Category Archives: Latest News & Updates

Don’t Forget To Laugh!

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My posts lately have been very serious — off course, nothing wrong with that :)

But thought everyone might enjoy a bit of a chuckle? And a chance to see my funnier side.

Hopefully it helps those feeling frustrated with technology to see we all face the same challenges. 

But together we can get through it and help each other!

Enjoy watching my First Time using an iSight on a Mac

PS No Mac was harmed in the making of this film!  But my PC felt neglected.

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Merry Christmas Everyone From……?

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Merry Christmas everyone!  Thanks for all your amazing support this year and I hope you enjoy your holiday break!

Let’s Celebrate Together

To continue last year’s tradition I’ve written this post so we can celebrate Christmas / holidays as part of a global community.

This year I’ve created a WallWisher.  Thanks to Lesley Edwards for suggesting we use WallWisher.

Just go to WallWisher Educhristmas09 or click on Post A Sticky to add your season’s greeting. Feel free to link to photos, videos, or audio!

Our Christmas /Holiday Photos

I’ll also be embedding a Flickr Slideshow again this year:

  1. Just upload photos of how you celebrate Christmas /holiday in your part of the world to Flickr and tagged them educhristmas09
  2. Please add a description, including your geographical location, to each photo.

Refer to this series of posts if you are new to using Flickr.

Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Edublogs Award 2009 Now Open For Nominations!

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Edublog AwardsLooking to thank your favorite bloggers?

Here’s your opportunity!

Nominations for the Edublog Awards 2009 are now open!

And best of all this year we have new categories including my favorite Best Student blog…

So students, teachers, class bloggers (and everyone) start nominating your favorite blogger(s) and web sites — we’re all looking forward to learning about great blogs!

About The Edublogs Awards

The Edublog Awards is an annual event that is now in its 6th year.

Each year the Edublogs Awards creates fabulous resources to share ideas on how social networking tools can be used in different educational contexts.

To be involved all you need to do is:

1.  Nominate

Choose the sites that you want to nominate in the following categories (you can nominate for as many, or as few, categories as you like):

Best individual blog
Best individual tweeter
Best group blog
Best new blog
Best class blog
Best student blog
Best resource sharing blog
Most influential blog post
Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion
Best teacher blog
Best librarian / library blog
Best educational tech support blog
Best elearning / corporate education blog
Best educational use of audio
Best educational use of video / visual
Best educational wiki
Best educational use of a social networking service
Best educational use of a virtual world
Lifetime achievement

Nominations close Tuesday 8 December!  And you MUST follow exactly the instructions explained below!

2.  Vote

Once the nomination process is complete voting will commence and you’ll be able to submit your votes for as many, or as few, categories as you like on the Edublog Awards website.

Voting ends Wednesday 16 December!

3.  Award Ceremony

Winners are announced at the Award Ceremony on Friday 18 December!

How To Nominate!

You must follow these two simple steps to nominate or your nominations won’t be counted!

Step 1: Write a post on your blog linking to:

  1. The Edublog Awards Homepage
  2. The blogs & sites that you want to nominate (you must include a link to each site you nominate!)

You can nominate for as many categories as you like, but only one nomination per category, and not yourself :)

You can nominate a blog (or site) for more than one category)

Check out these nomination posts to see how it can be done!

  • Silvia Tolisano has made her nomination post really EASY to grab her links to use in the voting process
  • Liz B. Davis’s nomination post has done an excellent job of explaining her choices

Step 2: Email the link to your nomination post as follows:

  1. Go to The Edublog Awards nomination
  2. Scroll to the contact form at the bottom of the page (The Edublog Awards nomination)
  3. Complete the contact form and click send
    • You MUST include a genuine email address (spam free, just in case we need to confirm identity)
    • You MUST include the link to your nominations post

Your complete contact form should look similar to this example below!

You can’t submit your nominations without writing a blog post — please note class blogs can submit multiple posts by different authors!

How to nominate

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Announcing The Winners Of The “Share your tips–and win BIG!” Competition!

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It’s time to announce the winners of “Share your tips–and win BIG!” and a big thanks to everyone who entered.

