Kick Start Your Blog – Advanced Activity 8 – Promote that Blog!

Over the last 30 days, we have built a blog- one that has a heart, brain, muscles, nerves, legs, bling and now it is ready to fly. Thanks Murcha for your last post in the teacher challenge.

Choose at least 5 terms from this wordle and explain how they relate to building blogging readership.

• Webinars  Online conversations in elluminate have been an inspiration to me and where I can meet other professional educators doing 'my thing'. Each webinar I have attended have given me something to learn about. Some are large, all day affairs, (symposium) others can be a short one hour webinar such as Jo Harts' Serendipity sessions.

• Tweetdeck on my laptop is fantastic because I have bben able to find the tweets I need by looking at the hashtags. Similarly I can write a post and send to some readership group where I know like-minded readers will appreciate it and either give me feedback or retweet mine. In this way, my blogging readership is 'out there' usually in the web2 or ESL audience. (#parrpakala)

• My PLN is getting so enormously huge I can't keep up and go for the bike rides I long for. It's addicitive, I learn heaps, it is a fantastic resource. If I get stuck at the computer and have a mental block, I go to twitter and I am set on a path again. All my twitter followers are in the same field as me so it is really good to find something relevant and perfect for my current needs. Blogging and the challenge is also another amazing learning curve..

• The blog challenges (2nd tchr challenge) are really useful to get me thinking about how I can be more creative and interesting on the blog. It gives me practical lessons on how to arrange and present using web2 tools/ features that create a striking presentation of learning materials. It is great reading where others are at in the challenge and how successful we all are in learning and making the blog a good read for others. It is also beneficial to students to see that the classroom learning does not have to be face to face and can incorporate the global world of teachers and students.

• Blogging directory offer a list of potential support and resource library to use. Many of these people become part of our PLN as they may be similar. These similarities may be about content and resources, web2 tool users that can offer a way to do something you hadn't thought of, and they may be geographically close to you.(or not-this may be an interesting point of discussion). So many young bloggers in the last challenge- connected to the class blogs would discuss their snow-related activites and we would be here in Australia talking about fires and floods. So it is really interesting what may come out of all these connections.

30 More Things about QR Codes

Textually.org has an interesting post on using QRcodes.
I would like to add some of my serious and not so serious ways in which QR codes could be used.

1. dog tags- name and phone number
2. plant identification in nurseries, more info etc
3. supermarket products ID and info-ESL language translations/recipe ideas/green tag
4. hospital patients arm band tags-immediate allergy/medical risk associations, more info..
5. town maps
6. transport stations - info for next arriving bus/train
7. CD/DVD/covers-link to trailers on pkt/song samples
8. Newspapers- stories, what's on. guide,Melbourne guide to bands/pubs
9. festival info, programs, stages  QR codes can be seen on an art festival map for Canton Ohio's "First Friday". The QR code was designed by Think Roth, a multi-media marketing company from Ohio. The QR code on the festival's map takes you to a "phone friendly" map with coupons for free coffee and art discounts around town.-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
10. advertising- printed clothing, accessories,ties, hats, bags,badges,drink bottles
11. snow-directions on posts
12. sewing patterns,fashion & cat walk links
13. art galleries
14. books, edition, up to date info on stickers on books/published articles, author info
15. airport information,signs, tickets,updates
16. map of the world - codes on countries
17. World heritage places-English or translations in podcasts
18. tags on signs about forest trees - fauna & flora info/current studies
19. historical building plaques - info to websites
20. OH&S further facts on equipment use, emergency contacts, up to date facts/people
21. motor car engine parts (I believe this was how it began? -initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing
22. visually impaired- text to talk on phone-menus,music catalogues etc..
23. co-ordinating jobs,events, signs
24. roadsigns in foreign countries- multilingual info 4 tourists, incl history, current events, landmarks , road directions
25. star constellations info (comet nights) on night walks in the outback (ie Uluru) 
26. zoos animal behaviors, stories,updates
27. classroom corridors - door QRcodes to class blogs
28. homework reminders on blogs or worksheets - links to current blog posts/add comments for homework
29. artworks- incorporated in artwork (fabrice de Nola)
30. aboriginal art link to web page on back of canvas- history, artist, story

More on this, see jamesmichie.com/blog/ QR codes in education.

• You can add to this list here on this google doc page. Please add some more ideas!

Thanks.
Jane

QR codes & A blog with legs and bling!-Kick Start Activity 7

Plunging in Deep came about because I was doing some boogie board surfing with my kids in some wild seas at the time, and ICT can just be a bit like that - out of our depth and we always look out for the lifesavers to help us. Always looking for mentors and forums and searching for help. That's why I loove this challenge!
On my plungingindeep blog I started with:

•  a counter, a configure stats widget, customisable out of 4 choices. It's a blogger design. Here is the help site. 
• Then I have a flag counter which is clocking up rapidly, thanks to the mention by Sue W in this teacher challenge posts of the week. (Under add media - Jane).
• I have some links to some of the sites in this challenge, to separate these from blogs that I really want to refer to.
• I like having popular posts, and you can dig deeper here and see the figures on the sites.
• Then I have categories, I called themes.
• A subsribe to.. tab
• the follow button ('google friend' friendly)
• A blogger logo
• Share it (on Facebook or twitter)- I like having this option.

