The Next New Thing: Create, Communicate and Collaborate With Blogs Will Richardson March 11, 2004 Schools East Washington, DC

User Warning: Use of Weblogs and RSS technologies may lead to sleeplessness, irritability, and the horrible reality that you’ll never being able to know it all. Use at your own risk.

Weblogs First

What is a Weblog? A Weblog is an easily created, easily updateable Website that allows an author (or authors) to publish instantly to the Internet from any Internet connection.

Weblogs Don’t Require… Knowledge of HTML Knowledge of FTP Webpage creation software If you can send an , you can update a Weblog page.

Weblogg-ed

How Easy Is It? Just Watch…

What Weblogs Can Do Create Digital Paper—as much of it as you want Allow for collaboration from far-flung participants Add voices to the conversation Archive thoughts and research Provide instant audience Filter and organize information

So, a Weblog Can Be… Online Filing Cabinet Photo Album Portfolio Online Journal Collaborative Space Much more…

Types of Web Logs Personal—largest segment; people writing about their own lives. Business—Microsoft, Macromedia and others are allowing employees to communicate with potential customers as a way to build brand loyalty. Politics—Democratic presidential candidates, Howard Dean especially

Types of Web Logs Collaborative—Groups of various sizes sharing space, usually on a common interest Special Interest—Whatever topic you are interested in, there’s a Web log for it. Web Portal—A Website that business owners or educators can update regularly.

Blogs Get on the Map

Presidential Bloggers

Celebrity Bloggers

How Many Blogs Are There? Over 5,000,000 with 10,000,000 expected by year’s end. Over 50% are kept by year olds. Fewer than 50,000 are updated daily. 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months. The typical blog is written by a teenage girl who uses it twice a month to update her friends and classmates on happenings in her life.

Blog the Word Even the Oxford English Dictionary recognizes the importance of the blog: And what’s the number two word for 2003 at yourdictionary.com???

Blog the Word Now we’ve got: Blog (n) Blogger (n) Blogosphere (n) Blogging (v) Blogroll (n)

Nothing Will Stop…the BLOG!

Why Weblogs? Weblogs have a number of characteristics that make them interesting as classroom/library tools. Aside from ease of use, archiving of info, audience, access and collaboration, there’s: 1. Multimedia—Weblogs can make use of audio and video, and some can store files of other types for easy retrieval.

Why Weblogs? (Con’t) 2. Hypertext—Weblogs allow for easy linking to research and sources of information. 3. Low cost—Most Weblog software is either free or relatively inexpensive, depending on your needs. 4. Communication—Instant, comprehensive and complete

Weblogs in Schools More and more teachers and educators are finding that Weblogs provide interesting new ways of communicating with students, parents and colleagues.

Weblogs in the Classroom: Online Filing Cabinet Students and teachers can use the Web log as a place to store assignments, plans, handouts, etc. Claire

Students can extend conversations outside of the classroom, and collaborate with invited guests from around the world. Weblogs in the Classroom: Collaborative Learning Space The Secret Life of Bees The Secret Life of Bees /AuthorAuthor

Weblogs can work as a discussion group for students and staff. Weblogs in the Classroom: Online Discussion Honors Sociology

New (or veteran) teachers can use Weblogs as portfolios or as an archived discussion of their practice with mentors. Weblogs in the Classroom: Professional Development Entry Year Teacher

Blogging as Genre Media Literacy Weblogs in the Classroom: Writing Instruction

Weblogs in Schools Weblog as Website Schools can use a distributed content creation model when using Weblogs as Websites. Little Miami Schools

School library sites can serve as easily updated research portals and resource sites. Weblogs in Schools: Library Portal IMC

Weblogs in Schools Information/Communication Weblogs can provide a great way to manage knowledge, from committee work to historical artifacts. Technology Committee

Weblogs make for an easy classroom interface for notes, links, homework and conversation. Weblogs in Schools Classroom Portal Journalism 2

Considerations Privacy and safety Cost Technical support Connectivity of classrooms and homes Time to develop Web log software

Uses in Education Reams and reams of digital paper for students, teachers and administrators to create with.

Web Log Options Free Web log software on the Internet –Blogger –moTime –Many others Software for local installation –Manila--$295 a year for up to 3,000 sites –Moveable Type—Free to schools Pay Web logs with hosting –Type a year with a limit on space

Helpful Hints Start a Web log—If you are going to teach with blogs, you need to be a blogger. Read other Web logs—And find other educators using them. Web logs foster community. Start small—Create a classroom portal, invite some others into the conversation, build from there Web logs are a tool…fit them to your curriculum, not vice versa.

What is RSS? The behind-the-scenes tool that adds power to blogging.

Real Simple Syndication (RSS) RSS allows writers to automatically syndicate the content they create and it allows readers to “subscribe” to receive that content when it is published. –Most Weblogs have RSS “feeds” built in –Content comes to you instead of you going to look for it. –Makes it easy to keep track of more sources of information

Real Simple Syndication (RSS) Two parts to RSS Part 1– An XML “news feed” from the Weblog Part 2--A “news reader” to translate and display the feeds

Many Blogs in One Place You can subscribe to as many news feeds as you can keep track of…. Weblogs Newspapers Magazines Searches Amazon.com Thousands more

Using RSS Feeds Step 1—Look for xml button George W Bush

Using RSS Feeds Step 2—View XML feed and copy address XML Feed

Using RSS Feeds Step 3—Find a news reader (aggregator) Aggregators check the feeds that you tell it to, see if there is any new content, and if so, save the content for you to view when you are ready.

Using RSS Feeds – Part 2 RSS Feeds can also be displayed as content on a page. Athletics

RSS in Schools Teachers can aggregate content from student Weblogs Parents can aggregate news from the school and work from student Weblogs Administrators can aggregate news from various school Weblogs Librarians (and others) can “push” content simply by posting to a Weblog Everyone can use less, scan more information in less time. And much, much, much more…

RSS in Schools And one more cool application: Research can come to you! Claire

First Steps Start a Weblog and start publishing to the Internet Read some other Webloggers Go to bloglines.com and sign up for an account Subscribe to some feeds Start thinking and playing

Thanks! And if you have further questions, or you’d like to join my conversation, please visit me at THANK YOU!