Studyplans

I just read Bee's email about how she got started with blogs and how she has used them with her classes. She shared the link to her Buzznet site: http://mugshots.buzznet.com/user/?id=694820 where students took pictures of their coffee mugs and then told about them. This was a great idea, I thought, and may use it, or a similar one, with my students. I even made a comment on one of the "mugshots."
Barbara says she has her students open a Blogger, Flickr, and bloglines account. She has her students photograph their mugs in different places, then upload the photo's to Flickr. They post first on Blogger, then Buzznet, where they will comment on other people's blogs. I wonder why they don't post the photo they wanted to use directly onto Buzznet. I also still have to figure out how to add RSS ability to my Blogger account before I can use bloglines with a class. Since I collect mugs when I travel, this is an especially interesting project to me. I even posted a comment to Bee on her LiveJournal blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/bdieu/

First, I have to say how much I have loved this course! I have learned an incredible amount, although there is about a million times that much that I could learn yet! I send a heartfelt thanks to everyone who created, ran, commented, asked questions, and answered my questions. This has been a wonderful experience. I plan to keep reading and trying things until this course is offered again. Then I will be one of the people who say that I am taking it for the second time because it was so great the first time:)

I liked the photos on Susan's blog: http://susanmarandi.buzznet.com/user/. I'm looking forward to watching it as she adds more.

I told one of my online classes about Web Collaborator: http://webcollaborator.com/
They think it sounds good for working on their team project. I hope it does!

I read John's blog at: http://blog-efl.blogspot.com/2005/02/besig-where-are-business-english-blogs.html and liked his idea about having the students meet face-to-face, work on a project from various locations, followed up by feedback, then making any needed changes. This sounds like a good plan to me and I'm going to use it for a graduate class that is being held on two weekends in the spring. Because of the time that the students will be in the class, I think this will work out well. I wonder why his students don't like to do this?

I've been thinking what I will write about in my blog when this class is finished and then I read an email to the group from Elderbob. He talked about blogs not being a diary, but a public spot to discuss ideas. He says that to have an effective blog, the teacher needs to think through the purpose of the blog and who will read it. He points out that for this class the blogs were set up by us students in the beginning with the knowledge that others would be reading them. I would like to point out that our blogs were also commented on by others in the class and by the instructors in the beginning, also. This really did make me, at least, feel that others were reading my blog. Thanks to all of you!
Elderbob also talked about the use of constructive criticism in reading each other's blogs. I teach for the University of Phoenix Online and have the students put their individual and team work in an Outlook Express newsgroup for everyone in the class to read. Students comment on each others work. This seems to work out well and many students have commented that they learn a lot from this. He also points out that blogs are pretty new and will take a while for educators to figure out how to use them. I agree with this, and also think that it will take sometime after we know ways to use them for them to be accepted as an educational tool by the general public.
Then he told about Renata Grankageva's Blog: http://www.grankageva.blogspot.com/
Renata keeps a blog telling about her classes, what went well, what didn't, what happened in the classes, etc. I am thinking about doing that after this course is finished. Elderbob pointed out that students many times do what the instructor does. Teachers tend to teach like they were taught and I think that discussing what has happened in the classes I teach may be of interest to other teachers and students in the education field. Even better, if others comment, then more ideas will be presented to be talked over. Thanks, Elderbob, for a very thoughtful email to the group.
Now if I could just figure out how to add her blog to my bloglines list. I'm think there is a way, but I can't figure it out.

I like the idea of eportfolios very much and have enjoyed reading about them. I just found an article with an annotated list of places that host eportfolios: Product Roundup: An Electronic Portfolio Sampler: http://syllabus.com/article.asp?id=7107

