Lee's resources sites ...
http://sites.google.com/site/edtechlearning
http://sites.google.com/site/edtechlearning/so-you-want-to-be-a-blogger
A Geeky Momma's Blog
Mrs Kolbert's Class Blog
Returned to classroom last year as a 4th grade teacher and was able to take a lot of her previous five years' experience into the classroom. She suggested that teachers often don't realise the autonomy that they have!
She started the session by showing some exemplary blogs, all written in different styles but all highly featurable on anyone 'blogs followed' list:
Lisa Thumann
Kevin Jarrett
Beth Still
Richard Byrne
Wes Fryer
People who contribute or write on the web are leaving a digital footprint - this video by Steve Johnson shows how important it is to ensure that anything you post on the web puts you in a good light - for example, in 2011, it is expected that a high percentage of employers [little short of 100%] will look out on social networking sites to scan a candidate's suitability for employment! On the other hand, valuable contributions online may also help enhance your prospects of employment!
For those who are very new to blogging and who might lack confidence to start with, Lee suggests reading other's blogs and making comments, even two word comments like ... "Great post!" to get used to the idea of interacting. Then to start their own blogs, she recommends Google's Blogger and the very popular Edublogs.
Blogs generally are easy to set up; besides adding regular posts, bloggers may well want to add in widgets which enable other applications to display within your blog, like your Twitter feed or a survey of some sort. [Live traffic feeds might be a little off-putting though!]. Most blogs offer a widget that aggregates news and blogs of your choosing via RSS feeds - this Common Craft video explains RSS feeds very well!
When setting up a class blog, you could start by writing a little about yourself. You can embed homework assignments in your blog posts, even code from application like Slide Share if you wish students to follow a presentation as part of the schedule.
Most teachers will ask their students to email work to them [advisedly from their parent's email address] and then upload it to the blog, using first names only to describe the student's work. You need to be very careful about instructing students on the use of their email address in the blogosphere, for some blogs only allow you to make comments after you've supplied an email address ... this doesn't have to be your correct one! And if commenting also requires you to supply a website, then that should be left completely blank.
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