Google Blog Search

I've used Blogger ever since I started this thing a little over two years ago. It has it's flaws. In particular, adding graphics to a layout often will not give the results expected. But my complaints are easily dismissed by ease of use. From the very beginning I wanted the software to be as transparent as possible. I didn't want to spend more time working with my blogging software than writing.

So far, this has been true.

I am approaching 500 posts over a two year period. I often have trouble remembering if I wrote about something and will do a search to check. I also search for things as a reference for my own teaching. Sort of a personal filing cabinet. Google recently added a new gadget that makes this process easier. You should be able to see the new "Search this Blog" box in top right corner of my page. As an example, I entered "stop motion" into the search field and got the following result.


The results pop up in your blog and you can either follow a path to your search item or close out the results box and be back in the blog.

Terrific!

I've been using the gadget for a few days now and have found it a beneficial new tool to make my work easier and faster. The best kind.

Try it out and if you want to add it to your own Blogger blog, the directions are in this post by Google. (Takes about two minutes!)

Thanks Google.

Most Popular Posts

I've added a "Most Poplular Posts" section in the sidebar. I check the page views on my blog entries weekly and these posts got the most visits. Anything I've written about popsicle bridges has gotten lots of interest. I suspect that many of those were students involved in competitions around the world. If you were to create a site about building popsicle or balsa wood bridges, my guess is you would have a huge hit.

"Popular Posts" is an experiment in making my blog a little more user friendly. Along those lines, I'm looking at creating a better set of labels to help folks find info on topics they're interested in once they get here. More on that when it's ready to go. I'm also going to try out the new Blogger Reactions. Little instant feedback boxes should start popping up below each post. I'll let you know what I think about them once I get them working.

Weekend Reflection

I've been running Painless Technology for a little over a year now. My reasons for starting were three fold: One, I wanted to create a site where I could share links and items that other technology teachers might find interesting or entertaining. I'd been sending emails with links out for several years to other tech teachers in my district. Why not make it a little more formal.

Second, I wanted to force myself to write on a regular schedule. I'm not all that comfortable with writing items like this and I wanted to move out of my comfort zone. My prose isn't the best. But, I'm a nice guy and I try hard.

Three, if I was going to promote using tools like blogs in schools than I had better be comfortable using those tools myself. If I'm going to climb up on a soapbox and sing a song of blogging love than I had better know of what-I-sing. Now I can stand in front of a group of teachers and say, "If I can do it. So can you."

So, here I am a year and month later and I still enjoy it. I don't have a huge audience but enough people follow my posts to keep me going and I am grateful for the attention. I am constantly surprised at the number of people outside my school district who check in on me regularly. Likewise, I am a little surprised that many of my local colleagues don't. I guess they must not have liked those clever emails I used to send out? (Chuck. You could have mentioned that.)

Thank you everybody for your support, advice and comments.

Google Blog Search

I teach full time.

I try to write something every day.

I have two dogs that require daily attention.

My body complains if I don't eat, bathe and sleep once in a while.

I have two cats that spend hours every day ignoring me except when they are hungry.

I have a house with a yard that always have at least one or two nagging chores that need to be completed routinely.

I have friends who think that friendship requires more commitment than a yearly Christmas email even if it does include a cute animated Santa gif.

I have a wife who thinks conversation and companionship should be part of the marriage along with taking out the garbage. She swears that all three were clearly stated in our marriage vows.

I say these things just to drive the point home that I don't really have time to add much to my busy schedule. I should have ignored my curiosity about Google's Blog Search. I already have a RSS Reader that over flows daily with unread posts. Why would I want to add to my guilt over not knowing something about everything that is going on everywhere?

.....cause I can?

[Image: Flickr: "Juggling at night": Uploaded on June 23, 2006 by Mance: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mance/173141818/:http://www.flickr.com/photos/mance/173141818/]

Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs

I'm recommending this thoughtful piece I read called Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students, from Campus Technology. I liked the way the author differentiated between blogging, online discussion and journaling.

The essential difference between a blog and other online tools is that it is intended to be an individual publication: a one-way monologue or self-post to which others may comment but do not contribute. The original post remains as the person who posted it wanted it to be. This is important to realize in the instructional setting. If a discussion is desired, then blogging would not be the tool of choice. In the same way, if journaling is the intended goal, then an online discussion forum would not be the tool of choice.

