The Edublogger has been set up by Edublogs — “the largest education community on the Internet” where you can sign up for a free WordPress-powered blog — and is dedicated to helping educational bloggers with using emerging technologies in education, share their own experiences and promote the blogging medium. Photo by woodleywonderworks.
About the Editor
My name is Sue Waters and I’m well known for my Mobile Technology in TAFE blog. As a blogger I’m about — practical application of technologies in education, and most importantly HELPING OTHERS learn how to use these technologies. The Edublogger will be an extension of what I already do, but at a central place within Edublogs.
Bit of an understatement — but I am extremely excited to be involved with The Edublogger because it increases my potential to interact and connect with a larger community, hopefully helping even more people.
Getting Started
The Edublogger is not about me, but the educational blogging community. It is about us working together, helping each other, sharing our experiences and learning together. My role is to help bring the community together. So please help us to get this journey underway by assisting us with the following:
- What interests you? – Are you interested in …. ‘How-to” tips? Blogging tips? Getting others educators involved in using technology? Tips on using Edublogs? Or are there other topics that interest you?
- Blog Tweaking – New blogs always needs some tweaking! Are there design features, widgets or things you’d like to see?
- Subscribing to The Edublogger –
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Please share your thoughts, and encouragement, in the comments of this post.
Congrats, Sue! You’re perfect for this!
You asked for it, I’ll give it to you:
What I don’t need is another echo in the chamber. Personally, I think this blog would do well to act as another filter in bringing the great posts to the top – perhaps the Sue Waters version of OLDaily.
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: most educators simply don’t have the time to read hundreds of blogs – even if they chose to use RSS. What we need – if not an educational focussed Digg – is someone competent enough to bring us the best on a regular basis. Now don’t get me wrong: Stephen does a fantastic job with OlDaily! I just think that another effort – perhaps even a community effort – would be a healthy addition.
Thanks for your hard work, Sue!
DD
Sue and James –
In my comment (from mrsolson) I was actually replying to James Walker, not asking a question 🙂 Thanks for your replies, though!
Sue,
One more thing — it would be great to learn more about embedding videos, too!
Larry
Congratulations on this new endeavour! I wish you all the best!
I cannot find an email link for support / help. (I know it was there before…. I used it….)
I am training teachers on my campus and one of them (mlcortez) has lost access to the administrative site of her blog. When she pulls up her page, there is no login link. She has no dashboard.
You may assist her directly at [email protected].
Sue, it wasn’t all that long ago (well over a year I think!) I had a Skype conversation with Alex Hayes and your good self where you declared that you didn’t really “get blogging”. How things have changed – look at you now!!
Well done. A fantastic choice.
Sue,
Unfortunately, I know just enough about technology to sound like I know what I’m talking about without really getting it….
Yes, I mean widgets in the sidebar and I’m talking about embeds for just about everything. For example (this is true confessions here) I’d love to use Kwout to put an image of my webpage on my sidebar, but I don’t know how to do sizing. I’d also like to put a Clustr map that shows where my blog’s visitors come from.
I want to explore how to use widgets, but am afraid I’ll lose everything I’ve got on my sidebar now if I mess-up.
I suspect I’m not the only one out there who doesn’t understand this stuff….
Thanks in advance for all the great stuff I know you’ll be posting about!
Larry
I think this can become a great resource for teachers wondering how to enter into the conversation and the blogging world (which, of course, leads to other Web 2.0 worlds).
I have you in my RSS!
Kevin
Sue,
congrats and many many good posts (as you gave us until now) here on EduBlogger!
Sensational Sue! Well done, and I do look forward to reading your posts on Edublogger.
I know that the energies that you apply to harnessing the power of the medium to engage both teachers and learners will also be evident here in Edublogger.
You have an innate ability to bring out the best in educators Sue. You inspire, share and teach by example.
Best wishes, John
Thanks James for giving me the opportunity to be involved with the Edublogger! I have already been congratulated on great name and URL choice (you choose well!).
Larry – thanks for your great words of support although I would hate to get between you and Alice :), mind you the cookies sound nice! Are we talking widgets in the side menus? Are there any in particular that you are really interested in? And can you tell me which embeds you need help with? As a subscriber to your blog I’m not convinced that you are an “technological idiot” but smart move as it sounds like cookies are coming your way!
Hi Mrs Cloukey — good question that I think is worth checking out in more detail. In the meantime Mrs Olson has provided you a link to her blog so you can see how she is doing it.
Hi Cathy – glad that my involvement with the Edublogger helps! Agreed the Edublog platform is excellent. How are your eyes?
