This was a How and Why instead of a How-to session. It wasn’t here is how to set up and edublog, but instead here is how to plan for that, and here is your goal, and think about what to do to get there.

The session itself:

Here is the Google Doc Presentation:

and Audio:

First, I wanted to keep things balanced, so I put in links and examples from other platforms besides edublogs.org. I was using Blog Talk Radio because I wanted to have Lisa Parisi call in for questions about Class Blogmeister, and didn’t want to rely on CUE’s internet connection (you can call in from a phone to Blog Talk Radio). That totally did not work, and although it recorded me, it drops the audio at the halfway point? Anyway, you get most of the session. There was a larger audience that at the morning (Gail Desler counted 17), so that felt good. I actually got butterflies as I was starting, which is not usual, but it was good once I got going. Gail said the audience seemed pretty engaged. I make a practice of NOT reading the feedback forms, which may be a mistake since I guess I won’t be able to look at them later, hmm, any experienced CUE presenters know about this?

Lessons Learned:

Hmm, don’t rely on Blog Talk Radio? I probably made a mistake. Maybe get more familiar with it? How about Skype next time, since I did get an internet connection? Not only did I flub that, I forgot to do a “prize” I had some supporter status edublogs to give out (thank you Sue Waters). I added a comment on the CUE ning asking folks to drop a comment and “win a prize” two folks left comments, but haven’t made further contact when I said what they had won. I feel like it was a good presentation, and I hit my points. It didn’t feel as strong as the morning session, but I think working with a partner really makes me push myself more. I was exhausted by the end of the session. I had taken a cat nap on the pool terrace, but I was DYING by the end of the session.

Links:

The CUE community forum page for my session

When a person clicks on a link to your page or types it into a sidebar, they don’t want to see a plain white page full of non-stop, brain numbing words. No bland font or sleep-inducing posts. — Building a better blog and having fun doing it!!! | ♥Ashley’s Blog

I do think my post had good points about fair use law in the U.S., but Ashley had a more succinct and pithy approach which I think was superior.

I’d like to suggest that if Sue wants to point out a post that may have one good point,  she might consider honorable mentions. She obviously did a lot of work on this, and I’m just pleased to have one winner, so I’m not going to be piggy.

The rhythm of relationships with students is a little different for me, and this being my second year in the computer lab has really brought that home. I was reading Dan Meyer’s The First Fortnight, where he discussed the process of starting over and building relationships with a new group of kids. I guess I forgot that even though high school teachers are organized around subject matter, their specialty within a given subject could cause them to see only one grade level of students.

I am in a different world. I see all the kids in my school for as long as they and I come here. This means that some of my relationships are not starting over on page one, but picking up somewhere else. That somewhere else is not always where we left off before summer vacation.

I’m not the same, and where we are at in the curriculum is not the same as where we left off in the summer. I have new ideas I want to try out, and we are on different subjects than we were. We had established a relationship that recognized the work they had done, and some trust they had earned. With the fifth and sixth graders, I’ve had to tell students that this is all starting over. So they want to go to the same activities we did last year, and I’m having to tell them, they will get more choices including those, but I have to see that they are serious an finishing work. In addition, like many high poverty schools, we have a highly transient population, and there are lots of new faces I’ve never seen. I’m having to establish myself with those students. There is some continuity. My fifth and especially sixth graders are quickly picking up the blog commenting essentials.

In many ways though the students are not the same. There is one sixth grade student in particular that seems to have had a personality transplant brought to us by Mr. Hormone. He is still basically a sweet kid and is just really talkative and easily distracted, which beats the other possibilities (moody and surly), but is shocking compared to my memories. For some of the grades making a big developmental leap we are in the tricky no-mans land between their being more mature than they were as say, kindergarteners and third graders, but still not at near the same level as the first and fourth graders were at the end of June. I’ve forgotten many of the steps along that path in some of my planning. I only blogged with fourth, fifth, and sixth graders last year. I made some horrid assumptions about the incoming fourth graders and just plunged them into both doing a task, and typing up a blog comment. They can really only do one at a time, so I’m scaling back to asking them to say hello.