Some of the most talented, caring, effective teachers I know, for a variety of reasons (with lack of site support or computer access issues at the top of the list), have shied away from all things technology-related.  So when a great teacher starts to dabble with a class blog and requests help so that his/her students can participate in the Student Bloggers Challenge, how would you suggest they begin this shared journey?

Based on my work this month with several teachers who very much want to join the blogosphere, but are a bit overwhelmed by the learning curve, here are five tips for teachers just beginning to weave blogging into their classroom toolkit:

Tip #1:  Start the process of reading, writing, and responding to blog posts as a whole class activity. Begin the day or  class period by sharing a blog post or comment that you will respond to as a class. With you doing the typing, this activity will probably not take more than five minutes and is great way to introduce your students to the genre of interactive reading and writing, while modeling the safe and ethical use of social networking.

Tip #2:  If you are using a program that has a plugin (a software program that allows additional capabilities) for threaded comment, download the plugin!  Be sure to explain to your students the difference between responding to the post and replying to a specific comment.

Tip #3:  Add other class blogs to your blogroll. You might need to add the Links widget to your sidebar first.  Adding links to other blogs in your blogroll allows your students to quickly access what’s likely to become a  growing community of classroom blogs.

If you have access to a laptop cart or a computer lab, I recommend rotating your students between reading blogs and posting comments, particularly if you’re requiring that they all respond to the same post, maybe something you just posted.  If too many comments are submitted to the same blog post in a short amount of time (which sets off a spamming alert), your student bloggers are likely to get the message “Slow down, you’re going too fast.”  Much of their blogging time will then be lost to clicking on the back button and submitting their comments again – and again, and again.

Besides the practical aspects, dividing student time between reading and writing is also a good way to model that blogging is actually more about reading than it is about writing.

Tip #4:  Remind your student commenters to add your classroom URL in the website box. This extra step will turn their names into a hyperlink back to your blog.  A great way to invite more readers and potential commenters to your site!

Tip #5:  Add a ClustrMaps widget.  If your class is participating in the Bloggers Challenge, you definitely want to add a ClustrMap to your sidebar using a Text widget. If you are a Supporter Level Edublogger, you can add your map by using the ClustrMaps widget.  Either way, you will soon have students scurrying to find a world map or atlas to accurately identify each state and country. Not only is the ClustrMaps widget a built-in geography lesson, but more important, it makes visible to students  the reality that the whole world has become their audience.

In the above tips I’ve included links for Edublogs users.  If you are a Blogger (which unfortunately many school district block), click here to learn how to set up a sidebar or how to insert a gadget (widget), including a ClustrMap.

Again, many thanks to Sue Wyatt for sponsoring the Student Blogger Competition and to Sue Waters for all her backup support.  I already know this event will expand learning opportunities for both students and their teachers!

Note: This post has been written on “5 most important tips for educators starting out blogging with students” as part of The Edublogger’s Competition!

If you haven’t already marked October 20th on your calendar to take part in the National Day on Writing, please read on! In recognition of how integral writing has become to all of us as we journey further into the 21st century, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is inviting our nation to come celebrate composition in all its forms by submitting a piece of writing to the National Gallery of Writing.

Why a National Day on Writing?

In light of the significance of writing in our national life, to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in, and to help writers from all walks of life recognize how important writing is to their lives, October 20, 2009, will be celebrated as The National Day on Writing. The National Day on Writing will

• celebrate the foundational place of writing in Americans’ personal, professional, and civic lives.
• point to the importance of writing instruction and practice at every grade level, for every student and in every subject area from preschool through university. (See The Genteel Unteaching of America’s Poor.)
• emphasize the lifelong process of learning to write and composing for different audiences, purposes, and occasions.
• recognize the scope and range of writing done by the American people and others.
• honor the use of the full range of media for composing.
• encourage Americans to write and enjoy and learn from the writing of others.

What a wonderful opportunity to write as an individual, a family, a classroom, a school site, a department – to write from all walks of life.  All the resources you might need to get started with your piece are available on the website, from a flyer about the event to a link to Writing Between the Lines – and Everywhere Else, a look at how young people are using forms of digital media to reshape the process of composing.

A huge thank you to all the folks at NCTE for your gift to the nation!

With the Student Bloggers Challenge starting this week, I’ve been looking to others for more tips to help maximize our students’ blogging experiences. Here are my first five:

#1 Transition younger students (maybe older too) gradually from commenting to posting – From Kim Cofino –   I love Kim’s middle step of upping students’ posting permissions within the class blog before creating their own individual blogs.

Once students are comfortable with the process of leaving meaningful comments, and have returned their parental permission slip, we introduce them to the actual process of writing blog posts. The basics of logging in, creating a new post, putting your post in the category for your name, and submitting for review. Usually we have the first post be a short introduction to the student.

