gwagrade5 Says:

November 15th, 2008 at 1:04 am

Nice blog! I thought I'd visit to get you closer to your 300

One thing that keeps coming back around is the yoyo - I remember the craze when I was 11/12 yrs old (20ish yrs ago!) and now everyone loves them again - at least here in Dubai!

Courtney Says:

November 18th, 2008 at 8:13 pm

Heyy,

I'm Courtney, From Australia.

Nice blog

Rubik's cubes are one thing I have never been able to do. It confuses me a little..

Hmm, I actually havnt seen one for a while though, can you make them?

Just thought I would leave you a comment.

Sue Waters Says:

November 19th, 2008 at 4:15 pm

Hey Will - you're joking right? Surely they haven't become popular again? I spent so much time trying to solve them when I was a kid. Hope you all have fun and thanks for visiting my blog. Yes I have changed it a bit but may change it again soon.

Sue Waters Says:

November 19th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Thanks for linking to my post on The Edublogger. There has been so many great comments on that post and excellent links provided. Have you check out Michelle's post? It's excellent.

Excellent tips, Michelle. The most common reason why I see student/classroom blogs struggle is because the educator doesn't blog.

So they don't understand the importance of blogging and commenting for learning and reflection. Often what you end up seeing is poor lonely blogs without interaction.

By: Sue Waters on November 19, 2008

at 3:56 pm

Sue Waters Says:

November 18th, 2008 at 10:18 pm

Even my shortest posts (a couple paragraphs) take considerably longer than 10 minutes to write. But would be nice.

I suppose the question is while you can return to it later - will you?

[Reply]

Matthias Melcher Says:

November 19th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

I have a small technical problem with your feed address that you announced via Stephen's list and OPML (ending in category/cck08/feed/): it did not display your last two postings. Do you know why that is?

I did not try to read everything but still thought I would completely receive all announced feeds.

[Reply]

Mike Bogle reply on November 19th, 2008 8:39 pm:

Hi Matthias,

Sorry about that - this is due to the fact I didn't categorise the last two posts as "CCK08″ when I wrote them. I post so many entries I originally thought that people might prefer to only receive the content that is relevant to the course. So the feed address I gave to Stephen was for a specific category.

In hindsight this post probably should be in the CCK08 category

If you're interested in being notified of everything I write, the main feed for this blog is http://techticker.net/feed

Sorry for the confusion!

Cheers,

Mike

[Reply]

Matthias Melcher reply on November 19th, 2008 9:12 pm:

Thanks for the explanation. What confused me most is that the RSS file had a "category" field containing cck08. But now I see that it is only a Wordpress "tag" instead of a "category".

Now I also subscribed to your …/tag/cck08/feed since I like the idea of filtering only the relevant posts.

[Reply]

Keith Lyons Says:

November 19th, 2008 at 9:36 pm

Mike

I am fascinated by the iterative possibilities of writing. I do return to posts to edit and add. The narrative in my posts remains the same I think, the detail changes.

Like you I do hope CCK08 is part of a longer term set of links and friendships. A collegiality of a shared community.

Keith

[Reply]

Sue Waters said...

I agree with Karl Kapp. We each have our own preference as to which tool(s) we prefer to use. For example, if you asked the same question on twitter, your blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, Plurk you will get different responses from a wider more diverse audience.

People won't get upset because they tend to pay more attention to a couple of tools rather than a wide range of tools.

11/18/2008 02:11:00 PM

Karl Kapp said...

Sue,

I agree with you:)

I think people tend to use one tool more than other on a daily basis and, I think, that if someone sees a repeated question, they will just skip over it.

I don't agree with Tony that its spam unless the person excessive about asking questions. But I think most people seeking information on a specific topic are careful about how many times they "spam" the network with a question and even people who ask a lot of questions can be ignored with no problem by simply not reading the question.

In fact LinkedIn provides a nice overview of who is asking a question and giving just enough info on my dashboard so I can decide to dive deeper into the question or ignore it...all on my own time.

11/19/2008 05:51:00 AM

Tony Karrer said...

