I think I am constantly struggling with how I will use this blog and to what extent it will be a part of my classroom instruction. On the positive side, I believe I am getting closer to coming to a solution. I suppose that is what well for me today, my purpose for the blog is becoming more clear and ideas are developing so that I think it will be a relevant part of my classes.
What I still struggle with are embedding forms and documents. For example my form for student information is still unavailable to the public even though I corrected the settings. I gave up on the Calendar. Also, I was unable to get Google+ working so that I could post images from my phone. It seems there was some complications for my template as well, which I had to change.
All these things are part of the process of learning how to use blogs, which is why I am in this class after all. I also see that not all are essential to the purpose of the blog, so I'm not too concerned.
I understand the struggle with the most effective way to use blogging in the classroom. I found that once I played around and set up my blog, the usage models became clearer. They also evolved over time.
I think your embedding issues are all related to permissions, I included a post that embedded a calendar. The calendar showed up as a white box until I changed permissions and made it public. With forms and docs, it will give you a request permission from owner if the form/doc is not public. We can review this tomorrow or Friday and get it to work.
I second what Dave said above. How will I use this technology? Currently I use Facebook to communicate with my students on our THS Theatre Arts group page. It seems to work pretty well, as I know the vast majority of the students will be on Facebook in the near future. I think I could post a facebook post and add a link to the blog with any pertinent information. Though this seems like an unnecessary extra step.
Fortunately, the work on the Blog is pretty straight forward for me. I'm fortunate that I have become somewhat of a Mac nerd, after having worked on them for the last 20 years. I dig the gadgetry of it.
My perceived weaknesses are a lack of confidence in creative design skills added to a combination of perfectionism. These create a longer process of creation than necessary.
I love the pace of the class, once again, and appreciate the individual attention you give people. But I am encouraged to move ahead and experiment with the technology while you work with others. Thanks.
Interesting comments. I love FB and am glad it meets your needs. I think the main difference between FB and a blog is that multiple people can post on a blog whereas with FB, the owner add posts and other people can comment. I have seen people post on their blog and have it automatically add the post to their FB and twitter streams. In terms of this class, these exit slips have been pure gold. They've added a whole new dimension as a teacher to understanding the learning experiences of students.
I'm glad you've found the work straight forward and agree that experience makes all the difference. The more you do the more you can do. I too am a perfectionist and understand a longer creation process :)
I will post assignments for tomorrow so that more experienced people can forge ahead. I hope it works out better. Thanks for the feedback.
I am very excited about the possibilities of using this blog in my classes. I am concerned about how I will do that. How will I get my students accustomed to using it? How often should I use it? What specific things should I use it for. Now, in terms of putting the blog together, it is coming together great. i like what I have on it and how it is looking. I have enjoyed building it and seeing it progress. Much of my concerns revolve around how I will implement this in my own building with the recourses I have available to me.
Introducing blogs can be done in steps: 1. They comment on your posts 2. They add content to the classroom blog 2. They create their own blog
I would start with something really basic like exit slips maybe once per week. Once kids have that down, I'd take a class writing assignment and try to use the blog. Post the assignment and have students complete the assignment by posting to the class blog. Perhaps they can critique a piece of art? Teachers usually use it once per week when getting started. I've seen some teachers use it for all writing assignments. Some people have students write weekly learning reflections too.
I am struggling less and less with what I am learning in class. I struggled with too many applications being open on the tab bar on the top and getting lost between applications. I also noticed that I tried to get more than one person on my blog list but only one is showing up. These kind of issues happen (such as adding more than one widget) and it became frustrating.
I sure appreciate the individual attention you give when these moments of confusion occur. I'm excited to see where this blog can go. I have a friend who has been blogging and I opened up her blog yesterday. I noticed she had a cool widget called feed my fish. I was wondering how she did this, but now with the new information on widgets you gave us today, I understand how you can have these type of widgets on your sidebar.
I'm glad it's coming together. Yes tabs are a pain and sometimes issues pop up when adding contributors and blog lists. I appreciate your calm demeanor and willingness to work through the issues!