I love the fact that having a category for each student makes it appear as if each student has their own blog (by listing the name categories in the sidebar) and that no posts will be published until the teacher can approve them after moderation. Such an easy and safe way to begin blogging!”

#2 Take advantage of tools for embedding audio into posts – From  Troy Hicks & Dawn Reed – I had the good fortune to be in the same NCTE 2007 session as Dawn, where she shared her students’ This I Believe podcasts, so I was delighted to find that my recently arrived copy of Teaching the New Writing included a chapter from Troy ( NWP colleague from way back) and Dawn: From the Front of the Classroom to the Ears of the World: Multimodal Composing in Speech Class. In setting up a class blog where she could post her high school students’ podcasts, Dawn discovered that:

…since students often limit their comments to one another’s work with simple replies such as ‘good speech,’ and others – teachers, parents, community members, and students from other classes or schools – could not be a part of our speech class, podcasting would allow for feedback from those who may offer a different perception of the ideas presented….

…the largest implication of this entire project is the value that students found in producing content for a larger and authentic audience.  In so doing, they joined a conversation as members of a global society, moving their voices from the front of the classroom to the ears of the world.”

Note that Dawn (like Kim) brought her students into the classroom blog via promoting their access levels and creating a category (which appears in the sidebar) for each student.

As I am writing this post, I also have another tab open to a reprint of an article by Jason Ohler -  Media Literacy: Eight Guidelines for Teachers. I’d like to share Jason’s thoughts on the importance of oracy:

Currently, many media collages are based on the four components of “the DAOW of literacy”: Digital, Art, Oral, and Written. Being able to understand and blend the best of the old, recent, and emerging literacies will become a hallmark of the truly literate person.

Of the four components of the DAOW, oracy—the ancient literacy of speaking and listening—deserves much more focus than it currently receives. It is central to many of the media collage forms currently in wide use, including storytelling, narrated documentaries, movies, PowerPoint presentations, and even games and virtual realities. And it is central to leadership as well. After all, we often look for evidence of leadership in the way that people speak to others.

#3 Provide students with choices and starting points – From Paul Allison – I found the  Self-Assessment Matrix in Paul’s chapter from Teaching the New Writing: Be a Blogger: Social Networking in the Classroom.  Through my involvement with the ever-evolving Youth Voices project, I know Paul’s genuine commitment to “keeping it real” and to helping his high school students “find something to be passionate about, and to connect with others who share this passion.”  Students are given the matrix on Monday and choose wherever they wish as a starting point, and, ideally, by the end of the week, they will have crossed out every box in the matrix. Paul’s goal is to help students make the shift from blogging as a teacher-centered activity to a student-centered activity. When the turning point happens…

No longer am I working to motivate students to do work for me.  Instead, I am working to help each student to accomplish his or her own goals as readers and writers in a school-based network….

…Being a blogger is about what young people do when they sit down to work at their computers.  It is about creating a space in their lives to safely extend and explore their online voices with a group of peers, both at school, in another part of town, in another state, and around the world.”

#4  Build in meta-cognition through ‘tagging’ – From Paul Allison – To get students reflecting both specifically and broadly about their writing, Paul asks them to come up with tags (key words) to describe a post.  “Asking them to tag their writing with five key words is to ask them to reread and think about what they are writing. Later, when students add these words to the bottom to their blog posts, they see how key words give them the power to find others who have also published about this theme, which then allows them to respond to the bloggers…establishing a web of relationships...”

#5  Use your PLN to bump up readership for your student bloggers – From Jeff Utecht – OK, maybe not all of us have the 4,000+ followers in Twitter that Jeff mentions in his recent post A blog post, a tweet, and a connection, but I”m willing to bet that if you’re reading this post, you already have a growing network of colleagues in your Personal Learning Network, in addition to friends or even relatives, you could call on to help broaden the audience for your bloggers. Over the past eight years, I’ve been involved in a variety of student blogging projects, and over and over have seen the common thread of the positive – and substantial -  impact on literacy skills an authentic audience provides!

A huge thank you to Sue Wyatt for organizing and hosting the the 2009 Bloggers’ Competition – and to Sue Waters for supporting and promoting the efforts of teachers to bring their students into the blogosphere!

Note: This post is a gathering of blogging tips written by other bloggers, whose insights into teaching and learning in a digital age continue to influence and inspire me. Although there is not a category for borrowed tips in  The Edublogger’s Competition, I wanted to acknowledge and thank everyone mentioned above for all that they have so generously shared.