Karl or Sue (or future readers) - Does it depend on who it is? Or what the question is?

In other words, if I see Sue or Karl post a question in three places, no big deal. Especially if I see it as not a spammy question. If I see someone I don't know posting in three places, I wonder if I don't have a more negative reaction? Who is this person posting all over the place?

And, certainly the content of the question makes a really big difference. Please come try my tool/take my survey/vote for me vs. an interesting question on an issue that someone is facing.

Yes, spaminess is all perspective.

11/19/2008 06:15:00 AM

Sue Waters said...

Karl and Tony

I think Tony is also right it does depend also to some extent on the question and who is asking it.

There definitely is a need to build up relationships -- just asking, asking, asking without any relationship does come across as spam.

With regards to the question you do tend to make it slightly different depending on which tool you are using.

11/19/2008 12:41:00 PM

chamonvogels Says:

August 10th, 2008 at 4:26 am

Thanks Shonelle but it still needs some work (I'll worry about that another day!)

What's your blog address? I still haven't added anyone's URL's to my blogroll. Call it slack! I'm only just getting around to completing this week's reading and post!!!!

Sue Waters Says:

November 17th, 2008 at 7:41 pm

@Chamon I'm Glad The Edublogger is your new best friend. It is good to know my posts help. I'm always looking for ideas for posts so please don't hesitate to tell me topics that are confusing you as they often make good topics for posts that help many of our users.

You might also like to check out <a href="http://aquaculturepda.edublogs.org/"my personal blog which also covers similar topics but more extensively.

When someone leaves a comment in a post - if you hover over their name if they have left a link to their blog it will show you. Alternatively click on their name and it will take you to their blog. (That is response to your question to @Shonelle).

Best of luck with blogging.

Sue Waters Says:

November 18, 2008 at 5:47 am

Thanks for sharing the link to this session on making Elluminate more interactive. Hopefully your readers find it useful.

I have to say your blog custom image header is really good. Probably one of the most eye grabbing I've seen. Did you get it designed specially?

maeverest Says:

November 18, 2008 at 9:43 am

The heading was designed by Jarrad Bennet, one of Central's library techs. with a flair for design.

1. Sue Waters | November 16th, 2008 at 7:46 am

Good luck with setting up your blogs. Glad you are finding my posts on The Edublogger useful. Noticed that your class calendar isn't displaying properly yet - it's probably because you need to edit it's setting to make it public.

2. CCroad | November 17th, 2008 at 2:56 pm

OK-I think I'm about to try this. I'm sure I'll be emailing you a ton with questions. I've given up on a cute name and I'm just going for a straightforward ccroad…easy to remember, hard to mess up.

Let me know if you make it up toward Sighisoara, I set up one of the first internet cafes in Romania there back in 1997 and I'm told it's grown considerably! Such a beautiful country when you get out of the city.

Posted by: evonne | November 15, 2008 at 07:27 PM

If you by chance bump into Gabriella Grosseck (from Romania) while you are there working -- please say hi to her from me :) . Wonder what the chances of that happening would be?

Any way - best of luck with your traveling.

Posted by: Sue Waters | November 16, 2008 at 08:25 AM

loonyhiker said...

I'm so glad you shared the link to browsershots. I had never heard of it and can't wait to try it! Thanks.

November 15, 2008 5:44 AM

Sue Waters said...

Hey Christine - Glad to hear you are now subscribing to your blog using RSS.

I see you have added the gmail contact details to your blog. Looks really cool. Will be interested to hear how you find having it on your blog.

November 16, 2008 8:15 AM

Beth Knittle said...

Hi Christine, I am really enjoying this challenge. I am learning lots of little tips and connecting to many new blogs. Glad you are participating too.

November 16, 2008 10:52 AM

Sue Waters Says:

November 16th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

Personally I think washing clothes, hanging out washing, bringing in clothes, cooking dishes, washing dishes, cleaning the house….. are much bigger wastes of time. At least using a computer you are achieving something whereas with household chores 2 seconds late you have to do them again.

pdonaghy Says:

November 16th, 2008 at 9:40 pm

Hi Tomaz

Thanks for stopping by last week and for your lovely comment. I can tell you that definitely wasn't a waste of time, nor was reading this post

Great advice about the listening especially when working with sceptical students. Nice to be reminded. Love the 2minute moodle videos but glad to see you are also expanding your blog posts and sharing other thoughts and ideas!

