How to Post to a Blog

Posting to this blog. Try it. You can add a post if you:

1. Go to blogger: www.blogger.com
2. Enter your blogger username if you have one, or kteach if you don't
   The password for kteach is the same as the one for kit (I don't want to tell the world what it is! ... it starts with up)
3. You can then post to either barkcanoe or paperbark, by clicking on the green +
4. Type a title, then type your message which is called a 'post'
5. Click Preview to see what your message will look like, Hide Preview to keep typing.
6. If you use kteach, why not include your name at the end of the post so readers know that you composed it.
7. Click Publish to publish your post on the blog.
8. Click view blog to see what the blog looks like now (It will open in a new window, or its window will appear on the status bar across the bottom of your screen).
9. There is an edit tab so you can always edit the post later if you want to.

Online Storybook Links

Kindersite has a links page of stories at:
Kindersite Directory Stories
which includes a link to: Woolly the Super Sheep
- an interesting story from the BBC (hence non-American voice, our type of spelling, 'colours' instead of 'colors')..
The BBC has a large number of stories at: BBC Storycircle
Of these the CBeebies series of stories are more suited for younger readers or for just listening to.

Kit in the Kimberley

Hi fellow Kit users,

I think the Kit idea is fabulous with huge potential for our schools. I still think the biggest issue is the advertising of the product. How do we get staff and students to use Kit? Maybe teachers need to build it into the students day with starting or ending the day with logging on etc just as a starter, then building the student skills up to using the myclasses pages. For the consultants in Broome I think it has huge potential. We could link all our doc.s to our own page. Well done Berkeley! This is a great innovation! It's underused at the moment but maybe we could talk a little bit about it at Induction to introduce new teachers to Kit? What do you think?

Paula Sgherza

Beginner

Berkeley, I finally got around to trying the "blog". Thank God for a person like you who encourages beginners to experiment with new things. I see the work that you have done in the Kimberley over the last decade and more as invaluable for IT in the remote communities.
Cal

Uploading Images Using Hello

Photo uploaded using Hello. Notes to help you upload an image:
Including an image using Hello

Broome Sunset
Photo © Berkeley (2004)

Poems - Link

http://www.byroncs.nsw.edu.au/starfish/poetry/

Links to Poetry from Starfish Class, Byron Community School, Byron Bay, NSW.

For Example:
Dylan Thomas Portraits: "A type of poetry that tries to get people to use words in an adventurous way. Each portrait tries to capture the essence or basic nature of its subject". The form is (see examples on the site):
First Line: Have you ever --verb-- a -- noun ---
Line 2: --adjective-- --noun-- , --adjective-- --noun--
Line 3: --adjective-- --noun-- , --adjective-- --noun--
Lines 2 & 3 may also include: --verb-- --adverb--

Some Links to help you with Powerpoint:

Electronic portfolios in schools

Tutorial (easy)

8 easy to follow tutorials

Daniel Felton: IT Issues in the Kimberley

I really feel that the IT issue has enormous potential for Kimberly schools largely due to issues like the unique students, distances involved and continuing improvement in IT.
I feel we really must jump on the band wagon while we have willing and capable IT people who can make it work.

Issues I consider require addressing not in any particular order are:

• Software range availability and currency.
• An accessible database where teachers can upload their resources for use by other Kimberly teachers including experiments, programs, Cframework links etc, hot links etc. (quality controlled).
• Chat site to discuss current education issues with other Kimberley teachers (not sure about if this would be a goer)
• Reliable uptodate hardware is always an issue.
• A whole of Kimberley policy to IT hardware minimum standards and classroom ratio's may be worthy of consideration?

Daniel Felton

IT issues in the Kimberley

This is an invitation for members of the kitlist to let others know what IT issues are important for them. Some general areas:

• Technical help for particular equipment to keep or get it working.
• How do you do this.....?
  
• Help with particular software programmes.
• Help with incorporating the web and the computer in lesson and curriculum planning.
• Further help in using myclasses.
• Help to setup links with other schools for online work and email.
• Help in using digital cameras etc.