Hi James – will investigate your question further, regarding student accounts, and get back to you.
Mrs Olsen (Kate)–Thanks for the congrads and off course I will continue to be yours (and anyone else’s) blog mentor. I believe James has answered your question?
Hi Kathryn – thanks for the congratulations. Getting other people to buy into using technology is something that we all struggle with. Last year I was actually funded to research this area so more than happy to share what I learnt plus all the posts I have been reading on this area recently. Although feeling humbled by the thought of you asking me to write a series of posts on setting up a blog from scratch — as you are the more experienced blogger.
Hi Alex — you will be pleased to know that I am away from the hum drum of System 32 because am working on a Mac at the moment. Thanks for the congratulations regarding the Edublogger. mmm will think about the Twitter widget 🙂
Hi Dave – thanks for providing me the feedback on your interests. I would also like to thank you for wishing me luck and for writing a nice post about the launch of The Edublogger.
Sue,
I am looking forward to following your new blog. I have so many different interests related to blogging, technology, and education. Top on my list are the following: Helping teachers use the Web 2.0 in interesting, engaging, and educationally sound ways. Also, I am looking for easier, more efficient ways to embed video and audio into my blog. Finally, I am always looking to expand my personal learning network and tapping into the brains of all the smart people out there in the edublogosphere.
Good luck!
Dave
Well well…..
Might mean you can escape the hum-drum of System 32.
Well done and congrats on THE new role with Edublogger.
Ps. dont forget to embed that Twitter widget 🙂
Of course you need to be logged out to see it… if you;re logged in you already have a username!
Wow, great comments 🙂
@mrsolson there’s still an option for ‘Just a username please’ at the bottom of this isn’t there?
http://edublogs.org/wp-signup.php
Congratulations Sue. My interest in the “how to” side is less techie and more to do with getting acceptance of new tools and new directions – loosening up structures and over-zealous security to take full advantage of these new tools. I’d love to see some material here about tips and tricks people use for this.
I’d love to see a series on “setting up your blog from scratch”. The process of design, making decisions about content – as well as the “this is how your tweak the right widget for you” techie tips.
Glad you’re doing this, Sue! I hope you’ll continue to be my personal blog mentor as well 🙂 Your wisdom needs to be shared with the masses!
mrscloukey – I actually do assess my students’ responses, and I do it just as I would any other writing assignment. You can check out my classroom blog at http://mrsolson.edublogs.org (we’re still pretty new!). I haven’t done a lot of assessment on spelling, etc. yet, but that’s where I’m heading. Good luck!
James – the student should have the choice to check “just a username, please” when setting up an account, rather than “gimme a blog” – unless things have changed drastically in the last few days?
Sue, my personal blog is with Edublogs and in my previous classroom I had set up a blog with WordPressMU that I had downloaded and set up on the school ISP, but I have limited access now. With WordPressMU I was the admin and could set up student accounts, which was important because I am a special ed teacher and the privacy issues for sped are tight. I want to blog with high school sped students, but now I don’t have access to WordPressMU. Using Edublogs can I set up a user account for each student without them actually having their own blog? What I have done so far is create a classroom blog and invited students using my gmail account, ie. teacher+student@gmail. But then the student is asked to set up a bolg. Maybe once parents and the admin feel more comfortable each student can have their own blob, but right now I just want them to be able to have an account so they can post and comment on the classroom blog.
Jim
Sue! Small world! It is good t have a “known” friend over here as i contemplate my own domain. James has 99% convinced me to stay w/ Edublogs as what I want is on the horizon, so I’m still here. I must admit though that I do like the edublog platform. Subscribing today folks!!
Cathy
I’d like to know if anyone has assessed student responses in their blog. I have a feeling my district will be asking me this question… wanted to see if anyone out there is already assessing and how. There is such a push with state testing that somehow my blog is now part of the prep?!? Scary… I don’t like it, but if anyone can offer help in this area, I would appreciate it.
Larry,
Are you kidding? I’ve lost my “thrall” over you if that happens! Maybe I can just bake cookies to get you indebted to me.
Sue and James,
This is a great idea!
Sue does such a great job in explaining how to use Web 2.0 applications on her blog, with clear directions and diagrams, it would be great if she could do the same for working with Edublogs.
I’d love explanations on how to embed stuff, how to really use widgets — all the stuff that “old hands” know like the palm of their hands, but which technological idiots like myself don’t have a real clue on how to do.
I’m also sure Alice Mercer would appreciate me learning this stuff so I could stop bugging her!
Larry Ferlazzo
Congrats on the new blog Sue, I think this is going to rock 🙂