Patricia

Mattias Östmar said...

Hey everyone!

Thank you all for your feedback! First of all, let me emphasize that Typelayzer.com is NOT the same as a proper MBTI-test for god and for bad. Typealyzer is a way for us to test our hypotheses that it is possible to analyze the persona of a person by teaching a classifier to identify word usage among different personality types. An individual can (and normally DO) make use of different personas, i.e. social roles in different situations.

Our hypotheses is that an individual often makes consistent use of one persona on a blog, but might have different blogs with different personas - such as a family-oriented and a professionally oriented. And professional writers/communicators are most likely using different personas in different texts purposely.

Typealyzer.com is a free web service that helps us develop our technology through user feedback and hopefully at the same time is a fun way for bloggers to get interested in personality types.

There is so much cool research to be done! Blogger In Middle-earth points out one of the things that made me start this project nearly two years ago - namely that there seems like there might be interesting patterns in what blogs we choose to read and engage in depending on type preferences.

I would like to perform large scale studies on linking behaviour to see if it might be so that for instance thinkers tend to read and engage in thinkers blogs and idealists in idealist-blogs etc. I think so.

November 17, 2008 9:11 AM

Blogger In Middle-earth said...

Haere mai Mattias!

I am honoured that you have visited and given us some insight into the history of Typealyser, and how it works.

Obviously, as you can see, there's been a bit of speculation here about its function. I realise it's still early days yet, and there will be refinements made to the design - is this right?

If the Typealizer is giving us valid analysis of the text contained in the blog sites, and let's assume it is, does this mean that the results that I have gathered recently and displayed on this post indicate my preference for a particular type of persona, as you call it, in blogs?

I'm sure that you understand that only three major groups of blogs, categorised according to Typealizer analysis, leaves a huge number of blogs (perhaps even educational blogs) that I've either rejected by one means or another or simply haven't come across.

Given that many of the people listed on my post know of each other on the blogosphere, does this mean that educational blogs tend to fall into certain exclusive Typealizer categorisable groups?

If this is so, and it can be proved or validated in some way, this would make very interesting information from the point of view of working with online communities, especially those groups that work with such web2.0s as Ning etc.

I would dearly love to be involved in your study. The wider picture for me is to gain an understanding of what engages learners in discussion, from the point of view of an educator, rather than for categorising blog writing types - thopugh I realise that there would be a close relationship.

I am sure we have a huge number of educators who are watching this conversation right now, and who would also be as interested as I am in finding out more.

I'd really appreciate your follow up on this

Catchya later

November 17, 2008 11:44 PM

Laura ~Peach~ said...

Kia ora :) I had to come check out your blog after reading your comment on fever bee... I was learning some maori a while back and unfortunately dont recall much now but it made me grin and brought back wonderful memories of an internet friend from Auckland :) thank you for the rush

November 18, 2008 5:16 AM

Anonymous said...

Hi again blogger in middle-earth!

Thanks for great questions and feedback! As you say we´re definately in the early beginning of this work.

It was very recently that we started to segment/divide the texts into 16 categories according to C.G. Jung and Isabel Myers-Briggs and David Keirsey´s later work.

If you run blogs through the Typealyzer today it should give you these 16 types instead of the four categories that we used to present.

Hopefully this will make it possible start investigating networking behaviour not only between blogs, but also in communities and, really, every other linking and meme-spreading behaviour online.

To be able to this we need to develop further design. We actuallt have been spending most of our time developing a reserach tool we´re it´s possible to input large amounts of data (such as blog posts mentioning a certain thing or linking to a certain site or whatever), analyze it and present the type data in neat diagrams. See some first examples on the video on my blogs first page: http://www.prfekt.se/

Right now we´re thinking about how to get help from people like you to do both qualified studies done and help us provide further tools for other interested people at universities, companies and individuals. We´re thinking about giving access to our classifer through an API - would that be helpful to you (needs some programming skills)?

