7 Ways to Optimize your Blog

Share this short article “7 Ways to Optimize Your Blog” with your blogging students.

Blogging can be used as a reflective learning tool, collaborative tool, or a business communication tool with your students. If your students are aware of these 7 key issues it will help students prepare blog sites that adhere to today's ‘best practices’ and learn from the evolution of the blogosphere.

DNA From the Beginning

Today the medical field has really benefited from technology, and rightly so since technology and science are so intertwined. With the web at their fingertips they have answers to research, animations & simulations for use in trainings, and access to the technology tool itself to assist in their jobs.

When looking for science resources for your students the web offers many multi-media resources for your use.

Take a look at DNA From the Beginning, an animated primer on the basics of DNA, genetics, and heredity. It contains key concepts students need know to understand DNA, an image gallery, animations, audio and video snippets, and short biographies of those who have pioneered the field.

Then check out Inside Cancer: Multimedia Guide to Cancer Biology, an interactive, multimedia site that provides insight into the disease, prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

This award-winning site provides video interviews with cancer experts and Pathways to Cancer provides action-packed animations that visually walk visitors through the biology of a cancer cell.

Sites like these provide resources for students to extend their learning outside the four walls and outside class time.

*Flash Player and QuickTime required to view these sites.

National Gallery of Art

Looking for Art resources to provide for your students? Be sure to check out the National Gallery of Art, it provides resources not only for Art Instructors, but also for all teachers to integrate art into their curriculum. It’s loaded with lesson plans, resources and a special section, NGA Kids, an interactive site designed especially for young students.

Also, while at the site make plans to take your students on a virtual field trip on one of the many online tours they offer. Explore certain artists from Calder to Degas, or specific works of art, or a particular theme like Art Nouveau. Your students won’t even have to leave the classroom.

PBS Frontline "The Enemy Within"

Teaching Social Studies, Language Arts, Government, or Current Events?

PBS Frontline has launched “The Enemy Within” an impressive web project designed to look at 9/11 - 5 years later. Dig into the site with your students and find out who is the real enemy within?

"The website is a project of the Investigative Journalism for Print and Television Seminar at the University of California at Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism, taught by Reva and David Logan Professor Lowell Bergman."

From the site you can watch the 60 minutes film via QuickTime or Windows Media Player or buy the VHS/DVD to use in your classes, check out ‘readings & links’ to current writings, or join the discussion forum to expand your knowledge and learn from others’ viewpoints, and read interviews with Counterterrorism and Legal Experts.

This journalism site provides resources for students to read, assess, think critically, analyze and come to their own conclusions. Aren’t those the higher level thinking skills we are trying to develop?

The site provides a Teacher's Guide with lesson plan, discussion questions, links to more curriculum ideas and resources, and provides a PDF file of the entire teacher's guide for you to print and keep.

Book Rags

Here’s a good site to share with your students:

Book Rags

If you’re researching for papers, projects, or reports Book Rags lets you search through book summaries, study guides, essays, biographies and encyclopedias to find what you are looking for.

Or if students are still at a loss for ideas to write their papers on they can find plenty of ideas here, from body piercing & tattoos to acid rain. Book Rags now has over 4.2 million pages of content.

Or simply enter a topic of your choice, and the search begins.

Their goal is to become a research source for any subject. Book Rags has a premium service for a fee, but their free resources offers an abundance of research information.

So whatever subject you teach, share this site with your students.

Stickam - Live chats

My Curriculum Resource Center Librarian recently asked me to figure out how she could have a “live chat” on her site. She wanted the reference librarian to be able to answer students’ questions as they were online looking for resources from our college library’s website. She even showed me the State Library of Florida's "Ask a Librarian" where they offer a live chat service. Unfortunately, we don’t have much money or the in-house manpower to develop a live chat program for ourselves.

Then I came across Stickam. Stickam is a social networking, web-based communication tool, completely free, that offers live streaming video, slide shows, music, and live video chats on your blog or web-site. There is no software to download, you just copy and paste the URL code to your site for others to view.

Stickam has many other features, you can even build your own webpage on Stickam and put the video chat on it if you don’t already have an existing page.

Think about using this tool with your students for a conference about their course work. It doesn't matter how far you are from your students, whether across town or on a neighboring island, using Stickam you can answer their questions through a live video conference as though you were in the same room.

This is one possible solution for a conversation via a Web 2.0 web-based application.

IRC World Weblog

My librarian friend now serving in the US Foreign Service in Poland shared this blog with me:

IRCWORLD: Postings by US Information Resource Centers Around the World

Grab a cup of coffee and sit down. I am fascinated by the wealth of information this site has to offer.