I enjoyed putting widgets into my blog today, it is exciting to see the endless possibilities. Learning how to put the forms in again and getting a spreadsheet of information will make my life much easier! I look forward to using that this fall. I still am unsure about the school versus personal emails and how they are related to my blogging. I'll figure it out!
Multiple gmail accounts are always a pain. I prefer to keep my stuff on my personal gmail account. The important thing is to pick on and be consistent. If you go back and forth, you'll forget where you put things.
I am feeling more and more comfortable about blogging! There are some things I don't like about it, but I'm wondering if it has more to do with the look of the page. Again, I need to just play with it and figure it out.
I will continue on working on adding the slide show. I would like to learn how to embed a calendar. Can you use widgets on websites? Or, is that just a blogger thing?
Thank you so much for adapting to fit our needs! You're the best!
Arriving to this class a day late and not exactly in the "learning" frame of mind, has offered me compassion for this profile of student whom arrives to school out of sorts for a multitude of reasons each day. Learning on this side of the desk fosters empathy on that side of the desk.
Special thanks to Jill for individualizing her instruction and getting me up and running yesterday. Happy to say that after this rough start, things are starting to click and I am starting to feel more at ease with adding to my class blog and understanding the purpose of blogging. The modeling and guided practice has helped me prove to myself that I do have some technology skills and the struggle will only make me more effective in the classroom in the fall.
The review questions greatly helped me conceptually this morning and I am able to access information better now. My struggle exists with the embedding of forms and documents as well. I need more practice at moving from tab to tab and find myself with too many tabs open, which can (and does) lead to confusion. Will work to clean this up!
I plan to improve my class blog page and to further explore how google+ app works. I have only been able to email photos to myself from my iphone, so this will be a nice tool to know.
I'm so glad it all worked out Eileen! We'll be embedding all sorts of content in posts tomorrow so you'll get a lot of practice. Tabs are very annoying. It's best to clean house a close everything that's not essential periodically.
Another great day of enhancing my abilities to incorporate technology into my teaching (and life)! I'm still struggling with my the ability to move quickly and remember the steps I just took when I use the blog in the future. I wanted to change my Favicon and I can't remember how to accomplish this task.
Here are the questions that I would like to have answered: 1) How do I log on to my account from a different computer? 2) How do I add clip art to pages on my site? What are good sites for free clipart? 3) How do I add video to my site? 4) How do I change the Favicon? I'm sure I will discover more questions when I go home this evening. Maybe we could have some time on Friday for individual assistance during work time?
I am pleased that we are working in this class and not taking excessively long breaks. Jill you are patient and helpful, thank you!
I'm glad to hear it was a good day! Remember how to navigate comes with practice. But the good part is that it's like riding a bike. You forget but can quickly get back up to speed when you hop on again.
I can address your specific questions tomorrow, but I'll also put them here for future reference.
1. You can log into your account from any computer. It;s your google account (google.com and then sign in)
2. Clip art is just an image. You can add an image to a post by clicking on the image button. It will ask for a URL. Find some clip art on the web for a URL.
3. You can add an video to a post by clicking on the clap board button. It will ask for a youtube URL.
4. Get a favicon (favicon.cc) or google search. Go to the layout menu for your blog and edit the favicon.
Today was another full day of excellent instruction at a pace that was both comfortable (due to Jill's ability to move between individual students with varying degrees of knowledge) and challenging (due to my own lack of experience).
I'm concerned about making blog participation a requirement as I know many high school students become overwhelmed when tech issues directly relate to their grades. I also know that "requirement" has no place in natural blogging world. I already use turnitin.com for student papers and many of them were extremely frustrated with that.
If possible, I'd like to accomplish the following goals for my blog if others also want.
1. Time to tweak my class blog while Jill is available during class time.
2. Learn how to embed videos my students create
I am still thinking about how I'll use the blog without making it overwhelming to students. I don't want these classes to become more about technology than content. However, I can't give a choice for students to submit their work three different ways based on their knowledge, equipment, and learning style. This would be a managerial nightmare. So, I continue to think about this as days go by.