It´s part of my vision for this that there will be lots of good applications of this - both for fun, learning and commercial purposes.

November 19, 2008 4:20 AM

Blogger In Middle-earth said...

Kia ora Mattias!

Thank you for the link and your generous information. As you may have already seen, I've posted your video.

I will be fascinated to watch how your research develops, and would be grateful to be involved with it in any way, if at all possible. Good luck with that.

Ka kite

November 20, 2008 1:25 AM

Happy Birthday Claire. Wow a year! I can't believe it. Time flies so fast and you must be really proud of how far you have come.

Interesting how you say "My focus for blogging became not so much about finding out how to get students doing it and more about my own professional development". I work hard encouraging people to first use it for their own personal learning before using it with students so they understand how to use it better with their students.

By: Sue Waters on November 15, 2008

at 10:11 pm

Congrats, Claire! It has been great "meeting" you at Knowschools and many thanks for the encouragement and comments on the forums and on my blog.

By: blogjunkie on November 15, 2008

at 10:59 pm

@David, Dean, Sue and Cindy (blogjunkie)

Thanks for your encouraging words!

@David- it has been great to connect and learn from another BCer!

@Dean-I've really appreciated your theme of "share everything". I've learned a lot from you.

@Sue-yes, so many educators jump into blogging and want to get their students doing it right away. But it is so important to spend the time exploring it yourself first.

@Cindy-I've really enjoyed meeting you this week. I look forward to hearing more from you via your blog!

By: Claire Thompson on November 15, 2008

at 11:46 pm

So Happy Birthday. I'm new to your blog, thanks to the Knowschools course last week, and to be honest, from all you know, I'm truly surprised. I would have guessed that you had been blogging for a lot longer. You're clearly a very fast leaner. I look forward to reading more of your posts in your 2nd year.

By: bgilgoff on November 16, 2008

at 6:41 pm

@Betty thanks! I look forward to learning from you in the year ahead too

By: Claire Thompson on November 16, 2008

at 7:22 pm

Sue Waters Said,

November 15, 2008 @ 5:26 am

When the educator from Victoria told me that her school students had to pay for accessing the Internet I was totally dumbfounded. For two reasons :1) I would never have thought that any school would charge their students to access the Internet; 2) she was very well "that is just how it is - isn't all schools the same."

She was amazed that I was so shocked at school students having to pay. Lets hope this situation changes and I also agree - wireless broadband with the ability for students to be able to tap their own devices into the network.

Hi Beth and thanks for linking out to my Mashable.com article about social media friends.

Louis Gray also linked to that post in a recent post with another interesting look at social media friends/contacts which applies a bit more to personal life, but might still make for interesting reading for your readers: Be a Friend to Your Social Media Friends:

http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/11/be-real-friend-to-your-social.html

Posted by: Mark Dykeman | November 14, 2008 at 05:42 AM

As always, some great insight Beth.

@Nelson - I really like the simple comparison of cocktail party versus conference. It obviously depends on your intent and purpose in using Twitter, but for personal use, I think that's a really good analogy.

@Maggie - I hear ya! Working for a PR firm, it's not uncommon to wear four different hats throughout the day as I help guide clients down the right path with various social media strategies. It can be tough when you're not in the role of online community manager for a company or organization where you're able to bridge the professional/personal aspects of the job. I know sites like Plaxo and Friendfeed are trying to work toward providing that "lifestream" factor, but there are still gaps in the process.

Posted by: Scott | November 14, 2008 at 09:31 AM

Fantastic post Beth!

Posted by: Tony Karrer | November 14, 2008 at 09:33 AM

vary nice explanation..

Surya

Posted by: Surya Adi Sapoetra | November 14, 2008 at 10:44 AM

All my interactions online are basically professional networking and I try to be the same consistent person across all networks. I've no issue adding anyone to any of my different networks except if they are obvious spammers.

