Cool Ways to Use Blogs

Digital Natives - Digital Immigrants

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:28:00 +0000

Hi Guys !
We are going to check out how to use blogger.

Read this article by Marc Prensky. He talks about what Chris Schultz mentioned in class. Then I'd like you to blog about 3 important "lightbulb" moments for you from the article.

Ripping Music in Windows Media Player 10

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:47:00 +0000

How to Rip Music in Windows Media Player 10

1. Put the Audio CD into the CD Tray.
2. Open Windows Media Player. You must use Version 10 which is a free download.
3. Click on the RIP tab.
4. Uncheck the boxes except for the songs you want to rip.
5. The click on the icon on the right side to RIP MUSIC.
6. A progress bar will appear showing that the music has been ripped.
7. Once the ripping is finished, click on the Library tab.
8. Find the song in the Library.
9. Right click on the song and click on Open Containing folder…
10. This will take you directly to the folder that contains the “ripped music”
11. You should probably move the music from that folder to the folder that contains your movie project.

Distance Comm Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 21:04:00 +0000

We are trying an experiment in our Distance Communications course. It will be another "cool way to use blogs". Check out some of my student's blogs here
http://katedistancecomm.blogspot.com
http://dianedistancecomm.blogspot.com
http://eileendistancecomm.blogspot.com
http://sharonkdistancecomm.blogspot.com
http://callydistancecomm.blogspot.com
http://mcgarryirish.blogspot.com
http://distancel.blogspot.com
http://sharonwdistancecomm.blogspot.com/

Crazy Idea that Just Might Work

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 23:35:00 +0000

All the librarians I know are about to have a stroke. But I've got to get this crazy idea out there.
It drives me nuts to write citations. You know, the ALA, MLA format crap. First, you buy this book for about $30 bucks to find out how to write the citations. Then you look through all these examples of different ways to cite the article, and try to figure out which one to use. Do you indent, outdent, use commas, periods, do you leave spaces between each one, do you blah, blah, blah. It's such a colossal waste of time.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that we don't cite things. But, couldn't it just be a common courtesy thing ? If there is a particular way that you are supposed to "cite" an article, why don't the writers just add that to the bottom of the article. Every author could put a little line at the end of the article, book, etc.. with the citation that they want you use when you reference them. Sounds crazy doesn't it ? Just think, we could free up so much time in the Middle School Library Curriculum. We might even get an opportunity to teach kids to evaluate source material rather than thinking that everything that is bound into a book must be gospel truth.

Wouldn't the world be a great place if we didn't need to teach that ridiculous skill to students anymore ?
What do you think - I really do want to know.

Fioravanti, Gina: Crazy Idea that Just Might Work: July 30, 2005. BLOG ENTRY

Radical Ideas: What Can You Learn from a Cell Phone

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 23:26:00 +0000

Okay, I'm still trying to digest this whole blogging idea and think of a way to make it "palatable" to educators. Then, I read this article by Marc Prensky about using cell phones in student learning. You can check it out at Innovate: What Can You Learn from a Cell Phone? Almost Anything! by Marc Prensky. He's saying that most kids have cell phones, over 90% of college kids carry them. He's suggesting using them for assingments. Having them text each other during class to share ideas, having them leave voice mails for assignments. Using the cell phone browsers to access the internet.

It's a pretty progressive idea, but so is using blogs. I've got to wonder: isn't it the message that we care about (no pun intended) rather than the medium. I'm not saying that we would encourage students to only use blogs or cell phone messages for that matter -but we might want to design assignments that focus more on getting student's ideas rather than requiring perfect formatting or a certain number of pages.

Just a thought. Oh, and if my 6th grade Language Arts teacher reads this, she'll have a stroke. This definitely flys in the face of my good girl, Catholic school ,palmer method education.

Technorati

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 03:10:00 +0000

I tried searching TECHNORATI for examples of how educators are using blogs.
It's a pretty cool search tool for blogs. I added my blog to the Technorati list. I'm not sure what happens next. I think that someone has to make a link to my blog for it to climb in the ranking. I was ranked 725,742
Trying to learn more about how technorati works.

How Elementary Kids are Using Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 03:07:00 +0000

Here's an article about students using blogs in elementary education. Just click on How Elementary Kids are Using Blogs in the title above.
I'm definitely bought in to the concept of using blogs with 5th grade on up.
Still trying to decide about the younger ones. Might be cool if there was a way to set them up for younger students so they could just record thoughts with a microphone and have them translated into a daily blog.

Problems with SchoolBlogs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 02:54:00 +0000

At first glance, it looks like www.schoolblogs.com would be kind of cool. I need to find a blogging spot for students that can be a closed environment without advertising and preferably no adult content. That's important to me because I'm working with a 5th grade teacher on setting up blogs for her students to discuss a book they are reading. The problem with www.schoolblogs.com right now is that they will only take new signups from people with .edu e-mail addresses. Most of the teachers that I'm working with have .org or .k12.pa.us domains for e-mail addresses.

Also... I really want to find a site that has a student friendly interface for young kids. I'll keep looking. Let me know if you find any out there.

Checking out the Experts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 02:47:00 +0000

I'm looking around the web and checking out how some "web experts" in the education field are using blogs. One of my favorite gurus on technology, Kathy Schrock, has been talking about using Wikipedia in the classroom with students. You can check that out here http://kathyschrock.blogspot.com/
Click on the title above to check out Kathy's blog for yourself.

Getting Started with Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 18:46:00 +0000

There are so many cool ways to use blogs in education. Kids who normally wouldn't think that writing is fun will love to blog. It is a great way to "discuss" news articles, etc... and really get input from all your students.

One way to create a blog is to go to www.blogger.com. Blogger is part of google and you can go there to set up a new blog.