Not another!

It really must be easy, the spider does say,

You've made another Voki for your website today?

Simple and fun, in English or French,

A person, an animal, in space or on a bench!

My 10 year old son just made this Voki as he is home sick today. Pretty quick and easy!

A what?

A Voki, you say, well just what is that?

It sound like something you'd say to a cat!

An avatar that talks, as cute as can be.

I made one, little spider, take a look and see.

This morning, I created a Voki to put on the library website. It was very simple to use and create. The entire process took about 30 minutes. I enjoyed creating a funny looking character and the fact that I could upload a picture of my actual library for the background. I created a character that speaks in French, though it took me quite a long time to choose which voice to use. I needed to spell some of the words phonetically as the pronunciation was not quite exact and it still isn't perfect. I tried some of the voice effects, but most of them made it very difficult to understand the character - not sure if the effects would be clearer with English.

For students, I think this is an excellent tool as it is so simple, does not require an email account or even to log in to create something.  Voki Classroom is also available where teachers can create classes that are private or public, have access to lesson plans using Voki and a home page where all Voki projects appear. The teacher must approve any Vokis before they are posted, giving an additional layer of security for the class. A Voki Classroom account is $29.95 per year, which gives one teacher up to 10 classes and 200 students. They have additional discounts for schools creating accounts for more teachers. Before purchasing Voki Classroom, I will definitely try out a free account first.

One of the nice aspects about Voki is the ability for students to create their Voki that speaks French. Being at a French immersion school where all subjects are conducted in French, this really is a necessity. The need to write some words phonetically in order hear correct pronunciation would be tricky for some students.

I like this video that shows how Voki was used to help students with a writing project. By hearing their writing read back to them by the Voki, students were able to find errors and changes that needed to be made to their writing.



Of course, Voki is also just plain fun - creating a funny looking character that talks in a funny voice is very engaging! However, there are not so many choices available that the creation part is overly time consuming.

I will be looking at how I can use Voki with a class soon!

You know you're a techy teacher when . . .

Reposted from Ask A Tech Teacher - I am well on my way!

You Know You’re a Techy Teacher When…

1. You can’t remember the last time you printed a classroom document.
2. Plurking, tweeting, and playing with your wiki in public are acceptable behaviors.
3. Your Notebook isn’t spiral bound – it plugs into the wall.
4. Forget the garden…you spend more time on the weekend weeding out your Inbox.
5. You can recite your school’s Acceptable Use Policy by heart.
6. On parent/teacher night, instead of exchanging business cards, you Bump.
7. You express yourself with emoticons.
8. You no longer consider it graffiti to write on someone’s wall.
9. Your significant other gets jealous of your PLN.
10. It’s not creepy to have lots of followers.
11. You’re in a constant battle to be Mayor of your school.
12. Your students call you the “cool” teacher.
13. The other teachers are jealous of your Prezi.
14. YouTube is blocked in your school, and you know how to get around it and still use the content.
15. The Tech Department is sick of your constant requests to unblock Twitter.
16. You’ve Googled your principal.
17. You know that TweetDeck is not a patio with a lot of birds.
18. You correct your friends’ grammar when they text you.
19. Never mind the fruit, you want a real Apple for Christmas.
20. “Casual Fridays” means logging into the EdTech UNconference in your bunny slippers.
21. You wear your “I Heart EdTech” button everywhere you go.
22. You read this blog post then tweet it, like it, and pass it on to a friend

Pinter-wrong?

How can you take someone else's work?

Surely that makes you just one big jerk!

It's true we can't take things that we don't own.

I think I hear pinners make a collective groan!

It seems that Pinterest has led to a rash of copyright issues regarding photos. As people "pin"something on their boards, they chose from any images that may be on that page - whether they are available to be shared or not.


Hmmm . . .

Flickr has now added "do not pin" code to any images that are copyrighted or protected. Flickr disables Pinterest pins on copyrighted images 

As teacher-librarians, part of our job is to teach students and teachers about copyright issues. Using photos/images to "pin" as a bookmarking icons is definitely walking on a fine line.

Privacy and social media

How do you keep your life to yourself?

Your web seems so vast, it's like you're out on a shelf.

Sometimes it is hard, I say to my friend,

But it is possible to maintain some privacy in the end.

One of my concerns with social media and Facebook in particular has been around privacy. The whole concept of "friending" people and gathering up hundreds of "friends" seems rather bizarre to me.

Apparently, some of the novelty has worn off as people are beginning to "unfriend" and keep more of their information private.

Unfriending and private profiles are the new trends in social networks

Where am I?

I am still on my web, but where are you?

The spider asks as I wander through.

You've tried so many things on your great big web,

When will you be done? the spider said.

I feel like I need to check in with my progress for this class, and see how I am doing and if I am still on track.

I have been very consumed with creating a video at the moment with students from the environment club at the school. We are putting the final touches on our entry for the BC Green Games. It is created in iMovie, which is not technically Web 2.0, so I am not sure if I should include it as part of my project here.

Anyways . . . where am I?

Facebook

I have set up my Facebook account and have added a bunch of friends. I find it is mostly just something else to check each day for news. I am not interested in most of the items my friends post, but do enjoy seeing the occasional fun photo, etc. I have posted some general questions to my friends and a few pictures of my kids. I have also commented on other's posts.

The most useful part of Facebook for me, so far, is the group that I belong to for the climbing gym where my son trains. I like that the group shows up on my home page and I can immediately see if there is anything new posted by the little number that shows up. This was very useful when there was snow and the gym was cancelled.

I can see how the "group" function would be useful as a school to have for parent communication (elementary) or even for students (secondary).

Twitter or more importantly, Tweetdeck

Part of my inquiry was finding a better way to manage Twitter. I believe I have found that with Tweetdeck.

Integral to my use of Tweetdeck is my installation of Google Chrome. At one point last year, I had actually installed Tweetdeck, but didn't like the fact that it sat on the desktop of my computer. With Chrome, the Tweetdeck plug-in allows it to sit in the web browser on the start-up page. I like this much better.

Tweetdeck has allowed me to organize the information I gather from Twitter. I have also loaded my Facebook account into Tweetdeck, so I can also see my Facebook news feed. I am not sure why the Facebook posts I see are not the same in Tweetdeck as in Facebook. I also can't see the "groups" from Facebook, which means I need to open up Facebook separately as well.

But, overall, I like Tweetdeck. I currently have the following columns:

• Facebook news feed
• Home - which is all the people I follow on Twitter
• #edtech
• #tlchat
• #pbl - for Project Based Learning, but seems to be some sort of foot fetish thing as well
• #frimm - French immersion
• @me - for tweets where I am mentioned
• inbox - for direct messages to me

I can easily skim through the columns and click on things that interest me for more information. I am not feeling as overwhelmed with Twitter now.

Social Bookmarking

I continue to use Diigo personally for keeping track and organizing links, but after exploring the education side of it and finding no filters to the outside world, I don't think I would use it with students.

I have just begun using Pinterest and find it very appealing because it is so visual. I believe this would also appeal to students, so will explore a bit further and see how I might use Pinterest with students.

Blogging

I have explored Kidblog, which I like, and Blogmeister, which I don't. I am excited to have enticed a teacher to begin blogging with her Grade 3/4 class. Next week, I will help her set up Kidblogs for her class.

Still to come:

• Voki
• Glogster
• Voicethread

Stay tuned . . .

Youth & Digital Media

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard just released a report that looks at youth and digital media.

Key Findings:

1. Search shapes the quality of information that youth experience online.

2. Youth use cues and heuristics to evaluate quality, especially visual and interactive elements.

3. Content creation and dissemination foster digital fluencies that can feed back into search and evaluation behaviours.

4. Information skills acquired through personal and social activities can benefit learning in the academic context.

This research points the direction for teacher-librarians as we work with youth and digital media. There is a link to the complete study for download as a PDF and an infographic with a summary of the findings.

Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality - New Report from the Berkman Center

What is Web 2.0?

Here you go, little spider!

I came across this older post that Vicki Davis, Cool Cat Teacher, that I thought was particularly relevant for this class.

Basics for Beginners: What is Web 2.0?

Very Pinteresting!

Pin it here, pin it there

Pin it here, pin it there,

Pinterest is showing up everywhere!

How can I use it in the library?

Will it be helpful, or is it simply ivory?

I am really seeing the appeal of Pinterest, though I have not been using it as much as Diigo. Because I have my "system" for tagging etc. set up for Diigo, I don't really want to switch over to Pinterest. However, I can see how some of my collected bookmarks would fit better into Pinterest. For example, recipes. Rather than having them collected in Diigo and searching for "pancakes," I can keep my recipes collected in Pinterest and see the image of those delicious pancakes. Except, I discovered, not all my recipes have pictures on the page, so there is nothing to "pin" (well, except an image from an advertisement on the page!).

OK - so what about in the library? Will Pinterest be useful for me there?

Here are some ideas for Pinterest for librarians.  Given that Pinterest is so visual, I can see that it would be a useful tool to create boards for student use on projects. Perhaps this is the tool I am looking for to use with classes. Will have to explore this some more . . .


5 Tips for Using Pinterest in Your Classroom
Edu-pinning: Pinterest in Education
Four Ways to Use Pinterest in Education

Good ideas:

• collating sites for lessons & projects
• sharing with others - yes it is another social media!
• grouping/organizing resources - this is useful for students and teachers

The history of social media

Given that our course began with a history of our own technology use, I found this infographic at Silicon Republic very interesting.

A pin for your thoughts?

Isn't Diigo enough, why do you need more?

Something else to keep track of your web, what a bore!

Pinterest is different, I like how it looks,

For visual me, it is like looking at books!

I use Diigo all the time for bookmarking things but thought I would investigate Pinterest as well. I do not know that much about it, but like the visual nature of it, keeping little pictures of the links that have been saved. So, I requested an invite to Pinterest, received it, and created an account.

Pinterest required me to sign in using Facebook or Twitter, like many online applications. While initially this bothered me and I did not want to have everything integrated together, as I get deeper into the "social" aspect of the online world, I am finding it useful to have everything connected. However, I am still struggling with how much to keep my professional and personal lives separate - or not???

Pinterest automatically chose some people for me to "follow" based on the interests I entered. I guess that is a good way to get started, as there is something to play around with.  I left these as is for now. It also suggested some categories for me to use for "boards," but I deleted those and created some of my own. I put the "Pin It" button on my Chrome browser to make it simple to add pins.

I then jumped in and started to explore. I found a good recipe someone had pinned, so I re-pinned it on a "recipe" board I created. I quickly learned that only images can be pinned - so a good link needs to have a good image on the page. I then took a browse through the Pinterest help page to get some more information. I learned that you can follow everything another user does or you can follow specific board.

So, as I am browsing around looking at various "boards" and "pins," one of my first impressions is that Pinterest is going to work for me to collect things for the personal part of my life - recipes, crafts, etc. Right now, I am not seeing how it can be used professionally.

Just figured out that when I push "pin it" on a page, all the images come up and then I can choose which image it is that I actually want to "pin." Got it!

The journey continues . . .

Lovin' the deck!

A deck for your tweets, what's that all about?

Sounds like you're balancing words on your snout!

TweetDeck is great, it puts things in a line,

Instead of things wasting too much of my time.

So yes, I am really loving TweetDeck! I actually tried TweetDeck sometime last year when I began using Twitter and didn't like the fact that I had to open up another program on my computer. However, because I am using the Chrome browser, I can now easily open TweetDeck whenever I open up another tab on my browser.

When I started using TweetDeck to follow Twitter, I included Facebook to be included. However, my Facebook messages were all mixed into my general Twitter feed which was kind of weird.

I have since made several columns in TweetDeck, to follow different hashtags of interest and just figured out how to create a column for my Facebook feed as well. This will make TweetDeck even more useful as I won't need to open Facebook to see what is new.

Social media and education . . . again!

This interesting infographic from OnlineEducation.net looks at the good and the bad effects social media is having on students.


While the final verdict is inconclusive, I concur with the final statements:

 "Social media is now a vital part of life, and academia needs to learn how to effectively take advantage. When social media is integrated with academics, studies have shown serious positive impacts on students."

Social Media in Education

This infographic created by OnlineUniversities.com shows how social media is being used in higher education.  As things tend to filter down from universities/colleges to other educational systems, I think the stats are an interesting read.

Twitter in the class?

Hey little spider, what do you think?

Will Twitter in the class push the teacher to the brink?

Baby steps are the way I tend to move,

Before the rest of the school can catch up to my groove.

So I am fairly comfortable with Twitter, though it is mostly to gather and find things. I have retweeted a few times, but do not seem to post that much outright. I am just not ready to put all my thoughts and ideas "out there." If I wanted to, I could tweet my posts for this blog - that would get people looking. But . . . I am just not ready for it!

What about in the classroom - how and why should we be using Twitter?

In How to use Twitter in the classroom, Nancy Messieh points out many uses for Twitter in the classroom including:

• connect students using hashtags
• sending assignment reminders
• creating scavenger hunts

While I can see many of these applications useful in secondary school, I think things are a bit more difficult when dealing with elementary students who do not have their own Twitter accounts.  However, Twitter can still be a useful way of connecting teachers and parents.  Additionally, class Twitter accounts can function to allow students to share with a greater audience.

Kist (2010) sees the benefits in using Twitter to help students engage in new literacies, examining the benefits and constraints of limiting one's writing to 140 characters (p. 42) Here is a Twitter Story Competition created by a teacher that does just that. Preparing them for the reality of this type of communication and guiding students to do it effectively will serve them well as they move along in life.

Here are some other fantastic ways to use Twitter in the classroom:

Given that I am not currently a classroom teacher, but rather a teacher-librarian, I think I will continue to urge the teachers at my school to embrace Twitter to enhance their PLNs. Once they are comfortable with this, perhaps I can gently move them into an arena where their classes are using Twitter in a constructive way as well.

References:
Kist, W. (2010). The socially networked classroom: teaching in the new media age. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin.

It's on! Kidblog vs. Blogmeister

Spider says "I love a good race!"

Which blog will be the winner, in this case?

Kidblog, BlogMeister which will it be?

Which is the best for the students and me?

Well, BlogMeister vs. Kidblog.  What an overwhelming win for Kidblog! Kidblog was so easy to get started and figure out. BlogMeister was quite a disappointment.  The fact that I couldn't even figure out how to get students added was frustrating. Because I only see classes once a week as teacher-librarian, I would like to get classroom teachers set up and in charge of blogs for their own classes. I need to have a platform that is easy for them to set up and work with.

Hey mister Blogmeister!

I think I get blogging, but why try another?

One for this class and one for its brother?

Kidblog is good, but what else can I find?

Perhaps this one's better, I'll keep an open mind!

Tonight, I decided to take a look at another blog platform created specifically for students tonight in order to compare it with Kidblog.  I went to the Class BlogMeister site to investigate.

My initial impression of the BlogMeister site is that it is very cluttered and busy looking.

But . . . I persevered.  It turns out that in order to create blogs on this site, you must have a "school pass code." Hmm - what is that all about? There are not any instructions about anything on the home page. I went to the "initial documentation," which is a PDF form with instructions on how to set up class blogs.

On the PDF, there is an email you can contact for your pass code if you don't have one from a workshop. OK - seems like a lot of work, but I fired off an email and kept reading. The instructions have a lot of reading but I made my way through and went back to fetch my email.

Ahhhh - the email bounced back with permanent fatal errors!

I now searched BlogMeister with Google and found a link to pass code.  Followed this, entered in the info about my school and, voila, I am in!

OK - so it just isn't that friendly and intuitive to use. Every time I try to upload a photo, the site boots me out and I need to log back in again.  It also isn't accepting the images. Well I got one image to show up. I figured how to add links to the side. However, I can not figure out how to add any students to my class so that they can have their own blogs - I enter class panel but do not see the box shown in the instructions. The whole thing is very ugly to look at as well!

BlogMeister, like Kidblog emails everything to the teacher for approval, including comments on blogs.  The teacher then has final say before something is posted. This is always a good thing as most of the teachers at my school are fairly skeptical about doing things online with their classes.

What is 21st century learning?

The 21st century, that is right now.

Things sure have changed, but I am not sure how.

My web is the same - how about yours?

I think it is different - and so are the chores!

From the Innovative Educator, Lisa Nielsen:  Think prepping kids for the 21st century means buying a Smartboard & computers? Think again.

Multitaskers go multiscreen

As we have been talking about information overload and how to manage all the information that is coming our way, I thought this article in The New York Times was particularly appropriate.

Apparently, the trend in business is to have 2 or 3 different monitors on a desk, rather than flipping between overlapping windows on one desktop. I can see how this might be useful given that everything is done directly on the computer now - creating an assignment for this class involves flipping between blogs, VISTA, a search window and word processing. I can see how efficiency could increase if one had separate screens.

Richtel, M. (2012, February 7). In data deluge, multitaskers go to multiscreens. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/technology/for-multitaskers-multiple-monitors-improve-office-efficiency.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=technology

DOS and a dot matrix

What is a DOS? I have none on my web.

I have only the silk with cross fibres instead.

Printing out messages, what is that for?

I talk to my friends standing at the door!