I did a little investigating and found that the IRC- Information Resource Center- libraries are attached to all US Embassies and Consulates around the world to keep everyone working in the government services updated and knowledgeable about world events, including emergent new technology. Peatter Ness, the IRC Director in Oslo and the creator of this site, had a vision of what collaborative learning and sharing of resources is all about.

Peatter created this site so all IRC librarians could share the resources they find (their little goldmines) with other IRC Librarians and everyone throughout the world. Why keep all these ‘gems’ to yourself? Share the wealth. He has done a great job sharing the work of the IRC Librarians' resources for you to dig into. Thanks Peatter !

Maybe you will need two cups of coffee to get through all these resources…

Disconnected

Living on an island brings many challenges, one of which is being disconnected from the rest of the world. Thanks to new Information Technologies today we have the opportunity to connect to others’ thoughts and ideas and hopefully these virtual connections will shape ideas that will bring about change and eventual progress, though we are physically disconnected.

Feeling isolated I began to think about the many ways we are connected to each other via traditional methods of communication, such as listening to the radio, television, phones, computers, snail mail, email, and the Internet. We have been told that the Information Superhighway, the Internet, has changed the way in which we can communicate. So what are the new information technologies available over the ‘net to share the knowledge and ideas of smart minds of the smart mobs? The free movement of the Web2.0 has brought us many.

Here’s my list I frequent:
(in no particular order, and by no means inclusive or an endorsement of the product)

:: LinkedIN
:: Blogging- Blogger :: Yahoo 360 :: Technorati
:: Instant Messenging- AIM :: MSN Messenger :: Yahoo :: Adium
:: Discussion Forums
:: Photo Sharing - Flickr :: Picasa
:: Social Networking Software- MySpace :: Facebook :: Friendster :: SecondLife :: Thoos :: Orkut
:: Podcasts
:: Videoblogging
:: Moblogging
:: iTunes
:: Peer-to-Peer Networking
:: Video Sharing- YouTube :: Veoh
:: Social Bookmarking- Del.icio.us :: Furl
:: Wikis
:: RSS Feeds- Bloglines :: NetNewsWire
:: VOIP- Skype
:: YackPack
:: NetMeeting

I’ve listed ones that are free- because being a teacher I know we have little to no money to spare. Fortunately, the Web2.0 has now put at our disposal a myriad of social networking tools that allow us to connect with others without physically being next-door neighbors.

Google for Educators

Check out what Google has to offer educators all in one neatly wrapped package.

Google for Educators makes it easy for teachers to locate all the resource tools they need to complete their clasrooms projects from blogging to spreadsheets, organizing your calendar to graphic designing with SketchUp, Google Earth and Google Maps. They are all now in one place. Don't forget to sign up for the teacher newsletter to gleam some new classroom ideas and tips.

A Teachers's Life has just been simplfied; Thanks Google.

And Special thanks to my Information Services friend in Poland for sending this my way.

Digital History + Yahoo! Time Capsule Project

Looking for a way to get your students interested in history?

Well, Yahoo! and the Smithsonian may have just the project that provides a way for students to get actively involved in history and use all those digital Web 2.0 tools they love so much!

From now through November 8th, your students can contribute a digital artifact to the Yahoo! Time Capsule by submitting a photograph, social studies movie, video, audio podcast, classroom blog, or other classroom project.

This is a great way for students to share their work, be involved in living history, and connect with the larger world outside their classroom.

The Yahoo! Time Capsule Project is a joint partnership with the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in Washington D.C. But hurry! You only have until November 8th to share your contribution.

Here's some more information about the Yahoo! Time Capsule + Smithsonian Folkways Project:

"For 30 days, from October 10 until November 8, Yahoo! users worldwide can contribute photos, writings, videos, audio — even drawings — to this electronic anthropology project.

This is the first time that digital data will be gathered and preserved for historical purposes. And by November 8, a mosaic of revealing snapshots will be sealed and entrusted to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings based in Washington D.C., officially taking its place in history.

Finally, to thank you for your contribution to the Time Capsule, you’ll be asked to help us select how Yahoo! will donate $100,000 to seven global charitable organizations. Learn more about these seven organizations.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets

As Derek mentioned in an earlier post, teachers often find themselves without adequate funds to purchase the hardware and software needed to complete project-based activities. But now thanks to the new movement of the Web 2.0 they are able to use many software applications tools for free, online for themselves, and with their students.

Also, in a previous post I wrote about Writely.com’s word processing capabilities. Now that Google has acquired and renamed them they have a new site, Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is FREE web-based, word processing and spreadsheet software application that allows you to use their online editor, or to upload documents from any computer to work on, invite colleagues to collaborate and edit your documents, and even download the documents to your computer in PDF format.