This week, for me, has been more of a thinking week.
One of the things I have thought about are e-portfolios. I read the article Beyond the Electronic Portfolio: A Lifetime Personal Web Space: http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/eqm04/eqm0441.asp?bhcp=1
It talked about the idea of providing everyone with unlimited personal webspace from birth to death. The fact that everything is in one place seems like a good idea. The way an e-portfolio is described in this article, the individual would decide who would be allowed to view various sections. The search capabilities would enhance its use. Since I am interested in genealogy, having access to my ancestors' e-portfolios would be very interesting. One thing that I wish would happen immediately is having one password and log in. I have a drawer full of logins and passwords. I use to worry that if some one broke into my house they would be able to access all of my files by using those little slips of paper. Now I can't even figure out what half of them are for! I'm don't know anything about chatbots, and I'm not sure whether I like the idea of creating a personality from a persons writing, but the odor idea was even more startling to read about. I think one reason I liked this article in the summary they acknowledged that they have more questions than answers...just like me.
Off the topic a little, the movement of the left column as I read was really annoying to me!
That article had a link to Jurist: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/ which I then went to visit and spent some time there. I like the idea that it has real time information. I see that it has an RSS feed for the different sections. I want to sign up for them all, but I can't keep up with the ones I have. I feel I am on overload at this moment:)

I've spent the last two days visiting blogs from people in this class. It has been great fun and I have found some great ideas.
One of the ideas that I think I can use soon is that of the Mystery Guest. Susanne Nyrop is a mystery guest in Wendy's advanced writing course. Susanne created a blog and the students ask her questions. I liked to read Wendy's course blog, also. This is a blended class and students post their work to this blog.

I just visited some of the blogs on Buzznet and like the way they are set up. I like Blogger because I can figure it out, LiveJournal seems a little complicated. Buzznet seems to cater to photos, though I may be wrong on that. I especially like the slide shows that are available. I just signed up for Buzznet: http://studyplans.buzznet.com/user/ and wonder how it will work for my classes. I'll try to put an assignment on it today and see how it looks. After I signed up, I also see that it is easy to post messages for others both with their postings and in an email area. In fact, after thinking about it, I decided to do something I have wanted to do for a long time. I plan to take a picture from the front door of where ever I am at about 8:00 EST each morning. To do this I created a gallery at: http://studyplans-morningview.buzznet.com/user/

Aiden asked if it is better to have one blog that I set up or if it is better for students to set up their own blogs. I am also interested to know what people who have experience with blogs in the classroom think about that. I suppose it depends on the reason for the blog and the age of the students. I am thinking about making it a requirement that students create a blog in my college class next fall.

I tried some of the audblog sites but to open them I had to subscribe to MusicMatch, for some reason. I didn't read about anyone else having to do that, so I am thinking that somehow I have my computer set up this way. I have RealOne, which I would think would work but I'm not given an option of what program to open the files in. This happens with every site. Maybe I should just register with MusicMatch.

I was intrigued by AudioBlogger. It says that I can add to my blog using my cell phone as I travel. Audioblogger says the service is free. This is a marvelous idea that I plan to try as soon as I can. I have to figure out how to listen to the sound first, though.

Since audblogs use a cell phone, I'm not sure how moblogs are different. I'll have to look into that more.

Video blogs asked me to download the video and I was chicken. I'm careful what I download and want to read more about this before I start to randomly downloading video files. I read the comments about some of them, though, and I bet they are interesting.

The articles about Flickr were informative and I plan to share them with my computer class. 'Flickr' is in an online photo class by itself very clearly explains how flickr can be used. Photo Site a Hit With Bloggers shows how photo blogs can be used to keep up with fast breaking news. This would be a good use of blogs in the classroom.

If I want a change from flickr, I'll try Photobucket or Zorpia. As I was looking at these sites, I thought about what would happen if they became unavailable. All the photos would be lost, I imagine.

This was a great week and once again, I could spend a month trying out all the new things I am learning! My thanks to everyone of their questions and answers:)

Just when I thought I was getting good because I could add an image to my blog, I find out there are whole photoblogs! Between looking at them and practicing more with furl, I spent a lot of time on this part of the assignment. I especially liked the photoblogs that told what the image was and when the picture was taken. After used furl to save the three photoblogs I liked best, I discovered that I could see blogs (and sites) that others chose. Because they also liked the blogs I chose, it was worthwhile looking at the ones they chose. I especially liked the emotions that were apparent in nearly every blog. That would be a good thing to share with students. Also, there are photoblogs from around the world, which is an interesting way to learn about other people. In the classes that I am teaching now, I am going to introduce the students to photoblogs in general. Very interesting assignment!

Thanks to about a million people, I was able to upload the blog file for this class into Bloglines.
I am so proud! I even found my blog in the list!!

I also furled The Gimp site that Nathan provided a link to in answer to a question from Marc. I agree with Marc and would be interested in any other help files Nathan has.

Unfortunately, I have to go to work now, but I leave with a great feeling of accomplishment!

The icons were were they should be and I moved them to my tool bar without incident. Then I furled the page telling the 10 reasons to furl.
When I give talks, I like to use webpages. As I understand it, using furl would allow me to access the page, even if it has changed, the webcam is down, etc. I see that I can still use hyperlinks on the pages I have furled.
My furl link is: http://www.furl.net/members/studyplans
This seems like it will be very useful for me.
Also, I could spend all day looking at the pages other people have furled!

Just to say hey! I hope everybody is well. I looking forward to talking about "study plans" but am not sure what to talk about so I will leavit at that. I suppose that we can call this a trial first post run! I sure hope this works. Bye everybody! Klee Buell

As usual, I have more questions than answers.
I got a message from Cleve about the picture I added yesterday. I'm not sure where the usual place to reply is so I replied on his blog (I think).
When I followed the link from my comment to my blog, it gives me links to two blogs that I experimented with in March and have deleted, I thought. They don't show up on my dashboard. They are under recent postings. I would like to get rid of them.

Also, I have a contributor listed, which is great, but I don't know how they got there. I looked at Cleve's site after I commented and I'm not listed as a contributor. I added the email for the students in one of my class so they can comment on the blog. Looks like they can to it as well, or instead of, comment. How does that work, I wonder?

I have a bloglines account. I put the button from bloglines to put "sub with bloglines" on my bloglines account. However, I can't figure out how to save the OPML file to my hard drive. Thanks to Nathan Lowell for the "cookbook" at: http://nclid.unco.edu/edse/bloglines/ It tells, in an easy to follow way, how to import the blogs for the class onto bloglines. I think I will be able to follow it easily as soon as I can save the OPML file. Thanks a lot, Nathan!

Task 2 for this week is to subscribe to a keyword search on bloglines. I don't see where to do that.

Task 3 is to sign up for furl at: http://www.furl.net/home.jsp. I did that but I don't want to close my browser yet, and it says I need to do that to see the icons I need, so this ends my questions for now. I'm sure I'll have more later!

This is the field behind my house. I just took the picture, put it in flickr, and am now uploading it to my blog....I think! There is a space for tags and I read the explanation, but I don't understand it. Maybe I will after I see this posting to my blog.

I just linked flickr to my blog, I think. If I am correct, this photo, taken by someone in Boston, will be on my blog site somewhere.

In one of my classes last week, we discussed blogs. I showed the students my blog, including the comments section. They could not comment, however, so I just added their email address to make them members of my blogging community. They should be able to comment now, if they want to. I think this would be a great way to allow students to comment on a blog but not those outside the class. However, I'm still unclear what happens if I put a fake email in for students who do not have, or choose to use a real one.

This morning I signed up for Flickr. That was an easy process that I will also recommend to my classes. Now I have to figure out how to put them in my blog. I got this picture from Flickr. I chose it because, even though it is from Boston, it could be taken out side my door.

I just listened the archived talk by Mary Harrsch. I learned so much about blogging that I am going to listen to it again in a few days, after I have tried some some of the ideas. I'm so glad that it was archived!

One of the things that I am going to look into more is Flicker. I had not heard of it before, but I think it has many uses in the classroom and for me personally.

I love using Elluminate Live! I am going to show this archive to my Computers in the Classroom class next week. First I will practice with it a little more. Thanks, Mary, for telling so many ways that it can be used in the classroom. I particularly liked the discussion about writing for an audience and the question and answer session.

I also want to practice with Foxfire so that I can send a link and information about it directly to my blog. I can't find the Blog This icon, but after I listen to the talk again, I think I will find it.

Adding a RSS feed to my blog will be a good idea, I think. I'm not sure I can do it, but after I listen to this a couple of more times, perhaps I will be able to.

At the beginnng of this course, I wondered why some people were taking it for a second time. Now I think I will take it every year for the rest of my life! In fact, I may have to quit my job so that I can spend more time with my blog. I wonder if I can get paid for blogging:)