloggers who use Movable Type (although quite a few use its blogging service, Typepad, which I will get to in a future post), but my friend Roger Darlington does, if you want to see what Movable Type looks like.

I have also tried a blog that ran on Radio UserLand.  I can’t speak to its ease or difficulty of installation, but I found it difficult to use, and so did my students.  Radio UserLand is NOT free; it costs $39.95 per year.  Given that WordPress and Movable Type are free, I can’t see why teachers would pay to use Radio UserLand.

If you really like Blogger, it’s possible to host it on your own domain.  You can use a custom domain, which is a fairly new feature enabling Blogger users to switch to their own domain nearly seamlessly.  You can also publish to your own domain using Blogger via FTP, but it looks like custom domains are an easier route.  Some education bloggers who use Blogger on their own domains are EduWonk and Hedgetoad.

Other software packages exist, but I’m not as familiar with them.  If you use one, feel free to leave your recommendation and information in the comments.

In my next post, I will examine blogging services, such as Edublogs, WordPress.com, Blogger, and Typepad.

[tags]education, blogging software, WordPress, Movable Type, Radio UserLand[/tags]

When my husband was interviewed by Wired regarding some cyber-sleuthing he had done in connection to a crime and MySpace, he was given a subscription to Wired by the reporter, Noah Shachtman. I think I have been reading it more religiously than Steve has. Despite the fact that some true techies in their blogs complain that real techies don’t read Wired anymore, I have to say it rarely fails to make me feel inadequate about my technological knowledge. No matter — I enjoy the content.

The article that caught my eye in this month’s edition, entitled “The See-Through CEO” (written by Clive Thompson), begins with a discussion of Glenn Kelman, CEO of an online brokerage firm called Redfin. Kelman began blogging about his company in what some might term a revolutionary way:

He denounced traditional brokers, accusing them of screwing customers with clubby closed-door practices. (“If we don’t reform ourselves, and take out all the sales baloney, too, people will come to hate real estate agents the way they hate tobacco companies or Big Oil,” he wrote.) He publicized Redfin’s internal debates, even arguments about the design of its Web site. He mocked himelf: One post described how he had sat at a college job fair for hours, waiting in vain for a single student to approach him. (136)

In other words, he openly discussed his personal opinions about the way his business should be run, he talked about the kinds of internal struggles most companies try to keep quiet, and he even dared to share stories that might not cast his company in the best light. A remarkable thing happened: his business grew. It turns out that customers liked this new open model.

The article goes on to describe how other companies are adopting similar tactics, mainly based upon the notion that nothing stays private anymore, so we all may as well discuss everything — whether it’s a problem or brewing scandal or a product in development — before others beat us to the punch. Much of this new model seems counterintuitive. What kind of sense does it make to allow or even encourage employees to blog about products in development? Won’t rival companies steal ideas? As it turns out, this method has helped companies generate excitement about products before they come out. And why would anyone want to openly blog about problems in one’s company? As it turns out, the thinking behind this sort of openness is that the truth will out anyway, at least in this modern age of bloggers who “rely on scoops to drive their traffic” and make “muckraking… a sort of mass global hobby” (137). My husband has benefited from this sort of blogging, so far be it from me to knock it. I think blogs have been great for forcing out the truth in many arenas, from politics to pop culture.

What I wondered as I read the article is how would this model would work in education? Are we honestly living in times in which teachers can feel free to blog openly about problems in education? What about talking about exciting developments in the works? Unfortunately, while we are encouraged to share the good news, I still don’t think it is safe for a teacher to blog about negative issues in education without using a pseudonym, and I can think of only a few teacher bloggers who blog openly. Some school districts actively discourage blogging, even going so far as to ban access to sites such as Blogger/Blogspot, arguably the most popular blog host. In fact, in many instances, teachers who did blog about problems under a pseudonym and subsequently “outed,” have lost their jobs and been roundly criticized for their lack of team spirit and general meanness.

I think it would be interesting to see education embrace this sort of openness, but I contend that educators are not ready for the consequences. Are principals and superintendents ready to open up and possibly receive criticism from parents and students who comment on their blogs? No way. What would happen if a faculty had a model similar to that of Zappos, whose CEO Tony Hsieh encourages employees to post to a “company-wide wiki [that] lets staff members complain about problems and suggest solutions” (138)? Hsieh figures that “it makes his employees, suppliers, and customers more forgiving of everyday snafus” (138). I would venture to guess that most school administrations across America don’t even encourage that kind of “complaining” about how the school runs in faculty meetings, let alone on a wiki that anyone can view.