[via iLibrarian]
[Image: Flickr: "Kid peeking up from the back of a bus"; Uploaded on November 28, 2007 by jim snapper: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimsnapper/2071609565/]

Number of bloggers growing

I often wonder if blogging has hit it's peak? I wonder if it is just this generation's CB Radio and will fade away leaving only a few of us writing these online diary thinga-ma-bobbers? I wonder if anyone other than my sweet, supportive sister-in-law in Minnesota ever reads my blog?

This article from ars technica says no. Blogging is not dead. At least not yet. Here are a few juicy items from the post.

• 45% of the internet users surveyed have started a blog (up 14% since 2007)
• Asia has the fastest growing population of bloggers (over 70% in several countries)
• 63.5% of us keep a personal blog and most write about their daily life
• 82% of those internet users watch online video (50% increase since 2006)
• Americans would rather read blogs than make them (72% read blogs regularily)

So, I guess I am still going to teach my students how to set up and maintain a blog next year. That's a relief, I thought I might have to plans a few new lessons.

"Thats a Four-Ten Good Buddy. It's time to Get Gone and then Get Horizontal. Over and Out!"

[Image: Typing hands-take two: Uploaded on May 20, 2006 by Tojosan: creative commons]
[Note: My CB is a little rusty...I either said I'm signing off and going to bed. Or that I am dead? My apologies to all you truckers out there...and I'm not dead!]

School Blogs You Could Start Tomorrow

A colleague recently told me they weren't sure what they could do with a blog in their classroom. I was frustrated at first by this comment as I've talked blogs up so much in the past. Thinking about it later, I figured I am just not presenting this option in a user friendly matter. I challenged myself to come up with a list of ten school related blogging ideas off the top of my head I could hand to the next person who needs a little guidance. I came up with thirteen before I figured the list was getting too long. Sometimes I am an over achiever!

A teacher can modify these based on the age of the target group, student access to a computer and the amount of time they (the teacher) wants to spend monitoring comments. If you have very wordy students you might even add some guidelines regarding length of comment. Remember, you need to sleep once in a while.

Also give a little thought to your purpose. Is the blog informational? Instructional? Skill practice? Set your beginning parameters with these end goals in mind.

1. Daily Notes (student generated)

• I like the idea of selecting a daily scribe from the classroom. It is this student's responsibility to write down the class notes for the day that will be posted on the blog. Any additions or corrections could be done by the instructor and/or other students through comments.

2. Daily Notes (instructor generated)

• You may need to be a little more formal than the first idea. You can post your daily notes online and then your students could ask questions, elaborate or wax poetic about your oratory skill in the comment section.

3. Homework Log

• Any homework assignment is given here with materials needed and due dates. Questions for clarification on the homework can be asked in the comment section.

4. Supplemental Reading

• Books, articles, and web sites can all be recommended her as a supplement above and beyond what was covered in class. Students can comment on your choices or make recommendations of their own.

5. Favorite Book

• Everyone in the class recommends a favorite book with a brief description. If others know the book or read it, they can give their opinion. There has to be a reason given for liking or disliking the book.

6. Reviews

• These can be reviews of music or movies or television shows. I see the purpose of this one as getting kids to write, so the content isn't as important as promoting everyone's involvement. Your purpose may be different and you can adjust the focus. After all, you are the teacher.

7. Daily Quote

• Student or teacher generated quote. This can be wide open or narrowed down to the topic being covered in class. Everyone is expected to comment on the quotes. With the national elections coming up, how about a daily quote from one of the candidates?

8. Current Events

• An old favorite from my social studies classes with a modern twist. Student posts a summary of a news event from the previous day that they feel is important. They explain why it's important. They create a link to at least one online source of the story (two would be better). Everyone else gets to state an opinion on how important the story is and the credibility of the source.

9. Meeting notes

• This one has a staff focus. A scribe summarizes the notes down to easy bullet points for a staff, department, core or district meeting. Be sure to include deadlines and upcoming tasks. Links to online documents that were handed out in the meeting. Clarifications and corrections can be added in the comment section.

10. Book Discussion

• I've done this with a group of teachers but it could easily be done in a classroom. Each person is assigned a chapter or section to facilitate. When their turn comes up they write a short summary and then ask one or two open ended questions. Everyone then comments on the questions or the chapter or both.

11. Daily Picture

• Document the year with daily classroom pictures. These could be shots of activities, experiments, assignments, presentations or pretty much anything that happens. Let the students help you determine what should be posted. Maybe assign a daily photographer.

