Learn to teach with blogs

Multi-media

Captain — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:58:58 +0000

What is a wiki

Captain — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:45:45 +0000

I showed one teacher the wiki I created for my class in one workshop. Wiki is another web 2.0 tool. Wiki is an easy to create website which anyone can edit. The best known wiki is probably wikipedia. Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia. The content of the encyclopedia is contributed by users around the world as opposed to conventional encyclopedia (such as Britannica) which is edited by professional experts. It is beyond the scope of the blogging workshop.

The wiki I created for my class

http://6sgarden.wetpaint.com

There are many wiki services available for free. Some wikis I have tried are listed below.

1. WikiSpaces

www.wikispaces.com

2. PBwiki

http://pbwiki.com/education.wiki

3. Wetpaint

www.wetpaint.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: wiki, web 2.0

Package tracking with Bloglines

Captain — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:14:39 +0000

Yesterday, when I was introducing Bloglines features to teacher participants , one teacher asked about one icon which I did not notice. It reads “package tracking”. I have no clue at all. I clicked it and found that it can track courier packages such as DHL, or Fedex pacrels. Like subscribing to blogs, you just enter the tracking number of your parcel and it should be tracked. I don’t have any parcel to track but it is an innovative and practical functions. I have never thought I can track parcels with a web-based blog reader. Thanks to this teacher, I learn one more thing.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: parceltracking, bloglines,

Protected: The Two Sides of a Coin

Captain — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:30:46 +0000

This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.

Adding music to your blog

Captain — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:30:05 +0000

Due to copyright issue, many blog service providers (BSP) do not offer storage space for music. However, you may use third party service and add music to your blog. Here is some information regarding how to add music to your blog. The steps vary from blog to blog and may require some technical skills to do so.

Word Press

http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/12/24/how-do-i-get-music-on-my-blog/

Yahoo Blog

This blog illustrates how to add music to Yahoo blog step by step.

http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/iam-pinkpanther/article?mid=473

Xanga

Looks like it support music storage. Need to explore further.

LivesSpaces

Not sure yet

Sina

Not sure yet

Test run Windows Live writer

Captain — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:02:35 +0000

Technorati 的標籤：tips,wordpress,Live Writer,blog

I am excited to know about Live writer and eager to give it a try. Windows Live Writer is said to be a Blog writing system which manage multiple blog accounts. It allows to move back and forth between your blogs. If you have multiple blogs across different blogging platforms. You will be delighted to know this service. You are supposed to write, edit and manage your post with Windows Live writer and it can do the upload for you. At the momens, it supports Microsoft Live (of course), Blogger, WordPress, Sharepoint. It does not support Xanga, Yahoo Blog and Sina blogs. I am still testing and it is my my post. It seems as if I am writing with a word processor. The layout is more like Microsoft Word than a blog interface. More comments to come.

Free courses on the Internet

Captain — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 07:57:42 +0000

Top Universities in the world have opened up their courses and allow public to take their courses online. MIT is one of the examples. Its Open CourseWare provides coure content for free. They also have a section for high school students too. What does it mean? It means knowledge is free and can be openly accessed. But why are they so generous? I think it is a paradigm shift in education. It is an example of open content, open source and open access. By providing it free, it encourages free flow of knowledge and knowledge transfer. The future of learning will be reshaped to a large extent.

Google and Education

Captain — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:53:21 +0000

Think of Google, what comes to your mind? Search engine and what else. How many Google service can you name? Goggle maps, Picassa, Blogger, Google Docs… One of my friends, Marie, has recently conducted a workshop on educational uses of Google. I have not catched up with her yet. It shows signs of educational implication of Google. I recently come across some resources and papers discussing about Google and Education. i was amazed by the possibilities and innovative uses of Google and the its impact to Education in the future.Google has a university.Google Universityhttp://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/03/google-university.html is just a prototype idea at the moment but there is no reason why it cannot be in reality. With its Google Scholars and Google Docs and Google videos, it has all necessary learning technologies to put it into practice. Google Teacher’s Academy.While Google University is still in the planning stage. Three Google Teacher’s Academies were organized to train teachers how to use Google apps to empower their teaching.Read the follwoing blog to learn more about this initiative.http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/teachers-rock-our-world.htmlAnd the Google Education Home offers a lot of resources for teachers and the like. http://www.google.com/educators/index.htmlThere is Google Groups for Education if you want to stay tuned with the latest news. In there, I found a page talking how Google Docs can be integrated for language teaching purpose ( esp. process writign and peer editing) http://www.google.com/educators/weeklyreader.htmlIn the acdemic circle, similar claims have been ropsoed recently. In the latest Languag Learning and Technology, http://llt.msu.edu/, there is an article about Google Assisted Language Learning http://llt.msu.edu/vol12num1/net/default.html Who says technology has nothing to do with language teaching?

Assignment tracking

Captain — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 09:40:45 +0000

Tracking students assignment could be nightmare. With trackback feature, a teacher will be notified when students’ work are posted on their own blogs. For example, A is reading B’s blog and and found it interesting. While A writes his blog, he refers to B’s Blog using trackback. He puts the trackback link in his post so B will be notified that his post is referred by someone else. It is a link between two blogs and also an acknowlegement to the original writer.

For example, a teacher can set a writing task on the teacher’s own blog and asks students to write their posts on their students’ own blogs as assignment and trackback to the teacher’s original post. The teacher can check his post to see if any students have done the work. It’s that easy.

A listening activity

Captain — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 05:24:19 +0000

Song are commonly used in English classroom. Multi-media such as video and audio are easily embeded to a blog. There are abundent of authentic spoken English materials online. Teachers with their professional judgment can design some very enjoyable yet educationally meaningful activity for students to learn in class or out of class.

Discussion question?

What learning activity can we design with multi-media feature in a blog?

Can you modify this learning task?