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SEB Logo

Over at the ScotEduBlogs news: index site

and

have be working flat out. You can keep read Pete: ScotEduBlogs and Robert’s post and comments to keep up or cut over to scotedublogs_devel | Google Groups to watch or join the development.

I am trying to work on the design as I can’t contribute code. Feel free to join in with anything, but especially:

The ScotEduBlogs Logo competition

We need a logo, preferably 790 pixels by 180 or so. It should reflect Scotland, blogging and sharing/ Open source software.

I am not sure about the judging process, probably a poll on the wiki.

First prize: fame, and the right to stick a open source license on you logo;-)

You can also join in with suggestions as to how this project should look, perform, features you would like to see, Robert and Pete are not only open to suggestions they seem to add them faster than I can think ’em up.

If you are a ScotsEduBlogger you should also go over to the site and check to see if you are listed. If not add yourself, if you are check your tags and edit them to your preference.

Please blog about the project so that as many SEBloggers can join in the process.

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The blog software I use here,

is GPLed and extendable. I’ve used a few extensions to show flash content and even hacked one to play mp3s.

I just installed another one that will be handy for me rather than the children, slink.

slink lets you define some links that can then be inserted quickly by typing, for example: [[slink:p]] and getting

.

you get to define as many slinks as you like in a simple file, mine looks like this at the moment:

p|Pivot|http://www.pivotlog.net

a|Apple|http://www.apple.com

s|Sandaig|http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk

o|Sandaig Otters|http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/pivot

ewan|Ewan|http://edu.blogs.com

david|David|http://edcompblog.blogspot.com/

robert|Robert|http://www.jonesieboy.co.uk/blog/

pete|Pete|http://geekyteach.computingteacher.co.uk/

google|Google|google.co.uk

sb|ScotsEudBlogs News|http://www.scotedublogs.org.uk/

sw|ScotEduBlogs Wiki|http://www.scotedublogs.wikispaces.com/

boo|Booruch|http://booruch.libsyn.com/

stv|Sandaig TV|http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/pivot/sandaig_tv.php

f|Flickr|http://www.flickr.com

which reflects common links I’ve made recently, but it is simple to change by editing a text file.

This is the sort of thing that keeps me amused while doing the more important job of running the children’s blogs.

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I seem to be going to the Netherlands with our primary sevens later this year. Last time we produced the Netherlands 2005 blog, well received by the parents.

Unfortunately for us the Hotel De-Instuif has undergone improvement and an upgrade moving it out of our price range. The last time the owners was very good about allowing me access to his home pc where I fired up the children’s notes and photos. I am not sure yet where I’ll be able to get a connection.

This session I’d like to move up a league by utilising the bus time for blogging on the the move, so I need advice. I know folk can use phones and usb things that can give access to the net anywhere, but an not sure of the details. I’ve 2 scenarios:

1. The dream, what is possible?

2. The actuality, what can we do that is short term, not paying for 12-18 months when we need a week, does anyone rent phones usb-sim-modems for a week?

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If you read my blog much you might have noticed the odd moan about flickr, not being able to be used it here.

Recently I found Pics4Learning. This is

intended to provide copyright friendly images for use by students and teachers in an educational setting.

There does not seem to be a specific license attached to the photos, they only ask for attribution. Yesterday my class searched for photos to go with poems they wrote, downloaded them, resized them and posted them to their blogs. I also explained that they need to give some sort of attribution, unfortunately I had not found the instructions, so we just linked to Pics4Learning, next time the attributions will be to the photos.

I was quite please that quite a few of the children a managed this as there are quite a few steps involved. I was especially pleased to see Courtney who didn’t have time to finish her post went hope searched for a picture, added it to her blog (remembering to resize it) and attributed it.

I realise that the site is nowhere near as wide and deep as flickr, but it will be a great asset to our blogs this session. I also think there is some advantage in the children downloading and editing photos rather than just linking to flickr. It should also insure that readers of the children’s blogs who also have images sites blocked will see the pictures.