Funnily enough because I use my social networks with interact with my online network the main people I'm not comfortable with adding to any network are family and f2f friends -- yet have no issue with my adult students. I manage my multi-memberships without going crazy by choosing the main ones I want to use but allowing people to connect with me through others that I'm less fussed with. For example, Facebook appeals to my students and is convenient for them to access me 24/7 but I don't spend much time there except for mail.

My tips - it's impossible to be every where and do everything. Focus on the social networks that you feel most comfortable with. Don't stress. Each of us has our own personal preference as to what works best.

Posted by: Sue Waters | November 15, 2008 at 07:20 AM

Sue Waters // Nov 15th 2008 at 12:18 am

Hi Mrs Kreul's Class - your teacher left a link to your class blog on The Edublogger so I thought I would drop past and see how you are going.

I really love your flickrSlidr tour of the Classroom what a cool idea! You're plants look like they are growing well. Are they still ok?

Talking about cold I live in Perth, Western Australia and it is heating up here getting ready for summer. Would like to know what it is like when it snows because we don't get snow here at all.

Daniel Lund // Nov 16th 2008 at 11:49 am

Hello!

I was looking at several blogs and I found your great site! Our classroom is south of you in Chatham, Illinois.

We've experienced problems with our classroom temperatures as the days go from hot to cold back to hot. Earlier in the week, the air conditioning was on even though it was in the 30's outside!! Brrrr!

You should visit our blog and see some of the things happening in Illinois! http://mrlund.edublogs.org

-Mr. Lund

1 gracie // Nov 9, 2008 at 4:07 pm

I think there all really good

2 alexandra // Nov 9, 2008 at 5:06 pm

i espeshily like the second one!

The other ones are nice too though

3 Cameron // Nov 10, 2008 at 11:55 am

Thank you Mrs d for puting my openers on the class blog .Do you like them.

4 mrsdjiallis // Nov 10, 2008 at 7:21 pm

I love them Cameron - I'm really please with how you are all really trying to improve your writing. Class 4D are FABULOUS!

5 gwagrade5 » Blog Archive » Best-of-Blogs! // Nov 17, 2008 at 6:49 am

[...] the story starters are very [...]

1 Sue Waters // Nov 12, 2008 at 5:50 pm

Thanks for telling your readers about my post on Sharing your links to class blogs. I plan to start setting up the page with links to the blogs soon.

Comment by Stuart Robertson on November 15, 2008 @ 3:27 pm

Comment by frank on November 15, 2008 @ 2:56 pm

Comment by Nancy Marmolejo on November 17, 2008 @ 3:34 pm

Comment by Karin on November 17, 2008 @ 10:36 pm

Comment by Bill McIntosh on November 18, 2008 @ 1:39 am

# Sue Waterson 12 Nov 2008 at 10:08 pm

Hi Alex - Thanks for promoting our Free online PD to members from your College. The last two weeks we have been talking about ARED and I've definitely picked up tips I hadn't realised.

Sue Waters said...

Thanks for the nominations, Sarah. I'm also blushing. Especially pleased about the Comment Challenge wiki.

November 13, 2008 12:58 AM

Angela said...

Thanks from me and the team here also - what an honour to be nominated. You too have been a great support and inspiration in our quest for development. Many thanks.

November 13, 2008 6:54 AM

Kim Cofino said...

Thanks so much for nominating the Comment Challenge Wiki! So flattered to be included :)

November 13, 2008 1:06 PM

AJC said...

Thanks for your generous comments.

November 14, 2008 1:41 AM

Tony Karrer said...

Thanks for the nomination and comments.

November 15, 2008 8:48 AM

Sue Waters Says:

November 11th, 2008 at 11:51 pm

Thanks for telling you readers about The Edublogger. This post on creating links might help them understand how to create them.

# 1 Sue Waters Says:

November 11th, 2008 at 6:46 pm

Glad my posts on Voki are helpful. Students really love creating and adding them to their blog.

# 2 educedge Says:

November 12th, 2008 at 12:24 am

Sue! Hello. Since I discover the Voki and your post yesterday, i've been telling the world about it. ok…..being Twitter, MUVEnation, and my doc cohort at SDSU. Thanks for making your blog so crystal clear.