Here’s the winners with a brief summary of why they won:

Gail Desler has extensive experience in both student blogging and supporting others educators in the use of blogs with their students.  She submitted three posts for the competition that all are ‘must read’ posts packed full of advice on blogging with students which is why I’ve decided all three posts are winning posts:

  1. Five Tips for Teachers New to Blogging
  2. Five Tips for Helping Students Become Better Bloggers
  3. Five Borrowed Tips for Helping Students Become Better Bloggers

Lauren and Abbey are two truly amazing student bloggers who consistently astound me with the posts they write.  Joining them with an incredible post is Dominique, another student blogger.

The posts they submitted are so ‘must read’ that it would be an honor if they guest posted their posts here on The Edublogger

Considering their ages and the fact I’ve never approached anyone ever to guest post on The Edublogger gives you an indication of how incredible the posts by these student bloggers are:

  1. Starting Out Blogging (Abbey’s post)
  2. Edublogs Advice (Lauren’s post)
  3. Le blogging défi de Sue Waters…. (Dominique’s post)

Carla Arena is a Brazilian EFL teacher who supports other educators learning how to blog through programs like “Blogging For Educators“.  Her Blogging with Students in 5 Tips post highlights the importance of connecting your student bloggers to a global multicultural audience.

Dave Mendall’s 5 Important Tips for Blogging with Students post provides  a timely reminder of need to keep it simple, remain focused, lower your expectations, embrace the unexpected and don’t give up!

Danielle Maley wrote a clever poem explaining early childhood educators can use blogs with their students while providing student blogging tips.  And Mrs Harvey shows us how she explains to her different classes what they can post on their blogs.

While Sheri Edwards and Peter Vogel both shared the challenges, and what worked, with student blogging:

  1. Blogging in Writing Class post (Sheri’s post)
  2. Blogging in ICT Class (Peter’s post)

Gregory Stringer has helped us by providing a few of his “secrets” for blogging and joining social networking sites.

Sarah Korlaki and Karen Barnstable challenge us by asking their ’5 most important questions they would like to answered by experienced bloggers.’  I love these types of questions (and the answers) because they give you lots of post ideas.

Check out their posts and share your thoughts:

  1. What I really want to know about blogging (Sarah’s post)
  2. Five Questions I would like to ask Experienced Bloggers (Karen’s post)

And most importantly Jess tells us why as a student she loves blogging!

Winners Badge

Congratulations to all winners!

Here’s a badge if you would like to add to your sidebar.

edubloggerwinner1

All you need to do is add a text widget to your sidebar and write a link to the image here on this blog using HTML code.

Here is an example of how you need to write the code:

wincode

Please send an email to tell me if you want to use the free 12 months Edublogs supporters subscription on your own blog or to give away to a reader.

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Want traditional news media to tell the true story about social networking? Here’s Your Chance!

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Image of Cover of Rattler MagazineI’ve been approached to do an interview by Ingrid Maack who is writing an article about the use of social networking websites within early childhood environments.

Ingrid’s a journalist at Rattler Magazine (published by Armedia).

We don’t often get the chance to get our message across to educators and parents using traditional news media.

But why limit to my thoughts when collectively responses from our global community are more powerful!

So here’s your opportunity!  Teachers, Students, Everyone!

Please share your thoughts on any or all of the following questions:

  1. How are blogs, web 2.0 and social networking being used by teachers in primary schools and/or early childhood environments?
  2. Can you give examples of good use of blogs in the early childhood environments?
  3. Are social networking sites being blocked or embraced?  What’s your thoughts on this?
  4. How do people balance their personal use of the technology versus their professional?
  5. Is there a lot of misunderstanding about the use of electronic technology? I imagine there are a lot of ‘knee-jerk’ bans in many workplaces/educational institutions?
  6. Is there any guidance for teachers on responsible use?  Can you provide examples?
  7. How can social networking websites and blogs be used to support teaching practice and/or boost staff morale?
  8. What tips would you give early childhood teachers about using this technology?
  9. Given child protection and the very nature of childcare provision, is it a good idea for services to perhaps avoid Facebook/Blogs altogether? Does it open Pandora’s Box?

Alone — I’m a small voice!  Collectively we’re a powerful voice!

Help me demonstrate our collective power by leaving a comment!

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