Monthly Archives: August 2010

Aug 22 2010

To do more with your Blog

Yesterday, George Couros asked for a little input through a Twitter message.

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My first reaction what that this might be a step backward in the goal of integrating technology for students.  After all, if you have a blog, why would you want to revert to a newsletter format?  In its simplest format, it could be a paper document that’s sent home to parents.

But then, I started thinking.  There are a lot of reasons why it might be desirable to have a blog in newsletter format.  Some that immediately come to mind are:

  1. Not every parent has internet at home for any of a wide variety of reasons;
  2. The blog might be private with only student access for privacy concerns;
  3. Access to blogs might be blocked at school but the teacher blogs from home;
  4. The principal of the school wishes to have paper generated for whatever reason;
  5. The blog might be part of a project where a culminating document detailing everything is desired;
  6. The blog is reset for a new year or new unit or
  7. You just want a copy of your blog in another format …

Yes, upon further review, I can see where there may be reasons for a blog to be in a different format for a specific use.

I think that the other thing about a solution would be that it needs to be easily re-purposed by a teacher to the differing format.  Typically, blogs have considerable effort in their creation and who has the time for yet another creation?

I then thought about BlogBooker.  I had blogged about its use in the past here.  At that point, I was thinking about using it as a way to create a backup for a blog or a permanent record of thoughts.  I’ve actually used it to create a couple of backups of my entire blog.  It works very easily when I want a book of everything (including the graphics and pictures that I embed in posts) but would it do the trick on a more flexible basis?

The procedure is pretty easy.

  1. Export your blog content from your blog  (it’s in XML format but most people wouldn’t care or need to care about the format);
  2. Upload the content to Blogbooker;
  3. Wait a minute of two;
  4. Download your book in PDF format.

Conceivably that PDF could be filed away for posterity or printed if it absolutely had to be.

But, what about content of a shorter duration?  I never really paid close enough attention when I did the steps above to see if it was customizable.  So, I went through the process and actually paid attention this time.

Now, I use WordPress as my host and so went to my dashboard and the export tool.

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Well, I’ll be.  There are configuration options!  I can set a start and end date.  In terms of the content, I could choose just the posts or all content.  I’m thinking that just the posts would suit my needs best.  Click on the “Download Export File” button and it’s on my hard drive.  That was easy.  The only limitation that I could see was that the export was done month by month.  Probably not a big issue as the newsletter might well be a monthly one.

Now, it’s over to BlogBooker.

Step one is to let BlogBooker know what type of Blog this comes from.  It supports WordPress, Blogger, and LiveJournal.  That’s a good selection.  Then comes the WOW moment.  There are a huge collection of formatting options for the output.  The preferences are customizable for any purpose.  I elected NOT to use “Footnoted Links” because my blog entries have a great deal of links in them.  If the ultimate goal is to send it to a printer, then you’re not going to want each entry on a separate page, I hope.

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Give BlogBooker a few moments and voila!  There’s the nicely formatted book in PDF format that you can download or view right in your browser.  I really like the fact that I could customize further the start/finish dates of the publication and the images are intact.  I really like the concept and it was so simple to do.  Plus, the headers and footers put a nice finishing touch on the whole product.

It even includes pumpkin shirts!

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Thanks, George, for the question and the opportunity for me to revisit this very powerful application.  Thanks, also to Aviva and Peter for keeping the conversation going.

Aug 22 2010

links for 2010-08-21

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
0
Aug 21 2010

Normally, I wouldn’t care but now I stay current

I’m not a real political scientist.  I try to understand the issues and the candidates for local, provincial, and federal elections as they apply to me and that’s pretty much it.  On election nights here in Canada, I’ll flip around and see what’s happening in the local districts and places that I’ve lived over the years and that’s pretty much it.

In the United States, politics are considerably more “in your face” and I just shudder when I think of the millions of dollars that go into political campaigns.  Political reporting there seem to be a constant battle to create some sensational angle on the process or the players.  Witness the reports this week that 20% of Americans think that their president is Muslim.  A subsequent article in the Washington Post wanted to know what else these people think.

It’s with a couple of trends that I seem to be taking a bit more interest in this.  First, my community of people that I interact with daily has expanded globally being connected to Twitter.  People have real thoughts and, while I go looking for quality educational conversation, the Twitter stream provides for divergent discussions so easily.  In traditional message forums, moderators would rule these things out of order and moderate them into oblivion.  Using this medium, it’s accepted and encouraged to enrich the conversation.