I'm very thankful for learning environment Jill has created!
I understand your concerns about making it a requirement. There are some ways to use blogs in a non-assignment way. exit-slips, pre-assess student knowledge, flipping the classroom.
My plan is to use Friday as a general help day and also to make sure all PSU requirements are in your blog. We'll also talk about the 5 hours during the fall and how to best use them. Finally, we'll make sure you can all create and join a google hangout.
Tomorrow, I'll show you how to add videos students create to your blog. They'd simply upload their video to youtube. Then you can add it to your blog.
The biggest issue I had today was pretty much due to Pilot error. I find that for the most part there is always a reason things don't work when it comes to computers. Today it was having my TTSD and Personal Gmail accounts both open at the same time. For some reason it creates conflicts when trying to perform certain functions.
The two today that I got hung up on were the adding myself as an administrator with my personal account (which you helped me with thank you very much) and my parent permission form not working correctly when I attempted to add a test student. In both cases as soon as I went to only one login at a time everything worked.
I remember having the same issues when we created webpages in your class a couple of years ago. The two things that seem to work best are: 1. Keep closing those tabs so you are always working with the most refreshed version of you work. 2. Try to use two computers at the same time. One to do your work on and another to look to see what your blog or web page looks like to someone other than yourself who is not signed in as an administrator.
Those two things alone seem to solve 90% of the issues.
I think I may have missed out on a couple of the assignments (for sure I did not post any pictures because I got a new phone last night and it did not have any loaded in it until this evening.) So, I just need to review all that we did today and any mandatory assignments with you in the morning.
The blog will serve as the foundation for my common core curriculum of improving student writing skills.
I think I am constantly struggling with how I will use this blog and to what extent it will be a part of my classroom instruction. On the positive side, I believe I am getting closer to coming to a solution. I suppose that is what well for me today, my purpose for the blog is becoming more clear and ideas are developing so that I think it will be a relevant part of my classes.
ReplyDeleteWhat I still struggle with are embedding forms and documents. For example my form for student information is still unavailable to the public even though I corrected the settings. I gave up on the Calendar. Also, I was unable to get Google+ working so that I could post images from my phone. It seems there was some complications for my template as well, which I had to change.
All these things are part of the process of learning how to use blogs, which is why I am in this class after all. I also see that not all are essential to the purpose of the blog, so I'm not too concerned.
Thanks for the help.
I understand the struggle with the most effective way to use blogging in the classroom. I found that once I played around and set up my blog, the usage models became clearer. They also evolved over time.
DeleteI think your embedding issues are all related to permissions, I included a post that embedded a calendar. The calendar showed up as a white box until I changed permissions and made it public. With forms and docs, it will give you a request permission from owner if the form/doc is not public. We can review this tomorrow or Friday and get it to work.
I second what Dave said above. How will I use this technology? Currently I use Facebook to communicate with my students on our THS Theatre Arts group page. It seems to work pretty well, as I know the vast majority of the students will be on Facebook in the near future. I think I could post a facebook post and add a link to the blog with any pertinent information. Though this seems like an unnecessary extra step.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, the work on the Blog is pretty straight forward for me. I'm fortunate that I have become somewhat of a Mac nerd, after having worked on them for the last 20 years. I dig the gadgetry of it.
My perceived weaknesses are a lack of confidence in creative design skills added to a combination of perfectionism. These create a longer process of creation than necessary.
I love the pace of the class, once again, and appreciate the individual attention you give people. But I am encouraged to move ahead and experiment with the technology while you work with others. Thanks.
Interesting comments. I love FB and am glad it meets your needs. I think the main difference between FB and a blog is that multiple people can post on a blog whereas with FB, the owner add posts and other people can comment. I have seen people post on their blog and have it automatically add the post to their FB and twitter streams. In terms of this class, these exit slips have been pure gold. They've added a whole new dimension as a teacher to understanding the learning experiences of students.