12. Picture Analysis

• I often used photos as a primary source in my history classes. See how much your kids can pick up by studying a photograph. You could make it less formal and post a picture of the author or explorer or dead guy you talked about in class that day. Help the kids to put a face or an image to an event.

13. Student Work

• An English teacher I work with has her students critique each other's work. She spends a lot of time working with them on how to do this constructively. I think this could be adopted for a blog. Have a student pick a short piece and post it. They ask the class for the kind of feedback desired. Grammar? Voice? Logic?

OK folks. Your turn. Give me a brief description of something you use or have seen. I am going to start keeping a list of ideas as I come across them on the web. If I get enough, maybe I will redo this into a bigger list.

[Update: Just before posting this I ran across a similar list at edublog called "10 ways to use your edublog to teach". Some over lap but still worth reading or pointing out to a colleague.

Also saw this post on "Some Sample Blog Assignments Aligned to the New ISTE NET-S" on David Warlick's blog. Some very specific ideas. David also has a book available on educational blogging called Classroom Blogging. Warlick is an excellent source for information on blogging.

Even a simple search will bring up a plethora of ideas! I keep finding these references and I'm not looking.]

[Image: rusr8307.jpg | DEYNEKA Aleksandr | A Race. | c. 1932-1933 | Russian | Socialist Realist | | Russia. | | ©Kathleen Cohen http://worldart.sjsu.edu/VieO56858$2820*383573]

CommonCraft Video: Blogs

CommonCraft has created another great informational video. This one is about blogging.

Most of my students know what I mean when I refer to a blog. But, next time I have a teacher or a parent who says,

"What is that exactly?"

First, I'll show them this video. Second, I'll give them the link to my own blog. Third? Well, by that time, they'll be begging me to teach them how to make their own.





[image: "blogging_sign", al gunn, Creative Commons:(Attribution. You may copy, distribute, display, and perform my copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if you give credit.]

Edublog Awards 2007

The votes have been counted and the winners are listed here. Take a couple of hours and browse all the winning sites. Take a full day or more and wander around all the nominations.

Lots of great stuff here. Congratulations to all the winners.

[Image: "edublog banner" captured from http://edublogs.org/]

Give Blogging a Try

Several years ago I did a presentation for the technology support group in my school district on how to create a personal blog using Google's Blogger. Many of us were excited on how this tool could be used in education and wanted to get it into teacher's hands. On that same day, the district coordinators passed out a book, The World is Flat, to use as a discussion starter at our monthly meetings for the rest of the year. Since we were learning about Blogs, I volunteered to create one where we could share our thoughts on the book in between our meetings. It was a success in that everyone had a chance to post and comment on a working blog. It was a worthwhile experience and I learned a lot as the moderator.

Blogging never seemed to catch on in our district after that initial push. I have been told by teachers that they thought it was a "good idea, but":

"Its too hard."

"I don't know how to do it"

"Seems like it will take too much time."

I think it is a valuable tool and want to offer a few resources today that may encourage you to explore it's use in your classroom.

First, there are many possibilities available to you in creating a blog. I like and use Blogger because it is easy to setup and maintain. There are other options though and here is a partial listing of some of the blogging programs available. My district started using Gaggle this year for student email and if you have access to that program, it has a new blogging feature.

Second, I wanted to gather some sites together with suggestions on what to do with your blog once you have it up and running.

• Edublog has an article on "10 Ways to Use Your Edublog"
• Distributed Teaching and Learning. Nice explanation of the idea of "scribe posts". Daily class notes that are posted each day by the students.
  
• “Let’s see if I can start a log…” Long post by Will Richardson who writes about his experience setting up classroom blogs since 2001.
• Blogging 101: Web Logs go to school: Article on CNET about blogging in education.
• Anne Davis, from Georgia Stage University, writes about Rationale for Educational Blogging. She is one of this year's presenters at K12 Online Conference and will be giving a related presentation: Learn to Blog: Blog to Learn.
  

Third, here is a sampling of classroom blogs I found online.

• Room 9's Writing Spot: (Primary)
  
• Mrs. Cassidy's Classroom Blog: (Primary)
  
• Critical Issues in Literature Block 3: (High school)
• Web Pages and Portfolios: (High school)
  

I'm not the first to promote blogging to teachers and there is a plethora of information on the internet. I gathered and reviewed all this information in an evenings time. Every time I go back to the web to check something out for this post, I find another item I want to include. For example, I found this site that lists resources and examples for potential bloggers.

Pick a program. Start small. Give it a try.

[image:© Radu Razvan - Fotolia.com]