Category Archives: Blogging

Blogging

Down Time

I want to apologize for the down time on this site. About midnight last night, I began uploading a newer version of WordPress via FTP to my site so that I could upgrade. Right in the middle of this process, my host, Bluehost, crapped out in a spectacular fashion. I was tired and went to bed, figuring there was little I could do about it until Bluehost fixed things on their end. Now that they have, I have finished my upgrade and am now running WordPress 2.1 on this blog. The reason none of my other blogs were affected is that I was not in the middle of uploading files to those blogs. I think that because my upgrade was only about half done, it “broke” my blog for a while.

On that note, I have to say that up until a few months ago, I loved Bluehost and would have recommended them to anyone who wanted to run a website. In the last few months, however, incidents like last nights’ have been fairly frequent. Steve’s crime blogs were hosed right as a major story was breaking. He’s way too ADD to fix something like that without my help, and I was out of town, so to the best of my knowledge, they’re still broken. It takes a few margaritas before I am willing to tackle his sites when they break. So for now, he’s blogging at Blogger’s Blogspot domain. Bluehost wasn’t very helpful when he contacted customer support. In the past they have been extremely helpful, but this time, Steve was basically told the problem was his fault. A few days later all of us Bluehost sites received an e-mail saying otherwise (and deeply apologetic). So lately, I can’t say I’m very happy with Bluehost, but I’m not willing to jump ship entirely. My hope is that their current troubles are so many bumps in the road and will be fixed soon.

[tags]Bluehost, Blogger, WordPress 2.1, WordPress[/tags]

Blogging, Wikis

Faculty Presentation

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Most of you reading this right now probably blog already, and many of you use wikis, too.  I have given a presentation at a GISA conference on using blogs and wikis in the classroom, but I was also really sick that day and don’t feel I did a good job.  I am determined to do a better job in front of my colleagues at a presentation I will be giving on January 2.  Those of you who use blogs and wikis in the classroom might be able to help me.  What do you wish someone had told you or taught you prior to using these tools?  What piece of advice would you give educators beginning to use these tools?  If you have used blogs or wikis in the classroom, can you point me toward those resources so that I can share them?

Blogging, Technology, Wikis

Blogs and Wikis

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I waited until the site went live before announcing it, but I am proud to annouce the debut of my senior Short Story seminar class’s wiki for Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. It is almost complete at this point, and I am very proud of the job the students have done. I created the “portal” or start page, and they did all of the rest, including finding appropriate video and pictures and even creating an animated GIF for the title. They were enthusiastic about the project, and they were excited to share it with others in the blogging/wiki/educational community. Please go check it out! I will share any comments you make about the wiki with them, as I have password protected comments on the wiki so that only students of mine who know the password can comment. I could probably fix it so guests could comment at a future date.

In other news, a student of mine decided to do his “Moral Perfection” project on a blog, and he has now entered the blogosphere, having enjoyed the project so much that he plans to keep it up. I think it is OK to point you toward his blog, which is all about soccer (or, as he would tell you it is more properly known, football). Be sure to check out his explanation of the project. He’s already thinking about podcasting, and I haven’t even gone there yet!

Richard Beach, professor at the University of Minnesota, plans to use a screenshot of my Awakening discussion wiki (which my students did last year) in his upcoming book Engaging Students in Digital Writing, which will be published in 2007. I will give you more information about ordering if you like once it is published.

I made a decision this week. When I go back to get my Master’s, I will be majoring in Instructional Technology. As my department head reminded me, this — figuring out how to integration technology into education — is my passion. I had planned to get an advanced English degree, but I have to admit that as much as I enjoy reading literature and writing, grad school English didn’t much appeal to me. I thought about becoming a Media Specialist some years back, but I really still want to teach. I don’t want to go into administration. I’m ill-suited for it. However, I think teaching students about technology would be stimulating, satisfying, and interesting.

Blogging

Blogging Question

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I have noticed that while many people link this blog — for which I am grateful — it remains low-profile.  I know the main thing I can do to change that is simply to update more.  That’s not so easy, but I suppose it is something I will have to make time for if I really wish to get this blog “out there.”

I suppose my question (here I go possibly opening a can of worms or worse) is what can I do to make this blog a better reading experience for you?  Keep in mind there are some non-negotiables:

  • I will not post negative comments about my school, colleagues, students, or their parents.  I post under my real name, and I do not wish to bring trouble upon myself in order to entertain anyone else.  Actually, to be honest, there isn’t much negative stuff to post.
  • I don’t want to feel pressured to update every day.  I am a full-time English teacher with three children, two of whom are small children, and I have only so many hours in the day.  I would like to update more, but I cannot commit to updating daily.
  • I will not post anything I would feel uncomfortable about my parents, adminstrators, students, or their parents reading.  In fact, at one time or another, I think representatives from all of those groups have visited this blog, and I am committed to representing myself, my school, and my profession in a positive light.

That said, I’m willing to take suggestions.