DeleteI'm glad you've found the work straight forward and agree that experience makes all the difference. The more you do the more you can do. I too am a perfectionist and understand a longer creation process :)
I will post assignments for tomorrow so that more experienced people can forge ahead. I hope it works out better. Thanks for the feedback.
I am very excited about the possibilities of using this blog in my classes. I am concerned about how I will do that. How will I get my students accustomed to using it? How often should I use it? What specific things should I use it for. Now, in terms of putting the blog together, it is coming together great. i like what I have on it and how it is looking. I have enjoyed building it and seeing it progress. Much of my concerns revolve around how I will implement this in my own building with the recourses I have available to me.
ReplyDeleteIntroducing blogs can be done in steps:
Delete1. They comment on your posts
2. They add content to the classroom blog
2. They create their own blog
I would start with something really basic like exit slips maybe once per week. Once kids have that down, I'd take a class writing assignment and try to use the blog. Post the assignment and have students complete the assignment by posting to the class blog. Perhaps they can critique a piece of art? Teachers usually use it once per week when getting started. I've seen some teachers use it for all writing assignments. Some people have students write weekly learning reflections too.
I am struggling less and less with what I am learning in class. I struggled with too many applications being open on the tab bar on the top and getting lost between applications. I also noticed that I tried to get more than one person on my blog list but only one is showing up. These kind of issues happen (such as adding more than one widget) and it became frustrating.
ReplyDeleteI sure appreciate the individual attention you give when these moments of confusion occur. I'm excited to see where this blog can go. I have a friend who has been blogging and I opened up her blog yesterday. I noticed she had a cool widget called feed my fish. I was wondering how she did this, but now with the new information on widgets you gave us today, I understand how you can have these type of widgets on your sidebar.
I'm glad it's coming together. Yes tabs are a pain and sometimes issues pop up when adding contributors and blog lists. I appreciate your calm demeanor and willingness to work through the issues!
DeleteI enjoyed putting widgets into my blog today, it is exciting to see the endless possibilities. Learning how to put the forms in again and getting a spreadsheet of information will make my life much easier! I look forward to using that this fall. I still am unsure about the school versus personal emails and how they are related to my blogging. I'll figure it out!
ReplyDeleteMultiple gmail accounts are always a pain. I prefer to keep my stuff on my personal gmail account. The important thing is to pick on and be consistent. If you go back and forth, you'll forget where you put things.
DeleteI am feeling more and more comfortable about blogging! There are some things I don't like about it, but I'm wondering if it has more to do with the look of the page. Again, I need to just play with it and figure it out.
ReplyDeleteI will continue on working on adding the slide show.
I would like to learn how to embed a calendar.
Can you use widgets on websites? Or, is that just a blogger thing?
Thank you so much for adapting to fit our needs! You're the best!
I'm glad you're feeling more comfortable. There are things I dislike and like about pretty much every tool I use :)
DeleteWe'll embed a calendar tomorrow. Yes you can add gadgets on web sites too. We'll also use picasaweb to add a slideshow to a post.
Thanks for the kind words! Can you call me every morning and repeat them? haha
Arriving to this class a day late and not exactly in the "learning" frame of mind, has offered me compassion for this profile of student whom arrives to school out of sorts for a multitude of reasons each day. Learning on this side of the desk fosters empathy on that side of the desk.
ReplyDeleteSpecial thanks to Jill for individualizing her instruction and getting me up and running yesterday. Happy to say that after this rough start, things are starting to click and I am starting to feel more at ease with adding to my class blog and understanding the purpose of blogging. The modeling and guided practice has helped me prove to myself that I do have some technology skills and the struggle will only make me more effective in the classroom in the fall.
The review questions greatly helped me conceptually this morning and I am able to access information better now. My struggle exists with the embedding of forms and documents as well.
I need more practice at moving from tab to tab and find myself with too many tabs open, which can (and does) lead to confusion. Will work to clean this up!
I plan to improve my class blog page and to further explore how google+ app works. I have only been able to email photos to myself from my iphone, so this will be a nice tool to know.
Thanks for all your patience and kindness, Jill!