Be as specific as you can and get some frustrations off your back. A problem shared.... Who knows there might be a solution around.

I have my own agenda in asking you to take on this task:

1. It will help me complete a project for some Uni study I am doing.
2. I would like somehow to help set up some way for Kimberley teachers to help each other with IT issues.
   

(Posted by Berkeley)

MyClasses - Other Sharing Options

You are creating a Property for Myclasses - What happens when you select these: Other sharing Options?

Select additional groups you wish to make this Property available to:

• Viewable and editable by teachers all in schools within my Education Network - Other teachers will be able to change your property - image, text, add entries if a calendar etc.
  
• Viewable by all users in all schools within my Education Network - Other teachers and students will be able to see and access your property, but not add files if it is a files box, or change the URL, image or text.
  
• Viewable by everyone in MIPS - not sure what this means
  
• Viewable by other teachers in MIPS - not sure what this means
  
• Viewable by teachers in all schools within my Education Network - Teachers can view it for their own inspiration, but the only way they can use it is to create it themselves from scratch or get you to make it viewable by all users...
  

Images in a Blog Posting

Blogger mentions three ways of using images in a blog post:
Posting Pictures in a Blog  
1..Use Hello with Bloggerbot.
2..Use Flickr.
3..Linking to images already uploaded on the web.
Following Posts will talk about each method.  

Too Young for Technology?

The link takes you to an article on CNN.com suggesting careful consideration of computer use by young children:
Too young for Technology?
What is your reaction to this article?
Image From CNN.com 

MyPortfolio - a possible future companion for myDesktop

The following is a summary of MyPortfolio from Myinternet Website

What is myportfolio?
myportfolio is a place on the Internet that a student can call their own; a place where students can create, collate and publish material. Based on the idea of an
electronic student portfolio (an ePortfolio*), myportfolio allows students to showcase their work in a range of contexts and demonstrate how their skills have developed over time.
Teachers can use myportfolio to assess student's academic progress as well as to publish work by class groups or individuals. Teachers can also utilise myportfolio to assemble and present evidence of their professional development at key points throughout their teaching career.
myportfolio offers students and teachers a personal workspace where learning outcomes can evolve beyond the limits of a single subject or course and where work can be stored for future reference and reflection.
Students and teachers can define who can view which parts of their myportfolio, allowing selections to be tailored to the right audience. myportfolio can be exported as a website or an IMS Content Package, allowing students to take their learning outcomes to a new school or beyond. This simple transportability gives new teachers all they
need to quickly assess the breadth of student's capabilities.
*An ePortfolio is a personal collection of electronic information describing and documenting a person's achievements and learning.

Blog: Blogging (part of email from Peter Carey

(Taken from an email from Peter Carey – June 2004)

Since the theme this week is response writing, I thought I might introduce weblogs, blogs or blogging. I think they have great potential for student writing, portfolios, posting assignments and communicating with parents. I am in favour of anything that gets kids to write. Why not give it a go.

From Jay Cross:
Weblogs are a personal writing space. Easy to share, automatically archived. Weblogs are easily linked and cross-linked to form learning communities. The school logs projects are examples. The school logs also enable a teacher to evaluate a student's thinking, by reading explanations and assignments.
· Weblogs can become digital portfolios of students\' assignments and achievements.
· Weblogs are a novice's web authoring tool.
· Accumulated weblogs become a content management system.
· Via digital storytelling, weblogs play a role in professional development.

Weblogs in the classroom
Presentation on the definition, characteristics and potential for
education of weblogs.
All the News That\'s Fit to Blog
Lesson plan where students critique three Web logs, each of which offers first-hand accounts, but reflect different points-of-view, on the war in Iraq.
Surf The Net With Kids: Blogging
Blogging is a new way to teach writing. This site lists blogging sites.
Weblogg-ed
Ideas for Web logs in the classroom and a clearinghouse for sites and
issues relating to Web logs, RSS and other Internet related technologies in education.
Blogs as Writing Practice
Blogs are an opportunity to publish and share text on the web quickly
and simply and they offer new learning possibilities. Here are some
strategies you might consider for using blogs in your classroom.
Lucy\'s Blog
Lucy from J.H.House Elementary school has created this blog site is
about the news and helping people understand it.