Blogging, Professional Development, Technology

Blogs as Teaching Documents

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I recently presented a session on using blogs and wikis in the classroom at the annual GISA conference. I focused on teacher and student-created and maintained blogs and wikis and didn’t touch very much on how we can learn from these tools. When I share my presentation with my own faculty in January, I would like to include this information. I probably won’t have to teach teachers how to figure out whether a blog poster has reliable credentials, but that would be necessary if I were sharing blogs with students. After all, I have a blog, and I can declare a recipe for cold fusion that really works, but no one should believe me if I do that — after all, my credentials as an English teacher are not exactly reliable compared to those of a nuclear physicist or even a science teacher.

Blogging history, literary and otherwise, seems to have developed into a major trend. I am very excited about this trend, as I think it makes history alive for students and makes the people they study seem like flesh and blood. I found several examples of such blogs.

Boston 1775 purports to be “a miscellany of information about New England just before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, and about how that history has been studied, taught, preserved, politicized, mythologized, lost, recovered, discussed, described, distorted, and now digitized.” It is maintained by J.L. Bell, a Massachusetts writer who specializes in Revolutionary War-era Boston and has written scholarly papers for children and adults and consulted in the show History Detectives.

The Blog of Henry David Thoreau makes Thoreau’s journals accessible to everyone with Internet access. It is maintained by Greg Perry, a poet who posts Thoreau’s journals on the corresponding date today. For example, on November 18, 2006, Greg Posted Thoreau’s journal entry from November 18, 1857.

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog is not so much a digitized version of a document produced by Chaucer as a vision of what a “blogge” by Chaucer might really look like; more than anything else, it’s just good satire. Reading this blog, one can get a feel for Middle English, a sense of the politics of the time, and most importantly, an appreciation for Chaucer. The site is maintained by an anonymous medievalist.

Pepys Diary is digitized presentation of the diary of Samuel Pepys, whose Restoration-era diary is an excellent primary source document of the period. It is maintainted by Phil Gyford, a UK website designer who bases his site on the 1893 edition of Pepys diary, which was edited by Henry B. Wheatley.

These are just a few that I know about. Please share your own discoveries in the comments section.

Blogging, Professional Development

Essential Edublogging: The Reflective Teacher

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One of the things I like about the Reflective Teacher is that he posts frequently and honestly about his classroom — what works and what doesn’t. He shares his ideas. I think more than many education bloggers, he really treats the edublogosphere like a faculty lounge. Frankly, I think too many folks are in such desperate teaching circumstances that they need their education blog to vent and kvetch about their jobs. I don’t begrudge them that, and I often commiserate, having been in some not-so-pleasant teaching circumstances at other points in my career. However, it is refreshing to see Mr. Teacher’s enthusiasm, not to mention the fact that his site is really attractive and he makes really pretty handouts. He has an eye for document/web design.

In addition to his regular blog, Mr. Teacher also administrates Think, Pair, Share. This blog was orignally a compendium of lessons, but I think Mr. Teacher has had trouble getting submissions; that’s just the way it is in education — we are, for the most part, stretched too thin. It’s a shame because ideas like this are wonderful ways to learn new approaches to our curricula. He plans to continue contests for lesson plans and to update the site with links to relevant educational sites.

Which education blog do you have trouble doing without?

Blogging, Technical/Site Issues, Technology

Updates and Organization

I have re-organized links in the sidebar so you don’t have to hunt for my other sites. In a box entitled “Links,” you’ll find links to my classroom wiki, classroom blog, GISA Educators’ Wiki (set up for participants in my upcoming GISA presentation in November), lesson plan wiki, and student blog.

I encourage you to check out my students’ work at their wiki and blog.  We are doing so exciting things right now (or, I should say I am excited, at least).  I have added some material to my lesson plan wiki.  I have found that I don’t have as much time to add material to that wiki as I would like — oddly enough, I’m too busy planning and teaching to actually find time to share, too, but I’m trying to be better.  I now have my Colonial and Revolutionary American literature pages restored over there.  Every time I look at it, though, I’m aware of how much I still want to do and I suddenly feel very tired.

Blogging, Professional Development

GISA Confusion

As I have previously mentioned, I am presenting a session on using blogs and wikis in the classroom at the GISA conference this fall.  I was reading through the descriptions of the afternoon sessions (mine is a morning session) so I could decide what to take, and I was more than a little dismayed to discover someone else is doing pretty much exactly the same session as I am doing in the afternoon.  I am not upset at the other presenter at all.  In fact, I think it’s great that so many teachers are using blogs and wikis and want to show other teachers how.  I do, however, think it is redundant to have two sessions on the same topic, even if they’re at different times.  I think it may take participants away from both of us.  I wonder how it is that GISA managed to make this mistake.  If the other teacher’s proposal arrived before mine, they should have told me they already had a session on that topic, thank you very much, or vice versa.

Well, here’s hoping we will both still have success.