Secondly, to use an old cliche, the world is indeed getting smaller.  We read and see daily world-wide events that are more newsworthy and relevant.  Consequently, the 15 second blip that might appear on the evening news can become as deep as you wish to make it.  It just takes a few clicks of the mouse and you’re connected to news sources and opinions globally.

Combine these resources with individuals that you connect with on Twitter and in person generates a really unique understanding opportunity.  In addition to the moderated, filtered content that you read through news services, you get the human side as real people  comment about how it affects them. 

For example, normally, I wouldn’t care about the Australian elections.  It’s a rich, diverse country that we covered in a unit in school and then we moved on to another country leaving the legacy learning of penal colonies, kangaroos, and states instead of provinces.  That’s pretty much all that I’ve got and/or retained from formal education.  But, in other forums, I’ve talked with Australian folks,  Twittered with them, got some first-hand observations from The Boy’s visit, and even went to a Baltimore Orioles baseball game with one. 

This time, following the recent election, was different.  Through my contacts on Twitter, I’ve received more than an eyeful of commentary about things in the past week.  I’ve actually become very interested in the issues and would check in periodically to see how things progress towards a new government and the responses from the citizens. There was a more human element in my curiosity.

Australia also gets technology and news reporting exploit it so well.

Click here for an interactive map showing results by electorate or here to watch “Your Vote” fall into place (at least for today’s issue of news.com.au).  I wish that there were embed codes for these as they’d be great keepers to illustrate the concept.  I love visualizations.

This offers such rich opportunities in the classroom.  But, how do you stay on top of this?  In the past, the technique might be to do a search, visit websites or have an RSS feed and browse the listings.  Both are great ways to handle things.  But, Twitter can add even more to the process and I think would complement these techniques nicely.  I have a second Twitter account called “DougsNews” which I reserve for the exclusive purpose of following relevant news sources.  (relevant to me, of course)  With my Seesmic Desktop, I just configure multiple Twitter accounts and devote a column to this source of news.  It works nicely.

The real value is to differentiate this content from my normal stream of information.  When I want news, I just take a look at this account.  It doesn’t appear mingled amongst the other information that I read.  I started the concept before Twitter created lists and so that would work nicely with a single account as well.  The real power of Twitter as an educational tool is its sense of “Now”.  If I want historical or oodles of information, I can use a traditional search engine.  If I want it live and now, before Bing or Google or Yahoo! knows about it, I’ll turn to Twitter.  In days of dated memories and textbook resources, more and more educators are turning to electronic resources to stay current.  Why wouldn’t you have a separate Twitter account or Twitter list or saved Twitter search to make sure that you’re up on latest?

Aug 21 2010

links for 2010-08-20

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
0
Aug 20 2010

Learning is Over?

I was reminded of an ISTE Conference moment yesterday.  I dropped by the PLPNetwork booth to say hi to @snbeach and a gentleman was in front of the booth trying to engage passersby to take a look at what PLPNetwork was offering in terms of job-embedded professional development.  Having had two cohorts pass through the program where I was a fellow last year and being a fellow to a third out of district group, I knew exactly what the program was and the incredible value that it offered to those who were part of it.

Like most booths, the goal is to get folks to at least take a peek and then further engage or allow them to move on.  But, the first rule of sales is that you have to get their attention.  Having a door prize just sweetens the pot and there was a professional learning opportunity that would be drawn and given away at the end of the conference.  I think that the offer here was to become part of the Learning Community for free.

So, I was chatting and as a group of people walked by, the the gentleman tried to engage them with the offer of joining the community and to learn along with Sheryl and Will Richardson.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget the response.  “I just got my PhD and I don’t need to learn any more”.  Both of us were dumbfounded.  Now, I truly hope that it was just a flippant comment but we both stood there looking at each other.  What do you say?

Is this it?  You reach some sort of educational milestone and then you just stop learning?  If that’s the case, then education is done.  Stick a fork in it.  It’s done.

With that position, you’re not even moving or progressing slowly.  You’re mired in whatever research that helped you reach that milestone.  Now, I guess I understand the concept of educational degrees.  It means that you’ve leaped enough hurdles and stepped on enough people to get to whatever you think is the top of the heap.  But, is that the goal?  Do you just turn off the learning switch and go about making changes in young people’s lives based upon the research of the past?

I was so heartened to spend some time reading and thinking about the New Brunswick vision for education this week.  I blogged about it and the video, at least, was seeming to make the rounds of educators on Twitter.  This was noted in the OLDaily yesterday.  Stephen’s comment gave me a chuckle.

