This is a demo of the microblogging and communications platform Edmodo, a private social network for K-12 education. http://www.edmodo.com/
Students were introduced to blogging as part of a plan to meet McKinley Tech’s goal of becoming the highest-performing school in the nation by 2013. Sanders, an advocate for hands-on learning, uses the it’s learning individualized-learning-platform blogging forum as a regular outlet for his students’ thoughts and insights about their daily work. This addition to the usual roster of resources pumps relevance into his classroom lessons—the platform is accessible via devices such as Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation, and cell phones—as well as acts as a tool to handle matters affecting students’ lives outside the classroom.
Kidblog meets the need for a safe and simple blogging platform suitable for elementary and middle school students. Most importantly, Kidblog allows teachers to monitor and control all publishing activity within the classroom blogging community.
Teacher notes that the specific criteria and descriptions listed on the rubric have been effective at helping students to improve the posts they have been writing. A google docs version is posted here: http://bit.ly/ckQOeR
More advice from Sue Waters on how to moderate comments and posts using GMail.
"Managing Students on Blogs…What Role Do You Assign Students?"
Tips For Better Blogging, Using Blogs With Students, Working With Web 2.0 Tools - Sue Waters (April 09). Sue describes a process for monitoring student blogs using Google Reader.
The rise of online media has helped raise a new generation of college students who write far more, and in more-diverse forms, than their predecessors did. But the implications of the shift are hotly debated, both for the future of students' writing and for the college curriculum. Some scholars say that this new writing is more engaged and more connected to an audience, and that colleges should encourage students to bring lessons from that writing into the classroom. Others argue that tweets and blog posts enforce bad writing habits and have little relevance to the kind of sustained, focused argument that academic work demands.
An inappropriate comment has arrived on a student site. What do you do? How do you turn this into a teachable moment?
One technique I used to push the learning connections and stretch students to higher levels of thinking is suggesting the use of comment starters to students. I encourage them to use these and encourage them to add to the list. These help students compose responses to posts at higher levels than just "I liked what you said" type of replies. It is a starting point.
The scribes in my classes continue to do outstanding work. I'm continually impressed by the depth and quality of the student's scribe posts. They work so hard on their scribes. Why do they do that? Most high school students look for the easy way out; "How can I get by with the minimum amount of effort on my part?"
Blogging rules for students and teachers, as created by Hillsdale Public Schools.
Because many students had already taken part in the blogging challenge, it was decided in September 2009 to extend to two challenges - one for better bloggers and another for better commentators. Over 600 individual students and 80 classes totalling a possible 3000 students registered this time. Again we had participation from 15 countries of the world, some bloggers were only just starting, others had their blogs for over a year. It is now 2010 and the student blogging challenge has its own blog. To register for the 2010 challenge: http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/about/march-2010-register-here/
As students in Reading Workshop begin to build their blogs, post by post, the need for some structure in commenting is evident. Hopefully these guidelines will help students engage in meaningful dialogue, comment by comment. Here are seven rules for blog comments.
Are you thinking of starting student blogs? Here is a great rubric that can be used to guide and assess student writing.
Six tips for providing feedback and becoming a top commenter.
A collection of Web 2.0 tools with links - screened by CLRN (California Learning Resource Network) with appropriate grade levels. Includes blogs & wikis, bookmark/resource sharing, productivity, collaboration and social networking.
Ben Rigby and Rock the Vote have put together a book for activists, politicos, and organizers called "Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0." It is a how-to guide to help those who want to mobilize using the web, focusing on how organizers can leverage blogging, social network sites, photo/video sharing, mobile phones, wikis, maps and virtual worlds.