Week 1


 Intro and Blogging  

Your first task is to jump right in and set up your very own personal blog to begin recording your thoughts, discoveries, and exercises. For this program, you will be using d20blogs. If you are brand new to the blogosphere, you may wish to take a quick tour before you dive right in. Grab yourself a blog in 3 steps:
  1. Login to d20blogs. You will use your AD username and password.
  2. Name your blog. Remember that the whole web world can see your blog title and blog address. You may not want to use your real name or full name. Consider creating a blog name that's anonymous, yet uniquely you. The URL for your blog will look like these examples - http://mizmercer.edublogs.org/ or http://futura.edublogs.org/, or http://bsnaxton.edublogs.org/ (these are real blogs so of course you need to give your own blog its own unique name.) The format is name.blogspot.com when you use Blogger software. Note: There are no www in the address when using d20blogs. Please remember your URL address, bookmark it, or keep a notebook with your URLs, passwords, and special notes.
  3. Select your template. d20blogs has several templates - have fun choosing one for you! Remember that this is "discovery learning" and that you will have a series of mini problem solving exercises along the way - depending on your level of web 2.0 experiences to date. Each time you find a solution; you will rejoice and be that much more tech savvy! Enjoy.
A word of caution: if you change templates after you have entered a great deal of content, you might lose some of that content along the way, particularly if the new template doesn't have the same number of frames and features. You might want to consider saving text content in another place such as a Word document saved to your home drive or a flash drive - just in case.

 Discovery Exercises:
  1. Set up a blog for yourself through d20blogs.
  2. Play around - add a test post or two.
  3. You will create a discovery post for each of the "20 Things" throughout this 8-week course. Please clearly label each entry in your blog in the following way: WEEK ___, Thing #___, Subject. Each of your posts should provide insights into what you've discovered and learned. Feel free to share what worked for you ... and what didn't ... what surprised you ... what frustrated you ... what amazed you.


 Thing #1:

Since your ‘Thing 1" is reading about this program, your "Thing 1" post might be about what you hope to get out of this program. TIP: This is a good time to "bookmark" your blog for easy access throughout the course.
  • Create an avatar -- a representation of yourself. Go to http://avatars.yahoo.com/, design an avatar [representing you or a younger version of yourself] with a school, library, or classroom background. (You will have to set up an account if you don't use Yahoo!) Save your avatar and export to your blog. [HINT: Here's how to export your avatar to your blog. When you are on your Avatars.Yahoo.com page, go to "home" tab and look to the right column. One of the options is: "EXPORT. Click on the export link, and then you will have a static image on the left-hand side that you can right-click, "save image as" and save to your computer. To add your avatar to your Profile click on Dashboard - on the left click on Edit Profile. Scroll to Photograph, upload picture. Click the radio button "From your computer" and Browse. Select the avatar image you downloaded to your computer. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save Profile."]

 Thing #2:

Once your blog is set up, email the name of your blog and the URL to Lori Hartman. It will be added to the blogroll located on the right menu on the Academy District 20/20 Things Blog.

Safety Notice:
If you set up a blog for use with your students, some safety features must be put in place.
1) Students should not use last names or personal photos for their avatar for posts or comments.
2) When you go into "Settings" select "Comments."
  • Under "Comment Moderation" - select "Always"
  • Under "Comment Notification Email" - type in your email address so you receive an email whenever someone leaves a comment
  • Under "Before comment appears" - select "Administrator must always approve comment"
3) Go to "Settings" select "Permissions"
  • Under "Blog Readers" - you can select the privacy setting most appropriate
 Curriculum Connections:  
Idea #1: Lead your students into areas of ‘big idea' inquiry with a blog. You can get thoughts rolling, provide research links, and finish up with classroom discussions. Create one for the next school, local, state, or national election. This could be a great activity for Constitution Day!
Sample Blog: Uclan student elections 2008
Idea #2: Start a book discussion blog -- it is a library and language arts favorite. Start one today and then branch out into other topics such as pros/cons or topics of interest.
Sample Blog: Sullivan BookBlog
Idea #3: Promote campus activities, conduct student surveys, and gather opinions.
Idea #4: As a formative assessment activity, set up a blog with student pages where they can reflect on their learning.
Sample Blog: 817 Math

On your blog write your thoughts about how students might use blogs in your classroom.  Skeptical? Take a look at this video by Rachel Boyd from Teacher Tube: "Why Let Our Students Blog?" [Note: Please remember to include WEEK# and Thing# in your heading posts.]


Copyright, Creative Commons and Web 2.0

Before we get too far along in our work, it is important to take a moment to consider copyright issues surrounding the "read-write" world of Web 2.0.
Putting the ‘social' into social networks allows us to freely exchange information. But with the free exchange of information comes the responsibility of how we share it, and how we give credit to the author of that information. Think you know something about copyright? You can brush up on fair use by reviewing this tutorial.
In the classroom and school library, we are often faced with the copyright challenges of when it is acceptable to copy something and how much of an item [book, website, music etc] we can copy. Faced with declining budgets and little time, we are tempted to go ahead and make the copies. But with the advent of file sharing, downloading and RSS, we must acknowledge and teach the ethics of information gathering and sharing.

Creative Commons is a copyright license that allows us to choose to share our intellectual property. This course is designed under a Creative Commons license and is an example of how one can take a piece of information or a product and re-work it to make it fit your needs. By acknowledging the original authors, they have given permission for you to share. One place for good information about Creative Commons is Wikipedia. So who are the people and from what professions that are actively publishing content on the web under Creative Commons Licenses? What is their incentive? Here is a fascinating study that was conducted by Minjeong Kim from Hawaii Pacific University.

Classroom 2.0 is a term used to describe a new set of concepts for developing and helping students to learn. The name is an extension of Web 2.0 and shares many of its same philosophies and concepts.


Many have argued that the notion of Classroom 2.0 is more than just a term used to describe concepts that merely revolve around the use of technology; it also a term that can be used to describe both physical and mindset changes that are occurring within schools. Do you believe that schools of tomorrow, even five or ten years from now, will look substantially different from schools today?

 Thing #3:


Discovery Exercises:
  1. On this blog, find an example or attribution that shows this training program has been modified from its original.
  2. Go to Google Image Search - now click on "Advanced Image Search." See if you can find a way to search for images that give you permission to copy and use such as on a blog or a wiki. (Hint: scroll down and find "usage rights.")
  3. Read through some of the posts in the forum on Classroom 2.0 and explore other content in groups, videos, and blogs found on Steve Hargadon’s Classroom 2.0 social network on Ning. Create a blog post about your thoughts on any one of these.
  4. For Thing # 3, write about your thoughts on anything copyright related: fair use, responsible use, ethics, creator vs. user rights, how to teach students to follow copyright, etc. Include thoughts on Classroom 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you? What does it mean for schools?

Discovery Resources:

 Curriculum Connections
IDEA #1: Share some of the copyright resources listed above with students. Have them set up a mock copyright infringement trial for a college student accused of downloading music illegally.
IDEA #2: For student work that you publish on your blog or website, ask students if they want to select a Creative Commons copyright license for the item.
We hope you're enjoying all the exercises you've done so far. Keep having fun exploring and thinking about Web 2.0 in the Classroom!
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