Then on the right hand side I have: 

• another tweet button from tweet button from blogger.
•  My clustrmap -instruction clear for blogspot blogs
• My 'about me' page, which does carry over to my second 'blogger' blog which I just made for another class this week. That is called about2c.blogspot.com/ (not the youth class)
• My two pages -with headings
• a blog archive
• Twitter feeds from what I have tweeted (you can read about 4 of them)
• and a video bar for You Tube, with keywords like migrant, ESL, and Burma. I do get some weird choices here (they pop up randomly), so I have reduced the keywords a fair bit. 
• I'm not sure how to put an image (QRcode) into my side bar though?  -should be easier than any widget I've got! Leave comment if you can help please.

The teacher challenge asked me to look at the QR code and generate one of my own. Here it is.


I used the free QR generator I used for this one on the right.






This is the Quick Response generator. This uses the iTag app on an iPhone. I think this is a cool little app that has a lot of potential in education, although we are a fraction limited because the students won't have the equipment/tools to use it yet. Once technology reaches the people at a rate they can afford, then I think we could go ahead and use this in many different fields. In ESL I guess it would mean interpreting language, finding out, research, orienteering, recognition of places, things, objects, getting information for new migrants, addresses. Perhaps it could replace the need for reading as was suggested at Converge10 in a techno-future presentation. 

Yes, it is all coming. What an exciting time we live in to see all these amazing changes and ideas!

It's great to be part of the wider twitter groups, in ESL, education,social networking in education, instructional design, chat live, symposiums & webinars in elluminate, it's great to be following so many amazing minds, like friends, it's PLN boom time for me! I do it on my day off when I should be cleaning the house. How times have changed..

Jane

PS check out QRcodes in google images..

Embedding Media: the Nerves of the Blog!-

 Kick Start Your Blog Challenge #6 

Here is a movie I made using imovie which I saved as a .mov file. I had an account with youtube and uploaded it there. 

 We make a lot of movies in our ESL youth class, and I think the students really enjoy this activity. It is always full of nice surprises and amazing hidden talent in the dramatic arts area!

Please comment!
Movies and photos are a few of my favourite media for embedding into my blog. Here are some tips/hints/success stories and ways I have used it.
We have been using a lot of web2 tools in the past year on our class blog (http://2ycroydon.edublogs.org/). In the second semester I started using Facebook for our class as the student challenge was getting too difficult for my students' level of English and we couldn't keep up. Our students arrive at any time of the year, and have come from third world living conditions in refugee camps or detention centres. The visual impact of our blog can be overwhelming at times, so I like to personalise it with our own familiar visuals. It gives students a desire to go there, and show it to others, become involved in the blog or group. (Our Foundation House counsellors use it to keep up with the class work & give feedback as do our Ucan2 people & volunteers.The important thing is to give ownership and community value to the blog. It is a work in progress throughout the year and I am often using it on the data projector to point out things in class, or use it as a focus for a writing, speaking, listening or reading lesson. Students can do homework on it and show family members/friends if they have computers at home. (Only a few have internet at home). All this is possible with photos of excursions & class activities- (uploaded into animoto, slideshare or something & embedded), movies with sound, talking, written discussions, comments following this, links to relevant data for research, other ESL games/quiz sites or news & views etc. It is perfect for our needs with so much variety.
I love blogging power for teaching.

“Using images in blogs”

Kick Start Activity 5 – Advanced – Images: The “Eyes” of the Blog

 I have used images a lot in my YOUTH CLASS BLOG

These original images of class escursions are uploaded into voicedthread.com

I also use irvanview.com at my work computer because it is fast and easy to edit the pictures to crop and resize ready for blog or web2 tool use.

 

Here is an animoto I made on a farm visit to our TAFE:

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Kick Start Activity 3 (Advanced) – Add Some Muscle to your Blog

Here is a shared Google doc. that the teacher challenge has posted Ideas for Blog Pages.
Since I began to experiment with Blogger I have needed to access Blogger Help.

Teacher Challenge, advanced #3

You can see a larger version of my bubbl.us mapping tool on the 'about' page, or just click on it to read it a bit more clearly.

The Hearbeat of the Blog.

larryferlazzo - the-best-resources-for-chinese-new-year
Larry's blog is interesting because it provides us with a lot of information in an organised way. He has numerous lists and 'best ofs' with links in this post. So you know more or less what you are going to get if you click on a link.

On the other hand, these numerous links in a paragraph of text can often be off-putting, especially if you open many of them, you may often lose track of the initial reason you are there. Wikipedia is an example of this. Multi-tasking and losing your train of thought.

6 steps to an effective blog post

1. In an educational blog the trick is to be precise & to the point.
2. Have images to break the continuity or use a 'cool tool'.
3. Think about colour wisely, many young people like white on black, but not great on eyes over time.
4. Link wisely with specific information to your readers - why do they want to 'click here?'
5. Familiarity -be consistant with presentation and don't change themes/colours/fonts midstream. (Like I have just done to this blog)
6. Continuity - of style of writing and professionalism to your audience, a bit of humour is always a welcome tone.