Blog - 2nd Grade Class Summer Reading Fun

Awesome Readers and Writers
Mrs Dudiak has set up a blog. Mrs D posts to the Blog and her Year 2 students comment.

Awesome Readers and Writers
Post 7: How was Green Meadows Farm (Excursion). 52 comments.
Post 6: Can you describe this Waterfall (Photo). 40 comments.
Post 5: Let's talk about our writing. 26 comments.
Post 4: It's show Time. 44 comments
Post 3: Make a choice: Is it Fiction of NonFitction books you enjoy the most? 64 comments.
Post 2: Have a book to recomment? Tell us about it! 28 comments.
Post 1: Are you ready to Blog? 5 comments.

Teaching with a Weblog - Timothy Johnston

Using a weblog (blog) as a class web page has the following features:
(1) A simple, easy-to-use, free web-based editor and free web page host server can be used, so no PC-based software programs (HTML editor or FTP) and no server accounts are needed,
(2) students require minimal training to begin independently publishing work to the blog, and
(3) the instructor’s workload to maintain the class web page is distributed to the blogger software and to the students. These features enable students to share their work with each other online, and make it available from and to any computer that is connected to the Internet.
This paper explains how to use a blog for teaching:
(1) The reasons for putting student work online are discussed,
(2) the steps needed to initiate and manage a blog are described, and
(3) the advantages of a blog as compared with the traditional method of creating web pages are presented.
Abstract of Timothy's Paper - presented April 2002
Teaching with a Weblog - How to Post Student Work Online

Preview of a Junior Primary Mydekstop

Myinternet will be upgrading during September 04. A Junior Primary desktop has been previewed as part of this process. See it at:
http://www.ceo.wa.edu.au/home/share/junior_style.gif

Mydesktop Journal

Journal:
A Journal is a list of comments in order of date.
It has a simple structure – entries are listed in order, much like a timeline with comments along the way.

What follows applies to a Mydekstop Journal.
Use the Mydekstop Tools button to create a Journal or add an existing Journal to your desktop.

A Mydekstop Journal can be restricted to its creator (ie personal journal), or made available to everyone in the school, or only to the teaching group and particular year level(s). In addition, the journal can be:
private – users view their own entries. Teachers view all entries.
shared - users and teacher(s) can view all entries.

Suggestion:
1.. Try adding some existing journals to your desktop to see how people are using them. A good one to try is the Cathednet Video Conference Project Group Journal [Title is: Cathednet myCUCM Project Group].
** A hint for finding existing journals: Select Forum in the Property type and the search will find journals as well as forums.
2.. Create a Journal then add it to your desktop. Try adding a few entries to see how it all works...

Journals could be used for:
Narrative Genre: Story Starters, Diary Entries, Jokes, Anecdotes, Nursery Rhymes, Recount, Haiku,
Transactional: Postcard
Procedural: Messages
Reports: Reviews
Persuasive: Complaints

In favour:
You can decide whether students can see other student entries (modelling) or not.
You can have several Journals on the desktop at the same time.

Against:
Journal entries cannot be edited – only deleted.

Berkeley - Luke has arrived

Berkeley...well here I am, in your blog!

I must have done something right to get this far.
This 'blog' idea, is it a bit like an online forum?

I'm in Bililluna this week, so it might be worth touching base to see where the schools and WAEC are at with their networks.

Luke

Welcome

A blog is a weblog which is a dated diary or journal published on the web.
Paperbark is a sort of private blog - ie for its members mainly.
However, it has a web address so others will be able to access it once they know the name of the blog.
One aim is for invited members to have a go at experiencing a blog.
Another aim is to trial a team blog where members can add their own posts to the one blog.
A further aim is to put together ideas about using blogs in education - for teachers, for students, and how blogs compare with email, journals and forums [journals and fora can be setup easily where myClasses and myInternet are used (eg cathednet in West Australia)]