# 3 Sue Waters Says:

November 12th, 2008 at 8:24 am

No problem at all. I do try to ensure my instructions help other work out how to do what they are trying to achieve. Most of the time it works however not always. Really depends on the task.

Sue Waters said...

I focus mainly on the web browsers most visitors used when visiting my web site. Which I monitor using my Google Analytics.

So I write my posts in FireFox and every now and then check in Internet Explorer. Little things like width of image have caused problems with Internet Explorer on my blog or breaking embed code.

When I did the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog last year the task of finding someone to read your post was hard. I ended up using my husband which is interested for someone who has never read a blog. But also worth asking some experienced bloggers to check out your blog and give tips. Since you get two totally different prospectives.

Me I'm not convinced about guest bloggers. Maybe one day :)

November 11, 2008 2:43 PM

Sue Waters, on November 11th, 2008 at 10:36 am Said:

Wow so exciting. Congratulations on starting your new job today. So how many filing cabinets do you have in your new office?

Mobbsey, on November 11th, 2008 at 11:16 pm Said:

Congrats on the new job, Dean. How much paper is involved in planning the eportfolios?

Sue Waters Says:

November 11th, 2008 at 8:33 pm

Absolute craziness. We're not meant to use any multiple choice in assessments in the vocational education and training sector because it is about the candidate demonstrating they know the essential knowledge. With multiple choice it's too easy to guess at the answers.

Saying all that one of my students is now a University and some of his online tests are multiple choice tests that he can continue to repeat until he gets the mark he wants; although he does tell me they randomize them.

John Larkin Says:

November 12th, 2008 at 3:54 am

Thanks for the comment Sue. It is craziness. Even if the lecturer at the UOW has a large cohort the marking of open ended questions could still be organised with the assistance of tutors and a marking guide. Some multiple choice is fine, but 120 in 120 minutes. It is beyond the pale. Cheers, John.

Sue Waters Says:

November 12th, 2008 at 7:09 am

Absolute craziness. Couldn't imagine facing that number in 120 minutes. As I said we are now the opposite extreme and not meant to use any.

Sue Waters Says:

Yes our next PD session is this Friday and we are focusing on making live classroom sessions more interactive e.g. Elluminate. You're welcome to join us - runs from 9-10 AM (Perth, Western Australian Time).

What can I say? Really bad choice of blog name and blog URL. Which is why I advise people to really think about their choices before they set up their blog.

November 10th, 2008 at 10:10 pm

Claire Adams Says:

Sue, I'd love to join you. But, my satellite "broadband" would make it impractical. Hoping to have actual broadband next year when we move into town. Thanks for the offer though.

November 17th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

Sue Waters Says:

No problem. There are recordings from the latest session which might be okay to watch on your broadband.

November 18th, 2008 at 6:40 am

Martha said...

Christine I think that your blog is set up nicely. I too struggle with how many widgets are too many, but each of the widgets you have, tells something about who you are and why you are blogging. You have done a nice job of using varied types of media. The only thing that I wasn't sure about was your long list of team members. Who are they and what do they do on your blog? Just wondering...:) Looks great! Keep blogging.

November 9, 2008 11:35 PM

loonyhiker said...

I'm not new to your blog but I've mainly read your posts so today I decided to look at your whole blog. There were a few items that I liked and want to add to my blog (I hope you don't mind). I like your Show Yourself widget, Plurk widget, and your Delicious widgit. I didn't see a visitor counter anywhere. Do you use one of them? I like to use it so I can see the stats every once in awhile (when I remember to look) and it's fun to watch the number climb. I also added my Creative Commons License to the bottom of my blog so it will be shown for all of my posts. Just a few thoughts.

November 10, 2008 4:27 AM

Sue Waters said...

Hi Christine

I read your blog using RSS through my Google Reader. I believe today's task was to create a Feedburner feed? There seems to be some sort of problem because I'm now only getting the title of your post and none of the content -- which isn't ideal for readers.

Have to admit I've seen most issues that can happen with Feedburner but this is a new one for me. So am puzzled about the solution. Normally with blogger it is because you've got it set to partial feeds but this can't be the case. I'm stumped. Let me know if you need any help sorting it out.

November 10, 2008 5:10 AM

Christine Southard said...

Hi Martha - Thanks so much for your feedback! My masters program is called the C.W. Post TEAM and my TEAM links are hyperlinked to the members of my class.

@Loonyhiker Thanks for your comment. I will add the CC License to my sidebar as well as the counter.

@Sue - Oops, I did have the wrong setting in blogger. I fixed it and hopefully you can read my blog clearly in your reader now.

Thanks again for your suggestions. I really appreciate it!

November 10, 2008 9:48 PM

Sue Waters said...

Hi Christine - Posts are coming through beautiful again.

November 11, 2008 5:07 AM

Thanks for linking to my post on Twitter. Your readers might also like to check out My Quick Start Tips for New Twitter users which is designed to help new people get started easier.

Comment by Sue Waters - November 10, 2008 @ 10:10 am

I have yet to be convinced of that the value of Twitter would outweigh it's time wasting potential, at least for me. Maybe for extroverts it's a great tool, but I won't be signing up for it at this stage. I just don't feel the need for 24 hour a day connection.

I have seen Twitter presented as an absolute essential for global communication, but I think I want to live locally at this stage. I'll keep it in mind though…

Comment by Ruth Clarke - November 16, 2008 @ 5:17 pm

Sue Waters said:

Question? Do you think you could cope with having me in your twitter stream when you only are following a few? Oh well I will let you decide - here is my twitter account. My quick guide to twitter may be helpful. I suggest you download and use Twhirl or Tweetdeck. But I wouldn't have your account set to @allreplies with me in your twitter stream.

November 10, 2008 12:07 AM

Stacy

November 9th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

PS Thanks Sue for reading my post!

Mr. E

November 10th, 2008 at 4:52 pm

Miss Baker:

I have been following your blog/s and even browsing your class website for a month now. I am Mr. E from a small island province in the Philippine archipelago.

I think it would do much good if you would present some simple and easy steps in starting a blog. You can print the screen and paste it in a powerpoint slide and have it shown to your audience in case you are in a classroom without internet connection. They will be surely amazed of how easy it is to make one.

Anyway, my congratulations. Your blogs are indeed rich resources of info for a bio teacher like me who is a beginner in blogging. Kudos!

Stacy

November 10th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

Thanks Mr. E! I'll add that info to my packet.

Sue Waters

November 11th, 2008 at 2:11 am

@Stacy There are a range of "How to" manuals on The Getting Started With Edublogs" page of The Edublogger if that is of any help.

John Larkin has also got a Word version of his and I'm sure if you contacted him he would be happy for you to make minor changes if you required provided you acknowledge that you have amended it from his original version.

missbaker

November 11th, 2008 at 4:02 am

Thanks! I actually already have my own. I've given a blog training at two different schools where I helped the teachers set up blogs. So I can use my notes from that and add it to my packet. But, it would be nice to look at the Edublogger and compare my notes to make sure I haven't missed anything.

Bill Genereux

November 9th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

I'm just back from a conference in which I heard Kenneth Wesson speaking about brain research. According to Wesson, (http://tinyurl.com/6hch6p) females have around 11% more brain cells than males, giving them a "distinct neurological advantage in language-related abilities."

Even so, saying "I can't" is an unacceptable response for males, because they can. Males and females are indeed different, but we need to hear from both perspectives. If "I can't" were true, there would be no male writers, and it doesn't take much research to see that is not the case.

Jan Smith

November 9th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

My experience with my 27 grade 6 bloggers (blogging for less than 2 months) is that gender isn't correlated to their success.

Having said that, I do think I might have had different results if I had restricted their content to reflective writing. I have found (many) boys tire of navel-gazing, while (many) girls process their thinking this way. My students are using their blogs to pursue personal interests as well as respond to learning in the classroom. So far the balance is working.

Other factors beyond gender that seem to influence their blogging: general engagement in learning, comfort with technology, comfort with public nature of blogging, language processing challenges, fear of failure, access & support beyond the classroom…

I am curious to read what others have experienced.

biologyblog

November 9th, 2008 at 5:36 pm

I have had two males plagiarize their blog posts.

Aside from that I haven't noticed much of a difference.

I do think you are a better blogger than I, so maybe there is something to it.

Stacy

November 9th, 2008 at 5:43 pm

Maybe I just have less of a life.

biologyblog

November 10th, 2008 at 1:09 pm

No, you have more of a life - I like hearing about the trips into the city.

alex

Sue Waters

anthony

Sue Waters Says:

November 8th, 2008 at 10:21 pm

My kids really love Halloween and it is slowly taking off here in Western Australia. This year we had more kids visit our house than in previous years. I really enjoy it but many Australians still don't participate. I am mentioning (all the time) to Miss Wyatt that many of the students want to keep going so hopefully we will convince her.

Thanks for visiting The Edublogger and teaching me some Japanese. G'day from WA (is Aussie for Good Day from Western Australia)

1 2skilled4u October 5, 2008 at 7:54 pm

check out my new page. called car crashes its BEASTY!!!!!

2 Sue Waters November 8, 2008 at 6:52 pm

You wrote the comment on The Edublogger telling me you are having troubles adding your voki to your blog. Have you tried following the instructions in this post? Let me know if they help you otherwise I will look at another solution.

Sue Waters Says:

I'm shocking myself when it comes to blog themes. I spent ages changes to my latest blog theme - which does look cleaner but is already starting to get on my nerves. Oh well I'm sure I will change it again.

Glad you are enjoying using Edublogs and it's good to see that the comments on The Edublogger have been helpful.

November 9th, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Sue Waters (21:25:22) :

Followed your comment from Steve's blog to your blog to check how you added the translate. You can actually add a really small Google Translate to your blog sidebar. You grab the code from this page on Google Translate.

Then in your blog dashboard you go to Design > Widget and add a text widget to your sidebar. Then paste the code from Google Translate in the new text box and click change. Then at the bottom of the Available Widgets you click Save changes.

If you check my personal blog's side bar you will see what it looks like. You can paste almost all embed code into Edublogs whereas Wordpress.com is more limited.

Sue Waters Says:

November 7th, 2008 at 6:25 pm

Christmas at your house sounds so lovely with all the Christmas lights and decorations throughout the house. Maybe you could come and decorate our house here in Australia? Although you may find Christmas different here as it is often really hot on Christmas day.

PS Check your blog sidebar It was easier for me to fix your Clustrmap for you - hope that was ok?

Anonymous Says:

November 7th, 2008 at 7:46 pm

My children would love it if we decorated our house like you do, but all we do is have a tree with lights inside and leave the big displays for other people to do - it's fun to go and look. This year our Christmas will be completely different as we will be on holiday in Hanoi, Vietnam instead of home in Melbourne, Australia. My girls (7 & 9) are worried that they might miss out but I think Santa will find them!

Pam Thompson on 8 November, 2008 at 9:31 pm #

Sue Waters said...

Simon is such a lovely person and has done so much to support me during the time I've known him. I've gained so much from interacting with him.

But I have to say teasing him on Twitter was fun and it did get his attention (thankfully).

November 6, 2008 2:37 PM

Nic Mobbs said...

Thanks, Sue. Wouldn't have the chance to interact with him the way I have if not for you. And did you know he hasn't been using a desktop Twitter tool?

I know getting Twhirl was what made Twitter click for me.

November 7, 2008 6:52 AM

Sue Waters said...

Well I'm glad I was of assistance -- cause Simon is lovely. However I can't believe he isn't using a desktop application. Using the desktop application is what made Twitter click for me.

November 7, 2008 11:46 AM

Nic Mobbs said...

Sue, my apologies that I hadn't linked your name in this post...I just realised! Rectified now!

November 8, 2008 10:39 PM

Sue Waters said...

Glad you are finding The Edublogger helpful. My First 5 Tips posts has been incredibly popular and still really widely read considering I wrote it earlier this year.

I suppose I should do an update to that post and add some more tips. Good luck with your blogging.

November 5, 2008 11:18 PM