But, then, I read this post from Angela Maiers’ blog.  If the content is to be taken at face value, we’re not moving.  We’re blocked.  You’ll notice that I’ve changed to the collective “we”.  With all that happens in education, I do believe that we’re part of the collective and that we’re only as progressive as the weakest of us.

The use of technology and, in particular, the use of communication and constructive technology affords education a really unique opportunity to reach out and engage every student in a manner never heard of before.  Don’t tinker with the notion of differing instruction by offering some students pens and others pencils.  Put the tools and opportunities in the hands of students and enable them in their endeavours.

I know that sometimes, people feel like their voice is off in the wilderness; they’re not being heard; they’re alone with no support.  The message from New Brunswick needs to be heard wide and far by those who have the ability to make systematic change.  The summer edition of District Administration furthers the discussion with an article written by Will Richardson entitled “No More One-Size-Fits-All Learning“.  The New Brunswick video, their three year plan, and this article needs to be on the desk of principals, administrators, and teachers for understanding.

In education, you cannot stick your spear in the ground and mark the spot.  Appropriate funding, support, and a desire to provide the very best opportunity for students has to be the ultimate goal.  Anything short of this is just wrong.  Learning is never over; it doesn’t matter what hoop you’ve jumped through.

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Aug 20 2010

links for 2010-08-19

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
1
Aug 19 2010

Exploring iPad

When @Ron_mill presented me with this iPad last week, he indicated that it was on the provision that I share my learning as I hopefully become proficient with it.

I’ve had it for a couple of days and have indeed learned quite a bit. One thing that surprised me from the get go was how long it takes to charge the device. It’s considerably longer than my iPod but it’s a small price to pay given how long it runs when fully charged. A recharging plan will have to be put in place. It definitely will have a different focus from a notebook or iPod.

@rebrouse told me to download Flipboard and that was great advice. I’m still experimenting with it as my sense is that I’ll be able to do more with it than my first blushes are showing. Probably more to follow on that.

So if I’m going to blog about this, it makes sense to use a blog management tool. BlogPress seems like a good tool so I downloaded it and this post is created using it. It has support for the major platforms and word press of course so I should be good to go. We’ll see in a couple of minutes when I publish this. I’m still wrestling with the keying but that should get better with practice.

The real find for me for use in education is a free application called TwinWeb. As you know, I have a concern about Media Literacy particularly when it comes to finding and using information found in web searches. It seems to me that this is the perfect application for a part of the lessons at least.

What it does is split your screen into two browsing windows. So, if the lesson is to decide if the value from your favourite engine is best, do a search in it and one with another engine in the bottom. In this picture, I’ve searched for “dougpete” on Google and on Bing. If search is an absolute science then the results should be too, right? Not necessarily. Now, you could do this with a tabbed browser but i think that the fact that both are in your face has such a powerful impact. The closest that I could think of desktop wise would be to tear off a Chrome tab and display two searches side by side. I would urge you to download this application and see what you think.

And now for the next test of the day, I’m uploading through BlogPress…

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Aug 19 2010

links for 2010-08-18

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
0
Aug 18 2010

Siren (Come to Me)

Today is the day.  The newest release from Georgia Wonder is available for download from iTunes.  Entitled “Siren (Come to Me), this offering once again highlights the skills of this British duo.  The song has already been available on YouTube for a little bit where I’ve been enjoying it.

My first activity this morning was to get the high quality release so that I can enjoy it.

In addition to their fantastic music abilities, I’ve been intrigued by Stephanie and Julian and their business model.  They are using the contemporary tools to promote themselves.  I’ve been following and blogging about them every now and again.  “Getting Famous Online“, “No Credit“.  From their first EP released as a free download from Drop.io to their use of YouTube and Twitter/Facebook for continued presence, it’s been great to follow them.

Despite all this, recognition appears to be a challenge.  From their website, this message gives some history of their efforts and some suggestions about how to help them along the way.  If you’re connected (and you are since you’re reading this entry), click over and read what’s up with the group.  With your mouse, you can certainly help to promote their cause easily.  And, if you enjoy the YouTube version, consider buying the new release Siren (Come to Me).  Your $.99 will help their download numbers and maybe provide part of a revenue stream for them.

Who knows?  You might enjoy their music as much as I and find yourself downloading “Hello Stranger” or “The Girl You Never Knew”.  They’re looking for some support; together we can help provide it.

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Aug 18 2010

links for 2010-08-17

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
0