I'm so glad it all worked out Eileen! We'll be embedding all sorts of content in posts tomorrow so you'll get a lot of practice. Tabs are very annoying. It's best to clean house a close everything that's not essential periodically.
DeleteSee you tomorrow!
Another great day of enhancing my abilities to incorporate technology into my teaching (and life)! I'm still struggling with my the ability to move quickly and remember the steps I just took when I use the blog in the future. I wanted to change my Favicon and I can't remember how to accomplish this task.
ReplyDeleteHere are the questions that I would like to have answered:
1) How do I log on to my account from a different computer?
2) How do I add clip art to pages on my site? What are good sites for free clipart?
3) How do I add video to my site?
4) How do I change the Favicon?
I'm sure I will discover more questions when I go home this evening. Maybe we could have some time on Friday for individual assistance during work time?
I am pleased that we are working in this class and not taking excessively long breaks. Jill you are patient and helpful, thank you!
I'm glad to hear it was a good day! Remember how to navigate comes with practice. But the good part is that it's like riding a bike. You forget but can quickly get back up to speed when you hop on again.
DeleteI can address your specific questions tomorrow, but I'll also put them here for future reference.
1. You can log into your account from any computer. It;s your google account (google.com and then sign in)
2. Clip art is just an image. You can add an image to a post by clicking on the image button. It will ask for a URL. Find some clip art on the web for a URL.
3. You can add an video to a post by clicking on the clap board button. It will ask for a youtube URL.
4. Get a favicon (favicon.cc) or google search. Go to the layout menu for your blog and edit the favicon.
Thanks for the positive feedback :)
Today was another full day of excellent instruction at a pace that was both comfortable (due to Jill's ability to move between individual students with varying degrees of knowledge) and challenging (due to my own lack of experience).
ReplyDeleteI'm concerned about making blog participation a requirement as I know many high school students become overwhelmed when tech issues directly relate to their grades. I also know that "requirement" has no place in natural blogging world.
I already use turnitin.com for student papers and many of them were extremely frustrated with that.
If possible, I'd like to accomplish the following goals for my blog if others also want.
1. Time to tweak my class blog while Jill is available during class time.
2. Learn how to embed videos my students create
I am still thinking about how I'll use the blog without making it overwhelming to students. I don't want these classes to become more about technology than content. However, I can't give a choice for students to submit their work three different ways based on their knowledge, equipment, and learning style. This would be a managerial nightmare.
So, I continue to think about this as days go by.
I'm very thankful for learning environment Jill has created!
I understand your concerns about making it a requirement. There are some ways to use blogs in a non-assignment way. exit-slips, pre-assess student knowledge, flipping the classroom.
DeleteMy plan is to use Friday as a general help day and also to make sure all PSU requirements are in your blog. We'll also talk about the 5 hours during the fall and how to best use them. Finally, we'll make sure you can all create and join a google hangout.
Tomorrow, I'll show you how to add videos students create to your blog. They'd simply upload their video to youtube. Then you can add it to your blog.
The biggest issue I had today was pretty much due to Pilot error. I find that for the most part there is always a reason things don't work when it comes to computers. Today it was having my TTSD and Personal Gmail accounts both open at the same time. For some reason it creates conflicts when trying to perform certain functions.
ReplyDeleteThe two today that I got hung up on were the adding myself as an administrator with my personal account (which you helped me with thank you very much) and my parent permission form not working correctly when I attempted to add a test student. In both cases as soon as I went to only one login at a time everything worked.
I remember having the same issues when we created webpages in your class a couple of years ago. The two things that seem to work best are:
1. Keep closing those tabs so you are always working with the most refreshed version of you work.
2. Try to use two computers at the same time. One to do your work on and another to look to see what your blog or web page looks like to someone other than yourself who is not signed in as an administrator.
Those two things alone seem to solve 90% of the issues.
I think I may have missed out on a couple of the assignments (for sure I did not post any pictures because I got a new phone last night and it did not have any loaded in it until this evening.) So, I just need to review all that we did today and any mandatory assignments with you in the morning.
The blog will serve as the foundation for my common core curriculum of improving student writing skills.