One nifty feature is that you can use an RSS Feed for the documents you publish online-pushing your ideas out for the flattened world to see very easily.

Now teachers can spend their money on much needed classroom supplies rather than software. A rather 'writely' idea.

Try it out 'write' now with your students!

Y! 360 Toolbox: Stevenson Library Blog

Yahoo! Teachers of Merit, Summer 2006 alumnus Kay Hones has a fantastic Y! 360 blog showcasing education programs at Stevenson Library and weekly updates of programs, events, and literacy happenings!

Kay has a seemingly endless trove of resources and it's great to see her have a forum to share these resources with other librarians, educators, and students.

Great work Kay!

Web Resources

• Yahoo! Teachers of Merit + Flickr
  
• techLearning + Yahoo! Teachers of Merit
  
• Yahoo! Teachers of Merit Program

SmartSheet

SmartSheet.com is another example of how the Web 2.0 will change the way we work. Remember, technology does not do your work for you or necessarily make life easier, it just helps us do our work differently.

SmartSheet is a new web-based application alternative to MS Office – Excel software that will allow you to build spreadsheets online, from any computer you are on, and will allow you to share your spreadsheet with others for collaboration and easily update your spreadsheet via email.

It’s a project management service that uses a web-based, hosted spreadsheet for you to complete tasks anywhere-whenever you need to get work done.

Unfortunately it's not free, but there is a 30 day free trial to see if it will help you do your work differently.

Education Grants, Donations & Resources

Yahoo! News > Education: "Teachers know all too well how quickly the limited money they receive for classroom supplies is spent. Some teachers can now turn to DonorsChoose to supplement their own resources." (via)

Web Links

• DonorsChoose
• Yahoo! for Good
• techLearning

School Grants

• Ongoing Grants
• Date Grants
• Grants@ Education World

Education Foundation Grants

• Hewlett Foundation
• Skoll Foundation
• Verizon Foundation

YackPack for Education

This summer the team over at YackPack has been über busy! Sometime between attending a bunch o' conferences and implementing some exciting new features, the YackPack team found time to whip up a fantastic new YackPack Education site.

Take a moment to check it out--you'll love it!

On the YackPack Education site, you'll find real world examples of how other educators are using YackPack in their classroom. If you're a member of the Moodle community, then be sure to join your fellow Moodler's in the YackPack MoodlePack--now there's a tongue twister!

Get that popcorn ready, kick up those feet, and watch a movie by the Salem-Keizer school district in Oregon showing how a private YackPack is being used in the Math Scene Investigation course.

And if you need help, visit the YackPack Support page which has information on using a microphone, getting around those pesky firewalls and even a YackLingo cheat sheet. Yo!

YackPack-based learning activities provide students with opportunities to collaborate with their peers, learn from experts, use technology in a constructivist manner, and utilize information set in an authentic context.

Sign up and find out why teachers all over the world are using YackPack in their classrooms! It's easy, it's free and it's fun!

So, what are you waiting for? Get Yacking!

YackLinks

• YackPack Education
• YackPack + BlendedEdu
• YackPack Screencast (en Français)
• YackPack: The Social Life of Speech

Net Day 2006: Speak Up on Schools & Technology

"Now in its fourth year, NetDay Speak Up is an annual national research project that collects the voices and views of key stakeholders in education on topics such as educational technology, science, math, and 21st workforce skills.

Over the past three years the project has collected the viewpoints of over 562,000 K-12 students from all 50 states, as well as 26,000 teachers. For the first time this year we've also added Speak Up for Parents!

The results of the surveys are shared with participating schools and districts so that they can use the data for planning and community discussion. In addition, the findings and data are used by local, state, and national organizations and government agencies to inform new programs and polices."

Net Day Resources

• Speak Up 2006
• Speak Up 100
• 2005 National Speak Up Report: "Our Voices, Our Future" (pdf)

MySpace Unraveled

Why is it kids are so drawn to social networks sites like MySpace?

If you can, get your hands on a copy of MySpace Unraveled: A Parent's Guide to Teen Social Networking; its a book every educator and parent should read about social networking.

Many books have been written about how -to use social networking, but this is the first book to discuss what social networking is, why these sites have become so popular with teens, and what you can do to help kids create safe constructive spaces online to learn from, and build interpersonal relations with their peers.

MySpace Unraveled by Larry Magid & Anne Collier will help you learn:

* The basics of online social networking.
* How children are using MySpace.
* Positive and negative aspects of social networking Web sites.
* Internet safety for kids.
* How to communicate with children about what they are doing online.
* What parental controls are available and how to use them.

Learning is social- kids like to socialize and 'hang-with' their friends online as well as in person.