My really successful web 2.0 experience

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Permalink Reply by Catherine Laguna on October 10, 2008 at 6:15pm

Hi Tim,
I liked your blog. I have a similar agenda on my blog in that I don't give kids any points for reading. I had more kids who replied last year, none yet this year. I think of it as dinner conversation about class or things that come up in class. www.claguna.edublogs.org
Good luck,
Catherine

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 10, 2008 at 7:28pm

I've been thrilled with our three year old blog, A Really Different Place. A parent set up the blog using Drupal and serves it at no charge---and his son left my program 2 years ago. Whata guy! He emailed me last week and reported the we had 35,000 visits with 29,000 from unique computers. Students have written thousands of entries and comments. That's heck of a lot of authentic writing by a bunch of 10-12 year old kids!! Keep up the good work, Tim and Catherine.

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Eckley on February 8, 2009 at 12:03pm

I just looked at your blog and feel like I'm way behind in all of this. After going to a workshop I started a ning and have a class wiki but other than that, I'm pretty clueless. Any suggestions on how to start "blogging for beginners" would be greatly appreciated. Is it something you learned by doing or should I take a class?

Thanks! Your blog was inspirational!!

Lisa

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Permalink Reply by Tim Barlow on February 8, 2009 at 1:26pm

I think it is just something you have to spend time on Lisa. Play, tinker, have fun, start a personal blog to share with your family or friends. That is how you learn to use technology, in my opinion.
Good luck,
Tim

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 8, 2009 at 1:46pm

Lisa, go to http://blogger.com and just start a blog--either for school related stuff, parent info, family and friends. Once you get the flow you'll begin to see how this can work for kids. One easy thing to do at the beginning for student involvement is post discussion questions for the kids and have them reply. Getting individual blogs for kids is more of a challenge, you have to worry about safety and being able to keep an eye on everybody. Do a search here at CR 2.0 and you'll find tons of info on student blogs.

Be sure before you blog with students get an Acceptable Use Policy in place to be signed by parents. I can send you mine if you want to see it. Make sure your admin knows what you are doing but most importantly decide WHY you are doing it. If the blog does not have a purpose it's just more work for you. Here are the terms and conditions of our blog, here is our 'mission' statement. Let me know if you need anything else. You can see the rest of the stuff we've done here.

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Permalink Reply by Eve Heaton on February 9, 2009 at 1:21am

Thanks for posting the terms and conditions and mission statement. I was looking for something similar.

Eve

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Permalink Reply by Dawn Sayre on February 8, 2009 at 3:59pm

Lisa,
I too am new to blogging. I went to blog spot and just started playing around with it. It is pretty easy to use. Here is my first post! http://draftingineducation.blogspot.com/
Good Luck!
Dawn

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