Thompson argues that Google is quickly becoming a “reputation management system” and that secrets will be uncovered no matter what cover-ups are attempted (138). In illustration of this thesis, Thompson discusses Jason Goldberg’s troubles after hiding the fact that his company was planning lay-offs. In retrospect, Goldberg said “It’s the nature of Web 2.0 and new media that if you don’t embrace openness, it will come back and bite you.” On the other hand, when Richard Edelman’s firm created fake blogs praising his client Wal-Mart and the cat was let out of the bag, Edelman owned up to the mistake and apologized for his lack of judgment all over the place (139). As bloggers linked to the stories on the Goldberg and Edelman, eventually the opinion of the ‘net at large began to even out into a formal consensus:

[I]f you’ve got hundreds or thousands of sites linking to you and commenting on you, the law of averages takes over, and odds are the opinion will be accurate: The cranks will be outweighed by cooler heads. Again, the Net rewards the transparent. (139)

This is true in Amazon customer reviews or eBay seller ranking. When Southwest Airlines received criticism for their treatment of an overweight passenger, the company addressed the issue in its blog and issued an apology. The result? People accepted the apology and a potential public relations nightmare was turned into a positive (139). Somehow, I don’t see schools being bold enough to try such tactics. I realize not everyone is comfortable with this level of openness, but as Thompson posits, the negativity gets out somehow anyway. What is our opinion of a company that denies problems and shoves them under the rug versus openly discussing them and seeking input? I don’t know yet, but I know I like honesty.

Let’s cook up a scenario. What if test scores were low at a certain school? What if NCLB regulations dictated that the next step in sanctions for said school were to allow students to transfer to other schools in the district? What if the principal addressed the issue head-on in a blog posted to the school’s website, explaining why the school had failed to make AYP an eliciting parent and student help in improvement? In our fictional scenario, let’s say that the issue facing the school was something like low math scores. Perhaps knowing what was happening and where the system was breaking down would encourage parents to ensure their children studied math at home. What might happen to test scores, then? I have the feeling, however, that almost all principals would feel discomfort at the prospect of openly discussing such issues with their school community.

An interesting side note: Clive Thompson shared the development of his product — the article — on his own blog, Collision Detection. I think his own openness made his article better — he obtained feedback regarding the issue of transparency from comments from readers, and he incorporated their ideas into his article.

Thompson closes his article with words to ponder:

The future could be a brushed-chrome machine made of truth and honesty — or some gothic nightmare in which the whole economy is driven by gossipy high school dynamics. Either way, there’s no use trying to resist. You’re already naked. (139)

Interesting word choice — “gossipy high school dynamics.” While I think Thompson was referring to the way students pass news, he might just as well be talking about the faculties of many schools where I’ve worked, too.

Of course, transparency is fraught with some problems, too, but my post is already so long you probably haven’t read it all anyway, and I think we can save that discussion for the comments. Let’s go!

Source: Thompson, Clive. “The See-Through CEO.” Wired. April 2007. 134-139.

[tags]Wired, radical transparency, See-Through CEO, Clive Thompson[/tags]

Seniors at our school have the opportunity to study in Israel for part of the school year. One of our students has decided to blog about her experiences and share with faculty, students, and parents at home. You can follow our students’ experiences at Jamie’s blog: Weber Israel Experience ’07.

I can’t resist the opportunity to plug another blog by my students.

[tags]blogging, education, Israel[/tags]

Thanks to Ms. George for nominating me for a Thinking Blogger Award. The rules say that “if, and only if” I am tagged, I must “write a post with links to five blogs that make [me] think.” It is an honor to be considered a “thinking blogger,” and I am honored to nominate the following blogs:

1. Nighthawk, by Roger Darlington. Roger has been a ‘net friend of mine for a couple of years. He always has interesting insights, no matter what the field, and he loves to learn and share what he learns with others. Had he chosen a different path in life, he’d have made a wonderful teacher.
2. Bud the Teacher might be one of the first English teachers I found in the blogosphere. His podcast was also the first podcast I ever listened to. He has a lot of interesting ideas about technology and education.
3. Mike Hetherington uses blogs in his classroom in ways that get me excited and thinking about how I can adapt some of his ideas for my own classroom.
4. Lorelle on WordPress is a great find for anyone who wants to get the most out of his/her WordPress blog, whether hosted on WordPress.com or on one’s own domain, like mine. I’ve learned a lot from her blog.
5. The Super Adventures of Ben and Noah makes me think about the small joys in life, and reminds me to appreciate them more.

I need to mention that there were many other blogs on my own personal list of blogs that make me think, but I knew they had already been tagged, so I didn’t tag them twice. If I did tag anyone twice, I apologize — I checked each blog to see if a post about being nominated as a Thinking Blogger was present, and at the time I checked, none had such a post. Please check out my blogroll for more great education blogs.

Thanks again, Ms. George!

[tags]Thinking Blogger Award, meme, thinking[/tags]

This Week in Education is hosting the 105th Carnival of Education, and they were kind enough to include me. Thanks!

[tags]Carnival of Education[/tags]