From ETMOOC: Learning through blogging

I’ve been facilitating blogging sessions for ETMOOC (Massive Open Online Course on Educational Technology) and have written a series of posts to support the ideas, tips and resources discussed in my sessions.

Normally I would have written the posts here on The Edublogger but I wasn’t sure how many posts I would publish, for how long and I needed to make sure only ETMOOC specific posts were feed into the ETMOOC blog hub.  So instead I’ve published the posts on my personal blog and written this post to summarize:

  1. What was covered in each session.
  2. Provide a link to the post published to support the recorded session.
  3. Provide a link to the recorded session.
I’ve also embedded the videos I created for the sessions in this post.

While these sessions were provided for ETMOOC the content covered should help all educators wanting to know more about how you learn through blogging and how you use blogs with students.

ETMOOC is providing a whole series of free learning opportunities for educators, on a wide range of topic areas, and you can check out the regularly updated entire list of free archived BlackBoard Collaborate sessions here.

Below is a summary of the sessions I’ve provided for ETMOOC.  Enjoy!

1.  Introduction to Blogging

All ETMOOC participants have been ask to participate through their own blogs.  Quite a few participants are new to blogging and it’s really hard to appreciate how you might learn through blogging if you’ve never blogged before.

What they needed to know wasn’t the “how-to’ blog.  There is lots of information on how to set up your blog, how to write post and so on.

They needed to understand the pedagogical aspects of blogging – “How do you learn through blogging?”.  What are the key components that you have to understand when blogging to ensure you’re maximizing your learning.

The focus of this session was a pedagogical introduction to blogging as opposed to the technical.  While the emphasis is on how you do it as part of the ETMOOC communities the same principles apply any time your aim is to use blogging for learning.

The content from this session is covered in my Learning through blogging as part of a connectivist MOOC post.

Introduction to blogging session was repeated and there are differences between the two recorded versions.  Here is where you can watch the archived recordings:

2.  Advanced Blogging

The Advanced blogging session was a blend of what participants wanted to know mixed with skills they needed to know and the session included:

  1. The importance of linking and how to link.
  2. Commenting Etiquette and tips.
  3. Digital copyright and fair use.
  4. Using Creative Commons images.
  5. Tools for sourcing Creative Commons images.
  6. Using your own images in blog posts.
  7. Post Sharing Etiquette.
  8. Making posts visually engaging.
  9. Post work flow.

Refer my Blogging questions Storify to see how this session was planned and the blogging tips shared by my network — thanks to all who helped plan this session!.

The content from this session is covered in my Advanced Blogging: You asked for it post.   You can watch the recorded archive for the Advanced Blogging session here.

I also created the following three ‘how to’ videos to complement session.  I’m not the greatest screencaster but they should help.

Please let me know if you or your students decide to create better screencasts — so I can check them out!

Adding Creating Commons Images using the Compfight plugin

How to add Creative Commons images sourced on Compfight to your blog posts

How to embed media into blog posts using their URL

3.  Student Blogging

The student blogging session was inspired by ETMOOC participants like Lorraine Boulos who are realizing ”I am not just learning HOW to connect but WHY connect” and are now trying to transfer the skills they’re learning into their classrooms.

The session included:

  1. Background on my work with educational blogging.
  2. How blogs are used in education.
  3. The different approaches used for student blogging.
  4. Discussion on Scaffolding vs Struggling.
  5. Digital footprint and your role in relation to your student’s digital footprint.
  6. Developing quality commenting skills.
  7. Creating Global Connections.
  8. Getting Family involved.
  9. The need to monitor student blogs.

The content from this session is covered in my Getting more out of student blogging post.   You can watch the recorded archive for the Student Blogging session here.

I also created the following two videos on how to use My Class.

How to set up My Class on an Edublogs blog.

Using My Class to easily manage all your student blogs and users.

A lot of our Edublogs users aren’t aware of all the different features of My Class.  So the following video showcases all the different ways you can manage your student blogs using My Class.

4.  Other ETMOOC posts

I also wrote the following other posts for ETMOOC that might interest you!

  1. Work smarter and stay connected in a learning community post – demonstrates how people like myself use a series of strategies to save time to work smarter.
  2. Staying Sane: Letting Go to Learn More post – discusses why it is important to prioritize your learning to avoid information overload,
  3. Commenting Counts (Or does it) post – check out the comments to gain an appreciation of why commenting is an important part of blogging.

Hope these posts and links to blogging sessions helped!

PS ETMOOC is free and open to any one to participate.  It’s never too late to join and start participating.

3 thoughts on “From ETMOOC: Learning through blogging

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *