Newsflash: Teacher Provides Inappropriate Access

On a cold, blustery February morning in 2011, a naïve, unsuspecting teacher had unknowingly created a storm of controversy. Unintentionally, this teacher (Mr. B) had set off a series of events that had his principal visiting his classroom, the district itinerant teacher for technology calling, the district supervisor of IT emailing, and the district computer support specialist (E-learning) contacting each of the previously mentioned individuals.

What was it that this particular teacher had done?

It all started out several months before when Mr. B., wanted a better way to share files with his students and for students to be better able to utilize these files in the learning environment. Mr. B. had made contact with a number of his superiors requesting advice on how to best meet his needs. After waiting an appropriate amount of time with little response Mr. B. brought his plight to his principal attention.

At that time, with his principal’s support and permission, he had started a BYOT program in his classroom. Since the school did not have wireless, Mr. B. placed the files he wanted to share on the school’s server. He then proceeded to provide his students with access to these files by having them connect their devices directly into the classroom’s network drops.

Things were going great for Mr. B. and he was quite proud of the success he was having with his new endeavor. He even secured four “new to him” computers for his classroom, which the day before “he got busted” a board IT technician helped him setup.

What Mr. B. did not realize was that it was a “BIG NO, NO” to allow students to tap directly into the school’s network using their own personal devices. How was Mr. B. to know?

Thankfully, all those who were in a kerfuffle were not only willing to accept Mr. B’s apology, but also provide him with some much needed support. Within days, the computer support specialist provided Mr. B. with a Moodle course that was to run off the district’s server, to use with his class so that he could easily share his files with them over the Internet. Also, at the same time, the supervisor of IT was in Mr. B’s classroom installing wireless Internet access to provide the infrastructure his students needed to bypass the school’s server. Soon Mr. B. was singing the praises of Moodle and was moving beyond just file sharing with his students.

So, what is Moodle?

Moodle is an abbreviation for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. It is an e-learning platform, also called Course Management System (CMS), Learning Management System (LMS), or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. To work, it needs to be installed on a web server somewhere, either on one of your own computers or one at a web hosting company (Moodle Home, Wikipedia - Moodle).

Moodle can be used in many types of environments such as in education, training and development, and business settings. Some typical features of Moodle are:

·         Assignment submission

·         Discussion forum

·         Files download

·         Grading

·         Moodle instant messages

·         Online calendar

·         Online news and announcement

·         Online quiz

·         Wiki

(Wikipedia – Moodle)

Developers can extend Moodle’s modular construction by creating plugins for specific new functionality. Moodle’s infrastructure supports many types of plug-ins:

·         Activities (including word and math games)

·         Resource types

·         Question types (multiple choice, true and false, fill in the blank, etc.)

·         Data field types (for the database activity)

·         Graphical themes

·         Authentication methods (can require username and password accessibility)

·         Enrollment methods

·         Content filters

(Wikipedia – Moodle)

Mr. B. jumped quickly on the file sharing features of Moodle. Then, with almost equal speed, he moved on to discussion forums and online quizzes. Soon students were submitting assignment through Moodle. Within a month, Mr. B. was making online news announcements and posting upcoming events on the online calendar. It wasn’t that Mr. B. became a Moodle Master, but Moodle certainly provided many unexpected surprises.

Mr. B. learned a lot from his unintentional mistake. One of the most important things was that he realized how little he actually knew about technology integration and how much there was to learn. It helped to inspire him to become a better teacher, and today he is working towards a Masters in Informational Technology.

We wish Mr. B. the best of luck in his future endeavors.

And remember, every cloud has a silver lining.

References:

Moodle, https://moodle.org, retrieved November 12^th, 2012.

Wikipedia (Moodle), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle, retrieved November 12^th, 2012.

E-Learning 2.012

The following post provides a link to a group website that takes an in-depth look at e-learning in 2012.

E-Learning 2.012

The Migration Towards CSCL and M-Learning

ED 6620

Prof. George Hache

Group Project Members

Terence Ball
Sharon Facey
Roxanne Gibbons
Thomas Hawboldt


Website Address
https://sites.google.com/a/mun.ca/e-learning2-012/our-team

All Hail the Blogger (Conclusion and References)

Conclusion

Blogging is not only a growing trend with the general population, but it also a growing trend in the field of education. The benefits to educational institutions, its employees, and, most importantly, its students, is great. There are certainly hazards, however, with careful planning, appropriate knowledge, and a healthy dose of common sense, these can be minimized or even completely avoided. Not everyone will embrace blogging, but there is no reason to fear it.

List of Blog Providers / Software
Blogger	WordPress
Weebly	TypePad
Movable Type	Drupal

  

References

About.com Guide, Gunelius , S., What is a Blog?, retrieved from http://weblogs.about.com/od/startingablog/p/WhatIsABlog.htm  on Nov. 1^st, 2012.

Beldarrain, Y. (2006), Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration, Distance Education, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 139   – 153.

Berry, M. (2006) , Elgg and Blogging in primary education.

Blog Pros and Cons, retrieved from http://meblog.pbworks.com/w/page/11074182/Blog%20Pros%20and%20Cons on Nov. 6^th, 2012.

Blogger, Blogger Tour, What’s a blog?, retrieved from https://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g  Nov. 1^st, 2012.

Bouwma-Gearhart, J. L., Bess, J. L (2012), The transformative potential of blogs for research in higher education, The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 83, No. 2.

Drexler, W., Dawson, K., Ferdig, R. E. (2007), Collaborative blogging as a means to develop elementary expository writing skills, Electronic Journal for the   Integration of Technology in Education, Vol. 6

eHow tech, What is the origin of blogging?, retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/facts_5369658_origin-blogging.html on Nov. 2^nd, 2012.

Ferdig, R. E., Trammell, K. D. (2004), Content Delivery in the ‘Blogosphere’, T.H.E. Journal, 31 no 7 F.

Kerawall, L. Minocha, S., Conole, G., Kirkup, G., Schencks, M., Sclater, N. (2007), Exploring students’ understanding of how blogs and blogging can support distance learning in Higher Education, Beyond Control: Association of Learning Technologies Conference

Luehmann, A., MacBride, R. (2009), Classroom blogging in the service of student-centered pedagogy: Two high school teachers’ use of blogs, retrieved from http://thenjournal.org/feature/175/ on Nov. 5^th, 2012.

McGann, R. (2005), Blog readership surged 58 percent in 2004, retrieved from http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/1696942/blog-readership-surged-58-percent-2004  on Nov. 4^th, 2012.

O’Donnell, M. (2006), Blogging as pedagogic practice: artefact and ecology, Asia Pacific Media Educator, No. 17, Dec. 2006.

ProBlogger, What is a Blog?, retrieved from http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/02/05/what-is-a-blog/  on Nov. 1^st, 2012.

Stock, M. (2006), Blogging to My Advantage, The School Administrator, Number 5, Vol. 63.

The Commoncraft Show, Blogs in Plain English, retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI  (YouTube) on Nov. 1^st, 2012.

The Blog Herald, A short history of bloging, retrieved from http://www.blogherald.com/2005/03/06/a-short-history-of-blogging/  on Nov. 2^nd, 2012.

Walatka, T. (2012), Hub-and-spoke blogging and advantaged for classroom discussion, Teaching Theology and Religion, Volume 15, Issue 4.

Wikipedia, Blog, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog on Nov. 1^st, 2012.

Wikipedia, Microblogging, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging on Nov. 3^rd, 2012.

Wikipedia, Reverse Blog, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_blog on Nov. 3^rd, 2012.

Williams, J. B., Jacobs, J., (2004) Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector, Australasian Journal of Education Technology, 20 (2), 232-247.

Wilson, C., Barbara, H. (2008), Educational Blogging, retrieved from http://sites.wiki.ubc.ca/etec510/Educational_Blogging on Nov. 6th, 2012.

WordPress.com, Types of blogs, retrieved from http://en.wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/ on Nov. 3^rd, 2012.

All Hail the Blogger (Blogging in Education: Concerns {Part 2})

Blogging in Education: Concerns

            The Wiki Blog Pros and Cons also provides a list of disadvantage of blogs that educators should keep in mind when considering using blogging with their students. These are:

·         Takes time to keep a blog updated.

·         It may be difficult to keep the students blogging about subjects relevant to the class.

·         Students may not blog if they are not required to because it takes time.

·         Writing may be more casual than assignments turned in by traditional methods. May encourage sloppy writing habits similar to email and instant messaging.

·         Blogs are not good for questions that require fast answers.

·         Not all college courses have content that is appropriate for discussions and opinion essays.

·         If students are required to blog but they do not have anything they want to say, they will only write the minimum and it may not be relevant or useful.

·         May be difficult for some students who have lower computer skills.

·         It could be difficult to follow a discussion if replies are in individuals’ blogs rather than immediately next to each other.

·         Blogs do not give the feeling of a conversation because there is time delay.

·         Some professors and /or students may not want to learn new technology.

·         Blogs do not offer confidentiality.

·         Blogs may create competition between students.

All Hail the Blogger (Blogging in Education: Concerns {Part 1})

Blogging in Education: Concerns

Despite all of the potential benefits that blogging can bring to the learning environment, there are still numerous concerns revolving around the use of this technology in educational settings. When self-reflecting on his use of blogging with his students at the university level, Walatka (2012) states, “I do not bring in technology for its own sake and the appeal that it may have for students is not central.” The technology is a means to an end, a tool to reach the learning goal. One must ask the question, “For what purpose do I want to integrate blogging into the learning environment and what will the academic benefit be for my students?”

            There have been numerous issues brought forth with regards to blogging in higher education institutions. In the literature review for the 2007 article Exploring Students’ Understandings of How Blogs and Blogging can Support Distance Learning in Higher Education, Lucinda Kerawalla, Shailey Minocha, Grainne Conole, Gill Kirkup, Matt Schencks, and Niall Sclater point out several of these concerns. These include minimal communication between students, poor quality reflections upon course materials, poor compliance, plagiarism, and difficulty managing the tension between publishing private thoughts in a public space. Kerawalla et al conclude that these findings suggest that students are often task-focused and outcome oriented, that often they find it difficult to understand the rationale behind the requirement to blog, and that they are unable to recognise how blogging could enhance pre-existing practices.

            When introducing blogging to students, Walatka (2012) points out that teachers often seem more enthusiastic about blogging than students who frequently view maintaining a blog as just another form of work. The medium of blogging may have some intrinsic appeal to students, but this does not go very far once they realize that they are being asked to do serious academic work. It should be conveyed to students that blogging is another form of work; it is simply an effective form of work. Thus, it is important not to start with the idea that students are going to love blogging because it is blogging; rather, one should choose blogging if it will help one’s students reach central learning goals. One way to increase commitment from students is to explain frankly to them why they will be blogging and how the blogs fit into the structure of the class as a whole. The more students understand the logic behind their blogging and see the way in which their work is directly contributing to the class as a whole, the more buy-in one is likely to get from students.

            Walatka (2012) paper, Hub-and-Spoke Blogging and Advantaged for Classroom Discussion, showed how student blogging can be a powerful tool for supporting one’s efforts to develop and maintain a student and discussion-centered classroom. However, blogging on its own, of course, does not do this. Walatka regularly employed a mixture of discussion, think-pair-share activities, one-minute papers, peer-instruction, and group work in order to promote higher level learning. His ability to do this is strengthened by the use of blogs, but blogging alone does not bring this about. One must have an ongoing commitment to integrating discussion as a central part of one’s pedagogy in addition to using blogs.

            Although the above concerns with blogging can apply to any educational institution, the greatest concern of all is for the safety of those students blogging at the primary / elementary and secondary levels. Due to the accessibility of blogs, it is important that student safety is a priority. Students should be taught Internet safety so they do not inadvertently put themselves at risk from predators. Many school districts do not allow blogs through their firewalls as it is almost impossible to screen blogs for content. Many schools have students write their blogs anonymously, however, this devalues the whole personal experience of blogging. Some blog providers have recognized this problem and found ways to work around it by giving teachers a way to preview work and comments before they are published (Wilson and Barbara, 2008).

All Hail the Blogger (Benefits of Blogging in Education: Part 2)

 Benefits of Blogging in Education

            As at every educational level blogging has been used in a variety of way and for a variety of purposes. In their 2009 paper, Classroom Blogging in the Service of Student-centered Pedagogy: Two High School Teachers’ Use of Blogs, April Luehmann and Robyn MacBride add to the empirical support for blogging at the high school level by providing an in-depth descriptive study of two classroom blogs. This study led the researchers to identify six complementary “blogging practices” that was educational benefits. These are:

1)      Sharing resources – i.e., teachers or students posting information and resources related to the course (including links connecting to such resources) on the blog.

2)      Eliciting and publishing students’ responses to teacher prompts – i.e., teachers posting questions the students are expected to respond to using blog posts or comments.

3)      Recording lesson highlights – i.e., student providing summaries of what took place in class as well as explanations of the concepts explored.

4)      Posting learning challenges – i.e., teachers posting “extra” problems or questions students may choose to engage in if they want a challenge and inviting students to share their answers / solutions, reasoning, and experiences with the challenge.

5)      Reflecting on what was learned – i.e., students posting their reflections on what was learned across a unit as well as how these learning opportunities were experienced (metacognitive reflections)

6)      Engaging in online conversations – i.e., students and teachers engaging in synchronous online informal conversations on-line using chat boxes and often using instant messaging language (not available for viewing).

At the elementary level, blogging has also proven to be an effective educational tool. In their 2007 study, Collaborative Blogging as a Means to Develop Elementary Expository Writing Skills, Wendy Drexler, Kara Dawson, and Richard Ferdig provide evidence of the benefits of blogging. Their study focused on a group of third graders as they completed a five-paragraph essay and online presentation of a Native American tribe. The results supporting blogging indicated that (1) collaborative blogging improved students’ attitudes toward writing; (2) feedback generated from the collaboration, rather than the use of technology itself, increased students’ motivation to write; and (3) collaborative blogging improved students’ writing and supported development of related skills and knowledge.

Other (unintentional) beneficial results from blogging were also noted by Drexler et al. These included students transferred knowledge learned during the collaborative project to other academic and social facets of the classroom; students’ technology skills improved even though official technology-related instruction was not provided; students developed visual literacy skills as they transformed the essays into online presentations; and collaborative blogging enabled differentiated instruction while ensuring success for each student.

            Luehmann and MacBride (2009) in a literature review on classroom blogs recognize that the activity of blogging, due to its context and features, has been argued to offer bloggers access to a number of potentially valuable learning resources. While not all of these benefits may occur for students participating in a classroom blog, a number of authors have written specifically about the educational value of using classroom blogs, suggesting the following teaching and learning affordances:

·         Facilitating reflection and/or revision of one’s work.

·         Extending conversations and interactions outside of the classroom.

·         Increasing exposure, accountability and recognition of one’s work.

·         Facilitating access to resources.

·         Participating in professional discourse.

All Hail the Blogger (Benefits of Blogging in Education: Part 1)

Benefits of Blogging in Education

Over the next several years blogging continued to become increasingly popular with the general population and increasingly more prevalent in education. Higher educational institutions still dominated the blogosphere, however more and more educators were encouraging and experimenting with blogging with younger and younger age groups. Many ‘shout from the rooftops’ of the benefits of blogging and the need to bring this pedagogical tool to the masses.

In their 2012 paper, The Transformative Potential of Blogs for Research in Higher Education, Jana Bouwma-Gearhart and James Bess point out that while the blog is still in its relative infancy with respect to its use for academic research and may have important limitations, such as inviting contestations for authorship or ownership of ideas, it offers great promise for richer collaboration among many informed and interested scholars. The use of the blog for communication of in-process research and ideas may constitute not only an improvement in academic productivity but a significant transformation of the very culture of academic research in other positive respects (p. 250).

            At the university level, blogging has proven its effectiveness with students as a learning tool. In is 2012 article, Hub-and Spoke Student Blogging and Advantages for Classroom Discussion, Todd Walatka investigates the use of blogging as a pedagogical approach. He points out that ‘student-active strategies’ are widely accepted in educational research and that blogging can fulfill two general pedagogical principles. First, learning results from what the students does and thinks and that a focus on what the student does (or what one hopes students will be able to do) should guide course structure, assignments, assessments, and pedagogical strategies. Second, that new knowledge is constructed upon existing knowledge and thus teachers need to pay attention to the incomplete understandings, the false beliefs, and the naïve renditions of concepts that learners bring with them to a given subject. Teachers then need to build on these ideas in ways that help each student achieve a more mature understanding. The heart of this approach is the principle of “Just-in-Time-Teaching”. The main blogging approach used by Walatka is the hub-and-spoke method. In this approach, the professor maintains a central course blog (the “hub”) with links to each student’s blog (the “spokes”). This provides both a central location for distributing course information and assignments and individual spaces for each student to reflect on and begin a conversation about the course material.

            Walatka (2012) acknowledges that one of the central aims of education today is to help students to think critically and express themselves clearly and persuasively. This demands giving students the time and space in which to truly engage the material in dialogue with others. Blogging is a particularly helpful tool in this process. Writing assignments give students the opportunity to explore new ideas and begin engaging with one another. Student development is further supported as the instructor is able to tailor a particular class to the current level of understanding among students. Finally, by integrating student reflections as a fundamental part of in-class time the professor both begins where the students are and provides a space in which their own contributions are the core material from which the class builds. With the public nature of blogging one can also effectively draw more students into discussion in the classroom, affirming their essential role in the learning process.

All Hail the Blogger (Blogging in Education: The Early Years)

Blogging in Education: The Early Years

By 2004, blogging had become firmly established as a web based communication tool. The blogging phenomenon evolved from its early origins as a medium for the publication of simple, online personal diaries, to an app that has the capacity to engage people in collaborative activity, knowledge sharing, reflection, and debate (Williams and Jacobs, 2004, page 232). Many people called 2004 the Year of the Blog. A report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project supported this claim. In 2004, not only did the number of blog creators sharply increase, but more importantly blog readership. By the end of the year about 8 million Americans had created a blog and approximately 32 million Americans were blog readers (McGann, 2005). As the popularity of blogging increased, so did the attention it was given by those in the field of education.

In their 2004 article, Content Delivery in the ‘Blogosphere’, Richard Ferdig and Kaye Trammell recognize that “while few educators have already started using blogs in the classroom, more have focused on the potential of blogging in teaching and learning” (p. 12). As obvious supporters of blogging in education, Ferdig and Kaye draw on their own research and teaching to describe the pedagogy behind blogs, why blogs should be used as one of many teaching and learning tools, the potential benefits of blogs for educators, and specific strategies for using blogs in the classroom.

            In 2004, the average blogger was male, under 30, been online six or more years, with a household income around $50,000 annually, and had a college or graduate degree (McGann, 2005). This was far from describing the average student, or even teacher. However, because the potential benefits of blogging were too strong to ignore, researchers and educators started looking more closely at engaging specific populations in this web based activity. Initially, much of the early ‘push’ toward blogging and blogging research was focused on institutions of higher education. In their 2004 paper, Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector, Jeremy Williams and Joanne Jacobs explored the methods for using blogs for educational purposes in university courses and recorded the experiences of the Brisbane Graduate School of Business with its ‘MBA blog’.

            By 2006, a growing body of research was building around blogging, so much so that researchers were better able to review and find trends in works already created and also to find new, more focused areas of researcher to pursue in the future. In a review of literature available at the time, Marcus O’Donnell (2006) points out that much of the published discussion and research on blogs and teaching and learning in higher education focused on evaluation of blogging as a communicative technique. O’Donnell contends that this type of discussion largely assumes that successful integration of blogging into course delivery should be judged against a pre-existing and unchallenged pedagogical model. In his paper, Blogging as Pedagogic Practice: Artefact and Ecology, O’Donnell argues that to leverage its full educational potential blogging must be understood not just as an isolated phenomena, but as part of a broad palette of cybercultural practices which provide us with new ways of doing and thinking. O’Donnell points out that a model of blogging as a networked approach to learning suggests that blogging might achieve best results across the curriculum not through isolated use in individual units (p. 5). 

At this time, not only was blogging being researched and encouraged at higher education institutions, it was also being looked at in the K-12 and distance learning systems. Yoany Beldarrain, explored the growing use of blogging and other interactive and collaborative tools in her (2006) article, Distance Education Trend: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Beldarrain points out that technology is responsible for distorting the concept of distance between learner and instructor, and enabling learners to access education at any time and from any place (p. 139) Blogs are a very effective tool in achieving this goal. Beldarrain notes that blogs can be student-controlled while others are instructor-managed. For distance educators, the blog is a repository of professional resources and information related to online collaborative learning (p. 141).

Along with a greater variety of populations, published experiences with blogging also became more varied and personal. In 2005, Miles Berry decided to jump on the blogging bandwagon and wrote about his experiences blogging with his Year 6 students (11 – 12 year olds) in his article Elgg and Blogging in primary education. Likewise, after he discovered blogging as a new tool with unlimited possibilities for two-way connection with his community, Superintendent Mark Stock wrote about his experiences with blogging (2006). Both Berry and Stock, in describing their experiences, give advice about blogging, including listing benefits and pitfalls.

All Hail the Blogger (Types of Blogs)

Types of Blogs

There are many different categories of blogs. WordPress.com lists the most popular categories of blogs as:

·         Personal – This is the broadest category and includes blogs about personal topics like politics, music, family, travel, and health.

·         Business – Professionals ranging from realtors to lawyers who use blogs to share their expertise, and companies who use blogs to personally engage their customers.

·         Schools – Blogs are a great way for teachers and students to collaborate on classroom projects.

·         Non-profits – Foundations, charities, and human rights groups find blogs a great tool to raise awareness and money for their cause.

·         Politics – Members of parliament, political parties, government agencies, and activist use blogs to connect with their constituencies.

·         Military – Members of the military blog to report what they see happening in various parts of the world and to stay in touch with their families.

·         Private – Some people make their blogs private to share photos and information within families, companies, or schools.

·         Sports – Teams, athletes, and fans use blogs to express and share their passion for various sports.

·         How-to, tips and reviews – There are a lot of blogs that share tips and reviews about cooking, games, music, books, movies, etc.

(WordPress.com)

There are several offshoots to the conventional modern blog. These are:

·         Microblogging – A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size. Microblogs allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links. These are sometimes called microposts (Wikipedia, Microblogging).

·         Blogs based on media type – Vlog, a blog comprising of videos. Linklog, a blog comprised of links. Sketchblog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches. Photoblog, a site comprised of photos. Tumblelogs, a blog of short posts and mixed media types (Wikipedia, Blogs).

·         Blogs based on device – Moblog, a blog written on a mobile device such as a smartphone or PDA (Wikipedia, Blogs).

        The Reverse Blog – A type of blog that is characterized by the lack of an actual blogger. It is written entirely by the users, who are given a topic (Wikipedia, Reverse Blog). 

All Hail the Blogger (The Origins of Blogging)

The Origins of Blogging

Jorn Barger is credited with the first use of the term weblog when referring to his Robot Wisdom website in December, 1997. Two years later, Peter Merholz coined the term blog after writing in the sidebar of his weblog, “I’ve decided to pronounce the word “weblog” as “wee-blog”. Or “blog” for short.” Merholz’s passing remark would probably have produced few ripples if it was not for Pyra Labs. The company picked up the word blog and decided to use it extensively. Within Pyra Labs, weblogs were now referred to as blogs and their web logging application as “blogger”. In June of 1999, blogger.com was registered as a domain name (Wikipedia, the Blog Herald, eHow tech).

Blogging is something that has evolved over the last two decades. Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, Genie, CompuServe, e-mail lists, and Bulletin Board Systems. In the 1990’s, Internet forum software, created running conversations with “threads” (Wikipedia, Blogs) that connected topical messages. In June of 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) started a “What’s New” list of sites. The site provided entries sorted by date and links to commentary (the Blog Herald). In January of the following year, Justin Hall launches his website which included links to and reviews of other sites. Two years later, Hall commences writing an online journal with dated daily entries although each daily post is linked through an index page (the Blog Herald). The modern blog evolved from the online diary sites like that of Hall. 

Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common Web sites. The evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today (Wikipedia, Blogs).

All Hail the Blogger (What is a Blog?)

In recent years blogging has become very much a part of mainstream society. Some bloggers are celebrities, while others have become famous because of their blogs. There are bloggers who are experts in a certain field, and others who just like to blog about what is on their mind at the moment. This growing fascination with blogging has spilled over into education with numerous teachers having blogs relating to their profession and many teachers encouraging blogging by their students (both writing and reading blogs). So what is a blog and why are so many people doing it?

What is a Blog?

Essentially, a blog is a website consisting of entries (also called posts) that are made on an ongoing basis. Similar to a daily journal, these posts appear in reverse chronological order with the most recent post appearing first. These entries can be about whatever you want it to be, from a personal diary to an outlet for breaking news … and everything in between. There are blogs on virtually any topic you can think of. Blogs are typically created by a single individual, however more recently “multi-author blogs (MABs) have appeared. To increase their interactivity, many blogs include features such as comments and links. 

Developing a Successful Cyber Image (Part 4)

In Hough’s opinion, there are three interrelated emerging challenges faced with regards to a school’s cyber-image.

·         Selecting and presenting data and information in ways that benefit the school and its students

·         Identifying staff and student needs to enable them to meet these challenges

·        Planning to resource and implement responses to those needs

Hough points out that one of the early ‘victims’ of the current I.C.T. enabled clamour for “information about everything”, is a loss of wisdom in much of our social and public commentary. This loss is evident by our collective unwillingness to consider context as a reason or excuse for some comment or observed action that usually we don’t like or we disagree with. There is a clear reduction in our collective willingness to forget or forgive. In practice, there is now a permanent record available for web based actions of individuals and schools. This ‘permanent record’ aspect is an important part of creating, managing and protecting a cyber-image. Students in particular, but everyone in general, need to understand and accept that web based comments and behaviours are public and permanent and that your cyber-image is constituted from this mosaic of comments and occurrences with little regard for context or timing.

In today’s ‘information rich’ society, it is not a question of whether a school wants to take on the responsibility of the creation of its cyber-image since this cyber-image will be created with or without their involvement or permission through informal use by students, parents, and staff. Hough recommends that schools accept that data will be selected by others to be made public, and that leadership is required to be proactive and ready to explain the published data in ways that will benefit the school wherever possible. He also recommends that any data and information selected by the school be voluntarily presented and should, wherever possible, related back to the strategic thinking of the school, and always be designed to promote the positive image of the school.

Hough is correct in his thinking. Schools must take the ‘bull by the horns’ and take control of their cyber-image. As Hough pointed out, schools need to take two approaches, one reactive and the other proactive. In the reactive context, others have (and will continue to) select data and information about the school and will also provide interpretation and comments about it. In this context the school needs to manage its cyber-image which is created by others. In the proactive context, the cyber-image is being deliberately created and presented by the school by selecting the data and information about the school that will enable the schools goals and aspirations to be achieved. By using both of these contexts, the school cyber-image that is created is one that can influence others to be positive and supportive of the school.

References

Hough, M., Cyber Images, ACEL National Conference 2011, retrieved from http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=creating%20a%20successful%20cyber%20image%20for%20schools&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acel.org.au%2Fascd%2F2011confpres%2F6%2520Oct%2520Thu%2F1510%2F2011-10-06%25201510%2520ACEL%2520Conf%2520Hough.pptx&ei=PAuEUM2GBIb20gGs4ICoAw&usg=AFQjCNHAZZXL5m7uKe1XsbOhLsk39Rv52A on October 20^th, 2012.

Developing a Successful Cyber Image (Part 3)

A school website is only one way that schools can have a presence on the Internet and create a cyber-image. Many schools are now tweeting. Twitter can be used to share information that you want the world to know about your school such as sports scores and event announcements. Facebook is another powerful tool to reach an attended audience. Unlike Twitter that limits messages to 140 characters, Facebook allows for easy aggregation of all your posts on the school’s Facebook site. It’s a great place to store photos, list events, and share all the wonderful happenings and news from school. A school’s Facebook page can greatly facilitate a sense of community amongst its members. Some schools also have a school wiki and a school blog.

At the ACEL National Conference in 2011, Professor Michael Hough provided a workshop that dealt with the concept of cyber images. Hough makes the distinction between two types of school cyber image. The formal image includes the school’s official presence on the web through items such as school website, Twitter, Facebook, blog, and wikis. The school’s informal cyber image is created by student, staff, and parent comments on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and Second Life.

There is a definite trend toward a greater school presence on the web and this growing presence is influencing schools’ cyber image. Hough explores the question if this trend is good or bad from two different perspectives. The pessimist’s view for taking action is based on, “It is happening and I don’t like it, but we had better be prepared”. The optimist’s view is, “All this extra interest and exposure of schools is great and it gives us the opportunity to show the world what a good job we are doing”. The pessimist can immediately see all the reasons why an idea won’t work, however the optimist will look at an idea has having promise and wonder how he/she can get it to work in their school.

References

Hough, M., Cyber Images, ACEL National Conference 2011, retrieved from http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=creating%20a%20successful%20cyber%20image%20for%20schools&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acel.org.au%2Fascd%2F2011confpres%2F6%2520Oct%2520Thu%2F1510%2F2011-10-06%25201510%2520ACEL%2520Conf%2520Hough.pptx&ei=PAuEUM2GBIb20gGs4ICoAw&usg=AFQjCNHAZZXL5m7uKe1XsbOhLsk39Rv52A on October 20^th, 2012.

Developing a Successful Cyber Image (Part 2)

When planning your school’s website, Brian Hoke of Bentley & Hoke, LLC has several recommendations.

1.      A clear statement of who is to be in charge of the project.

2.      Realize that the project will demand significant amounts of time from school staff.

3.      Be sure that one of the first steps of the project is an examination of the needs of all intended audiences and the construction of an appropriate architecture for the site.

4.      Is the graphic design of the site to be the cart or the horse?

5.      Insist on user testing, and make sure that the testing comes early in the project lifecycle.

6.      Think about your content management needs.

7.      Consider setting standards for the way the site’s code will be built.

In his web article, How to Plan Your School’s Website, Robert Kennedy provides a large number of tips for those designing school websites. Some of the more relevant to all schools include:

1.      Keeping it simple. The school’s webpage should have an intuitive navigation bar so your visitors can get around easily and quickly find the information they need.

2.      Make it load fast. Eliminate slow loading graphics or fancy flash pages to make the site more accessible and appealing. Also, make any audio and optional extra.

3.      Have it designed professionally (in-house or out) and include the use of public relations. Have an understanding and knowledge of who the school is trying to reach, what the present constituency is, and what the target audience for the future might be.

4.      Safety considerations. Don’t expose students to unnecessary risk. This includes very careful consideration of any use of student pictures.

5.      Avoid garish colours for background and/or text. Avoid looking amateurish by providing illegible information.

6.      Keep your site fresh and up to date. Nothing looks more stagnant than information that has not been relevant in years.

References

Hoke, B. P., Planning your school’s website, retrieved from http://privateschool.about.com/od/consultants1/qt/websiterfp.htm on October 19^th, 2012.

Kennedy, R., How to plan your school’s website, retrieved from http://privateschool.about.com/od/consultants1/ht/websites.htm on October 20^th, 2012.

Developing a Successful Cyber Image (Part 1)

A quick web search using the words “school websites” will yield a multitude of results. It seems as if every school on the planet now has its own site on the Internet. The school website has become expected by parents, students, teachers, administrators and the general public. Schools are now being challenged to create and defend their cyber image. As schools increase their web presence the public scrutiny on schools has greatly increased. This would leave many asking, “Why does a school need a website and a cyber-presence?”

There are many reasons why a school may deem it necessary for them to have a website.  Snowcutter Web Designs breaks this need into three categories.

Celebrate and Publicise Your School

·         Raise the profile of your school

·         Display children’s work

·         Celebrate the successes of children and school

·         Advertise and record events and activities

·         Encourage feedback/communications from children and parents via a moderated visitors book

Improve Information Flow

·         Provide important and useful information about the school, its staff and its governors

·         Provide contact details and email contact to the school’s administration

·         Distribute newsletters, school brochures and other documents

·         Set up a mailing list to allow text copies of newsletters and other announcements to be emailed directly to subscribers

Help ICT Work for You

·         Provide class and club pages for children and teachers to develop

·         Provide quick and easy curriculum linked worksheets for lessons and homework (even interactive worksheets)

·         Allow interactive learning using curriculum based educational games

·         Provide downloadable teaching and learning resources in a Staff Zone

References

Snowcutter Web Design, Why does your school need a website, retrieved from http://www.snowcutter.co.uk/why.html on October 19^th, 2012.