I’ve known Glen Bledsoe for about eight years, through our mutual association with the National Writing Project. Whenever I have the opportunity to participate in one of his workshops, poster sessions, or panel discussions, I am blown away by both the brilliance of his observations on teaching and learning and the innovative ways he molds and weaves technology into the elementary classroom.  So I was thrilled when my copy of Teaching the New Writing arrived this week, knowing that it included  Glen’s chapter on Collaborative Digital Writing:  The Art of Writing Together Using Technology!

A visit to some of the multimedia projects developed by Glen’s students will give you a window  into  the many ways he infuses technology into his language arts program, eliminating barriers of poverty, language, or past disengagement with writing:

• The Library Ghost (due to download time, I’m giving you the URL, rather than embed it – http://www.molallariv.k12.or.us/~mes/podcast/LibraryGhost.mov)
• Donny and the Ghost

I used to hesitate sharing Glen’s projects with teachers new to technology and digital storytelling because their reaction was likely to be “how about you show us something better suited to beginners.”  But if you take a sample such as the Library Ghost, which basically involved an entire class of 4th graders, Glen does a beautiful job of explaining the steps that moved an idea from concept to product.  His chapter is loaded with common sense suggestions and easy to follow tips. Glen initiates projects like Library Ghost by connecting the laptop to the projector and beginning the storytelling process, starting with:

• Describing the Characters: As a class, they develop the list of characters for the story, making sure not to use classmates’ names. Through a shared discussion, each character is given characteristics (i.e., for a female character – “she’s into fashion, but she doesn’t really know what’s fashionable and what’s not” or “she has many friends, but she doesn’t tell them about all her feelings.”)
• Writing the Script: Glen takes about 30 minutes each day with the lights dimmed and the computer projecting onto the screen at the front of the class.  Beginning with an impromptu cast rereading of what’s been written so far, as a group they edit what doesn’t make sense and move on to adding the next lines.  This process is repeated daily until the script has been completed to everyone’s satisfaction – although revisions are still likely to take place throughout the recording sessions.
• Recording the Script: In this phase, students work together in small groups. With a USB microphone connected to Glen’s computer, students record their lines one at a time. “It’s unrealistic to expect students to read their lines like live radio and not make serious errors.  Allowing them to read their lines over and over and picking the best version works well.  The lines of the script are numbered, and as we record the lines, we number the sound files to match.  This is a simple step but extremely important.”But how do you keep a class quiet while individuals are recording their parts (a question I am frequently asked)? In a loud voice, Glen does a Three, Two, One countdown, signalling to the rest of the class that they must be completely still until the speaker has completed his/her lines. Then students can return to their “normal rustlings.” When the class has maxed out on being able to hold still, he waits till library time, for instance, and asks small groups to stay back in the class to record.
• Adding Photos: Photos are taken after the lines have been digitally recorded. A student called Scriptboy or Scriptgirl and the director (Glen) “coach the principal actors for a given scene.  The Scriptboy then reads aloud what line is being said for a particular photo.  The actor then holds herself in such a way as to mime the line. Body language, facial expressions, and camera angles are all very important in conveying meaning.  Don’t underestimate the power of these three elements in supporting the text of the story.  The script always comes first.  You can’t create a very compelling digital story with a weak script, but with a strong script adding the above characteristics will add a level of polish. ” Once the photo session is completed, upload shots to your computer (in same folder as the voice recordings!)
• Assembling the Script: Now that lines, voice recordings, and photos have been uploaded, assembling the story is the easy part.  But I’ll repeat Glen’s tip to “Spend most of your time on the writing.  I can’t emphasize that enough. “
• The Ultimate Purpose: Who’s the intended audience and for what purpose?  If it a film competition, for instance, you’re likely to be dealing with a 3-5 minute time limit.  So the original piece may need some trimming down, which could eliminate some students from the story.  Glen’s policy is to assure those students that they will get lines in upcoming digital productions.

Because I am mindful that many teachers must justify digital storytelling as a part of their English/Language Arts program, one of the many lines I’ve highlighted from Glen’s chapter addresses standards:

It’s not difficult to take a collaborative digital media project and match it against either a given state’s technology or language arts standards…While the exercise is not difficult to do, I don’t set the standards first and then design the projects around them.  I look at the project from an artistic perspective and then find standards that match.  That just the way my mind works.  The inspiration comes first. If the idea is powerful enough to move me and my students, then it will have enough substance to engage the standards.  Grabbing an idea and following through with it is a real-world task. I believe the purpose of standards is to reflect real-world needs and apply them to student work.  If students are creating projects that reflect real-world tasks, then it follows that they will be adhering to the standards.”

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning in the foothills, so I’m heading out to my deck to start reading the next chapter, Kevin Hodgson’s Digital Picture Books – From Flatland to Multimedia. If you’re not already subscribing to Kevin’s blog, you’re missing great tips and examples of what digital storytelling looks like with 6th graders!