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I just want to point to Robert‘s post about Scotedublogs – A New Hub for Scottish Educational Blogs which is pretty wonderful news.

Teachers doing it for themselves;-)

What is great about this project, like the Scotedublogs wiki is the fact that anyone can join in and influence the project. Robert and Peter are doing the heavy lifting (code/programming) at the moment, but anyone can help with that or just an opinion on what needs to be done or the best way to do it. I am no coder, but I can put in my 2 pence worth about features, design etc as can anyone else.

Check out Robert‘s post, the Scots Edu Blogs Aggregation Project page on the Scotedublogs wiki, the discussion group and the project itself: www.scotedublogs.org.uk.

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A cross between putting my money were my mouth is and enjoying the last couple days of freedom.

Click on the left right hand side of images to advance, the left to go back. The slides sort of explain the hows, whys and wherefores. You can try the editor I hope it will be usable by the children. If not I’ve enjoyed playing with flash.

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An interesting pessimistc/optomistic post by Will

Yes, there are more and more examples of teachers and students using these tools in their practice, but the numbers of examples of students on the K-12 level whose learning is being transformed by these technologies is amazingly small, at least to me. I mean really, where are the examples of students blogging?and I mean blogging, not just using blogs?and building global networks of learners? There are some, yes, but not enough to make the case that these tools can work in the current school environment.

Which hits a few nails on the head. I certainly feel that blogging has done my classes some good but I don’t think their learning is going through a major transformation. I am not too worried though. I am not at all sure if any optimism is possible on the other global events Will refers to, but it should be for educational blogging.

First I think the methods to help children blog in the first place, fitting this into the curriculum and the school day, are developing and need to be explored before we build global networks. This will take time (more time). As a class teacher who is starting the fourth year of blogging with children I am still scratching the surface, just starting to move from giving the children an audience to letting them develop a community. I’ve seening this happen more this session than ever before.

Secondly as we slowly integrate blogging and a world wide network of children learning together it will hopefully dovetail nicely with A Curriculum for Excellence, Assessment is for Learning and other educational efforts outside the blogosphere which I think are pushing in the same direction. (Maybe extreme-learning too, but I don’t know much about that).

Thirdly a lot of the edu blogs that have started up over the last year have been professional development blogs not learner blogs. I do not see the sort of changes that I think Will wants until more children are given the tools, hopefully as teachers use the tools themselves they will start giving them to their classes and then as Will says we

will have our kids leading us further toward where we need to go?

I don’t think this will happen in 2007 everywhere, but we already know The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.

I’ve a few ideas of where I want to go in 2007 and hopefully will be planning them here before long.

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From the Akismet stats page

524,143,055 spams caught so far

1,606,961 so far today

94% of all comments are spam

The spam log on the Sandaig blogs tells me our good comments (ham according to Akismet) to spam ratio is a lot poorer than average, we seem to get 100s of spam comments every day. The trend in the Akismet graph is pretty depressing, the fact that so little spam actually gets through to protected blogs is not.

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Just when you though it was safe to go back into the water. These are my favourite posts by pupils at Sandaig.

  • Kieran Holocaust Poem Not a regular blogger Kieran wrote this in his spare time.
  • Twincas tn
    Twin Castles a great conversation.
  • So I am sitting in my class at lunch time when two girls burst in: we must have a camera, they really wanted to blog this:
    Tower tn
  • P6 TO P7 is the kind of post I do not encourage enough.
  • First Circuit Movie a first experiment making quick movies with a digital camera. Here is another movie Flick Flacks, I’d really like to streamline this sort of production. This one was valuable assessment without writing, I asked the children to set up a few second movie to show some of the aspects of how gears work.
  • Sandy in London
  • I love this picture
    Dance tn
  • this was a whole class blog and mini podcast, like the wee movies above I want to try more of this.
  • Over at Sandaig Poets bio poem by Kimberley-Jayne is one of my favourite all time posts, what a wonderful sustained conversation without any input from me.
  • This JAMES THE GIANT PEACH book review took Shannon weeks to get finished.