Welcome to this ‘Blogs and Blogging’ ETA workshop. We have 30 computers but with so many particpants you may have to share a computer, which may work out well as we collaborate today (and in the future?) to develop our blogs and networks.
The rubric for the workshop:
The media landscape, especially journalism, has undergone a (r)evolutionary change in the last few years with the rise of the blogger. Establish a blog in this workshop for personal or professional use. Blogging is a great way for you to participate in the Web 2.0 world as an English educator. This workshop is for delegates with little or no experience of blogging.
I once ran workshops on how to use blogs with classes and published articles as far back as 2004. I soon realised, that teachers who do not read blogs or blog themselves were not going to be particularly successful at teaching using this tool. I guess it is akin to teaching English without ever writing for pleasure or reading for fun.
In this workshop, I’d like you to establish a blog (or work on a pre-existing one) and it does not neccesarily have to be for educational purposes. The issue is that you gain experience and have ongoing support from your growing network of bloggers and colleagues.
It is never easy – in a brief workshop like this – to completely understand the pre-existing knowledge that delegates have about blogs and blogging but if we view this brief video, at least we have a starting point.
Here’s a list of blogging terms for later reference too.
WordPress and Edublogs provide bloggers with easy to use tools and support, including video tutorials. I suggest that you use Edublogs for class blogs as it is easier for you to manage student use.
Okay, click on here and we shall begin. You can either, work at your own pace or follow along with me, demonstrating at the front of the room.
Why don’t you comment about the usefulness (or other) of this workshop at this blog post and leave a link to your new blog. Also, here’s some ideas for using a blog in the classroom.
Please feel free to email: Darcy.Moore@det.nsw.edu.au or follow me on Twitter if I can be of any assistance to you post-conference. I am always keen to develop my Personal Learning Network (PLN).
Finally, my other workshops will be available at this blog shortly.
Happy blogging.
Sue Waters
Hope your workshop went well. Am interested to know how long did you have to cover blogging as I’m always interested in the process other people use. Feel free to use any of the How to manuals from the Getting Started with Edublogs page of the Edublogger.
darcymoore
Hi Sue,
The workshop was only 75 minutes, not long enough to really sink teeth into blogging, but we managed to independently establish blogs and understand the functionality of WordPress. For example, many people were relieved to see how easily one can make a blog look great using the widgets. As individuals worked on their blogs, I (with a delegate) demo-ed anything that more than one person was struggling with. The key issue for most people was ‘where do I start?’ Knowing about WordPress or Edublogs gave that starting point. I hoping that many of the participants will stay in touch and collaborate.
Sue Waters
🙁 Feeling sad for you. 75 minutes is nice but not long enough. Hopefully it will have inspired some to want to get involved with blogging.
darcymoore
http://mscofino.edublogs.org/2008/12/05/blogging-is-elementary/ provides some good ideas about blogging with classes.