We were at the bank last night reviewing some things and I was shocked to see that the platform the bank uses for managing some things is still DOS based! Seriously! They seem to be moving forward to a different system, but it happening slowly and only a bit at a time.

And . . . to go along with the DOS program was a dot matrix printer to fill in the forms! So slow and noisy - my kids were amazed!

Tweetdeck

You need something else to look after the tweets?

Twitter isn't enough to manages your peeps?

Tweetdeck might be a better way for me,

I'll give it a try - just wait and see.

Although exhausted from a full day of work and then two hours at the bank, I did manage to play around a bit last night.

I added Tweetdeck to my Google Chrome browser and played around with it for a while.  I must say that I like how it is embedded right into my Chrome interface and easily accessible when I make a new tab in my browser.

I imported my stuff from both Twitter and Facebook, as I thought this would save me some time as I would only need to check into one place.  However, I didn't like how the Facebook and Twitter were mixed up together so moved the Facebook data.  I think I will play some more, having only my Twitter feeds in the Tweetdeck before trying to add Facebook again.

I like the way the columns are set up in Tweetdeck and how easy it is to add hashtags or lists as separate columns.  I didn't import any of my lists from Twitter as I am not that pleased with them - I may delete them completely and restart with some new columns in Tweetdeck.

I do think this is going to be a better way to manage the information flow in Twitter and I can add new columns as I want to follow various interests.

Jumping into Diigo

Diigo again? For your students this time.

Spider tries to get it all in a line.

Wouldn't it be good to make lists of good things,

For the classes, in the library, would really have wings!

I have received confirmation of my Diigo Educator account and now need to figure out how to use it with a class.  I found this useful site on Student Learning with Diigo that has yielded plenty of good information.  However, I find the best way to learn these things is just jumping in and trying.

So, I jumped.  I created a class and added a couple of students to it.  This gave me usernames and passwords for the students.  I was able to do this without having email accounts, which is good when working at the elementary level.  I also added one bookmark to the group.

I then logged out of my own Diigo account and logged in as one of the students to see what they would see and how it would work for them.  Across the top of the page are tabs like this:

• In "My Library" the student would see any bookmarks he/she had made.  
• In "My Groups" would be the groups the student is a part of - in this case, "Les châteaux médiévaux."  
• "My Network" is a place where the student can follow other peoples bookmark lists.  There is a bunch of photos of people you can follow.  I must say that I am not comfortable having this available to elementary students - it is unclear who these individuals are and if they would be safe or appropriate for my students to follow.
• "Community" has "Hot Bookmarks from the Diigo Community."  Again, I am not sure that these  are necessary or appropriate for my students.

I am feeling disappointed right now.  I thought Diigo would be useful with the Grade 5/6 class, but I am worried about them clicking on some of these other people or sites connected through Diigo.

How's it going?

So how is it going, you've been working so hard?

Twitter and Facebook, no time for the yard!

It's coming along, but it all takes my time.

Thank goodness it is free and not costing a dime!

Twitter Lists

I created some lists within my Twitter account to try to keep things better organized.  I am liking the lists - it allows me to check on various topics that I follow individually, making the entire feed less cluttered.  One thing that I have found (which I read about) is that if I stop following someone, they continue to be on any list they are included in.  There seems to be no way to remove them from the lists.  That is rather frustrating!


Facebook
I have been trying to engage with Facebook since joining up.  I find, however, that it does not interest me all that much.  I have located some faraway friends.  I have also come across some interesting/fun links from some of my friends.  However, much of the posts seem to be happenings of the day that are of no interest to me.  I find it rather ironic as this is what I think many people think of Twitter, yet I find Twitter quite engaging and useful, but am still trying to figure out the appeal of Facebook.  I am trying to engage and have posted some photos and comments, but I am not quite getting it!  Will keep trying!

Mom this is how Twitter works

I still don't get it, the little spider said!

Hashtags and followers are swirling in my head.

It isn't that hard, it just takes some time.

Jump in and try, I know you can make the climb.

I came across this great website that explains all the nuances of Twitter.  I found the "who sees what" section to be particularly interesting, as I have never quite figured out how that works.  Mom this is how Twitter works explains it all!

KidBlog podcast

Yesterday, I took some time to listen to a podcast about KidBlog.  The podcast, on TeacherCast can be found at TeacherCast Podcast 32. The creators of KidBlog go over the workings of their site and explain all of the nuances of it.

After all my reading and listening, I think I am going to try out KidBlog with the Grade 3/4 teacher at our school.  She does a lot of writing with her students, but is not that technologically adept.  I think this simple blogging platform will fit her needs well.

Stay tuned!

10 Tech Skills Every Student Should Have

A very concise yet wise post from Educational Technology Guy. This article suggests 10 basic tech skills students need and has links to help with each area.


The 10 skills are:

1. internet search skills 
2. office suite skills (create, edit, modify documents) 
3. self learning of tech and where to go for help 
4. typing 
5. social media - how to properly use and protect self 
6. netiquette 
7. security and safety 
8. hardware basics and troubleshooting 
9. backup data - how to 
10. finding & evaluating apps and software

I chose this article as I think teacher-librarians are on the frontline in terms of teaching many of these items. It is a good list to keep in mind as we go about our day to day interactions with students and teachers.


Andrade, D. (2012, January 30). 10 tech skills every student should have [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2012/01/10-tech-skills-every-student-should.html

Education & Social Media in BC

I found this article by Chris Kennedy, the Superintendent of the West Vancouver School District, on his blog Culture of Yes. 

Kennedy suggests that “British Columbia is leading Canada (perhaps even the world) in the professional use of social media in K-12 education.” He suggests some reasons for this trend such as early adoption of social networking, active news media participation in social media on education, etc.

The reason I chose to post on this article (hopefully still considered “current” though it is ten days old) is because I am just not seeing this where I work. At my school and even in my district, the use of social media to network and create PLNs isn't even on the radar. Despite me encouraging everyone to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, I do not see it happening. What are others observing in their districts?

Kennedy, C. (2012, January 15). Education and social media in British Columbia [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://cultureofyes.ca/2012/01/15/education-and-social-media-in-british-columbia/

Netiquette, etiquette

As I continue to think about class blogging, I have looking at different class blogs.  I came across this great Prezi about netiquette, something that will need to be discussed before the blogging begins.  The Prezi is to the fun and to the point, yet clear.  The use of cartoons keeps it light.

Netiquette on Prezi

Mrs. Krebs. (2012). Netiquette [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://krebs.edublogs.org/netiquette/

Let's go for a blog!

A blog, questions spider, just what is it for?

Well, it is for writing but can be much more.

A place for your thoughts and ideas to share

Communicating with others is only fair.

I decided to begin investigating some blogging platforms that might be appropriate to use with students at my elementary school this morning.

I started with Kidblog.  The home page indicated it is fast and free - which is true!  In no time, I had set up a class.  I then had to do some more reading to figure out how to use it!

Some things I like about Kidblog:

• it is private by default
• can make it "semi-private" with "guest" accounts for parents, etc.
• no advertising
• I have administrative control and review posts before they are posted

Having said that "I like" the privacy details of Kidblog, I also have in the back of my mind the idea that some of real value and power in blogging comes from the ability to interact with other people (ie. outside of the school) (Kist, 2010; Richardson, 2010).  However, given that this will be our students' (and parents' and teachers') first foray into the online world and blogging, I think it is prudent to begin slowly. Therefore, I think beginning with a closed/private system is a good idea.

I found this great video on Wesley Fryer's blog that explains how to set up Kidblogs for a class.  I like the idea that he is setting the blogs to allow viewing and commenting by anyone, yet those still must be read by the teacher before they are posted.  This is a great option.

As I continue to research Kidblog a bit, I came across a heartwarming blog post from a teacher that is really about the value in blogging in general.  In "Write On!" Why I Love Kidblog! Oldschoolteach writes about how excited the students are about their blogs, even writing and editing them on the weekends. Having a blog really gives students ownership over their writing.

Here are some examples of Kidblogs:

Mr. Lane's Class

• settings are private
• shows use of tags

Powell 4th Grade 2011

• public viewing and commenting permitted

Gill-Ville 2011-2012

• public
• posts contain photos, embedded items, etc.

In general, Kidblog seems very plain looking.  You are unable to follow any other blogs or personalize the pages too much.

References:


Fryer, W. (2012, January 27). Configure KidBlog for safe, moderated, interactive student blogging & commenting [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2012/01/27/configure-kidblog-for-safe-moderated-interactive-student-blogging-commenting/


Kist, W. (2010). The socially networked classroom: teaching in the new media age. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin.

Oldschoolteach. (2011, October 1). "Write On!" Why I love Kidblog [Web log message]. http://oldschoolteach.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/write-on-why-i-love-kidblog/

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin.