Finishing up another KnowSchool course

So the week of Knowschool’s Using Blogs in Education has come to an end. I’ve learned so much. I want to summarize some of what I’ve taken from the course and decided to do it here rather than on the course Moodle forum so that I’ll have it to come back to. So, here are 10 things I’ve learned:

  1. I am learning so much from other educators. All week I’ve been immersed, not only in the course discussions, but with reading blogs. So many of the course participants have great blogs. Plus, I’ve found the Top 100 Education blogs and I’m working my way through them all. I’m finding experts on all kinds of topics. I’ll be adding a whole new list of blogs to my Xtra Links.
  2. Like the 31 day comment challenge (which I’m still working on… possibly my 31 month challenge), this week has retaught me about the power of blogging for building community. So, as well as reading blogs, I’m practicing getting out there and adding my comments.
  3. I’ve learned that I really need a better system for following blogs, so I’ve revitalized my netvibes account. It’s been my browser homepage for a long time, but I haven’t used it efficiently enough. Now I’ve cleaned it up and added feeds for the best of the blogs that I’ve found. I’ve got a special section to follow my TLITE bloggers as well as my Global Ed bloggers.
  4. Unfortunately, I’ve also learned to my horror that edublogs now allows for ad links. So, if you are viewing this page for the first time, or from a different computer that you normally use, you’ll see a bunch of double underlined words that are linked to mini ads. It is distressing. I’ll add a note in my sidebar to help new visitors avoid those.
  5. I already knew that innovative teachers are using blogs with their students but this week I’ve heard about some amazing projects, difficulties that teachers run into, and successes that they have. I’ve watched an excellent video from the students’ perspective. All this has encouraged me to keep on promoting blogging as a learning tool and given me some resources to recommend. Watch for future posts regarding these.
  6. I’ve learned that blogging should have a point or purpose, particularly if it is intended for others to read. This led me to reassess whether or not my blogging was really about my own learning and reflecting or if I had expectations that it might be of interest to anyone else. So I’ve thought about, who am I writing for? And, I came up with the idea that I am indeed writing for others, any others who might be interested in entering into conversation about the topics and issues I raise. Some times that is no one, others times I’m surprised at who stumbles across my blog. When readers lead comments it always entices me to look for ways to respond, and thus conversations start. In this very digital world, I think these kinds of conversations are exciting.
  7. Surprisingly I learned that everyone twitters…well except for Jan Smith who is on a “self imposed twitter fast”. Twitter hasn’t made much sense to me. I’ve tried a couple of times. Perhaps when I get through all 100 blogs I’ll give it another try.
  8. I’ve collected a number of really excellent resources for my own teaching. This includes sites with information about blogging and tech savie stuff. Particularly good ones include Cristina Costa’s wiki, Konrad Glogowsky’s blog on How to Grow a Blog.
  9. I’ve given more thought to assessment of blogs. I like the idea of having access to rubric suggestions (such as the one by Ryan Bretag) and tools although I have to admit that I still lean towards having students self-assess their blogs.
  10. And finally, I’ve picked up lots of new ideas for adding voicethreads and video to my blogs. In this sense I’ve been inspired to continue try to be more creative in my posts.

So that’s about it. I’m not finished with this challenge as yet though as there are still more articles to read in the reference list and a wealth of other resources I’ve only looked at long enough to write a description in Diigo.

2 thoughts on “Finishing up another KnowSchool course

  1. Hi Betty,

    I came across your post as I was going through the blogs of the Knowschools course participants and adding them to my netvibes page. I have been really amazed at the quality of discussion that took place this week and really want to make sure that I have a way to stay in touch with you all. You really should give Twitter a try, it takes a while before you really start to appreciate it (and you have to be careful about it’s addictive nature) but some of the best resources and ideas I have come across have been through Twitter.

  2. WoW Betty!
    What a great post. I love your enthusiasm.
    You are right it was a great week. I learned a lot too. There’s a brand new world out there to constantly explore – from the different perspectives and points of view the people we interact with online provide us. That’s also one of the richness of the web – different, yet like-minded, people coming together! 🙂
    It can only be good.
    Thanks for contributing for such a great week.