meL’s Word

I started playing with Diigo recently and am rapidly becoming an advocate.  I frequently run across pages that I don’t have time to give a good once over, so I will put it in a Favorites folder called “Look at Later”.  Over the years I have gone through that folder and looked at sites and wondered why in the world I bookmarked it.  With Diigo’s highlighting and sticky notes, I can highlight the important stuff and write myself a note for later.  What is not to like about this?

My daughter (3rd grade) is embarking on her first science fair project.  I used my teacher tools to create a group and account for her.  Last night we bookmarked and highlighted pages for her to come back to when she needs.  The bookmarks and highlights are private.  If this were a class working on a project those would be shared with other members of the group.  Creating a student account was super easy, and I liked that I could choose whether or not she could alter her profile (not allowed for under 13s).  Had I been creating a whole class of usernames/passwords I could then print those and cut into strips to hand out to students.

As an ITRT I can bookmark, highlight and make notes on pages to share with other ITRTs or teachers.  I can also see what pages are bookmarked/highlighted/”stickied” by others in groups to which i belong – this allows me to see what others with the same interests are reading.  Again, what’s not to like about this?

So, the challenge for day 10 was to look into how your blog looks in browsers other than the one you typically use, and also different screen resolutions.  I normally use IE 7 so I set out to check to see what meL’s Word looks like in FireFox (fine), Safari (fine – on a PC, haven’t checked on my Mac Book yet) and Chrome (fine).  I was disheartened to see the commercial “links” that appear in Chrome, a distinct turn off for me in using Chrome.  What do I mean?  An example – the word “blogs” appears with a double underline and when you mouse over the word, a little text window pops up advertising of all things, the TV show Married with Children.  There were other such links on random words.  I was NOT impressed.  I also looked at various screen resolutions – all are fine except 800X600 – you must scroll left/right to see the sidebars on the blog, but you can read the text of the blog itself.

Bottom line, I’m going to leave well enough alone on this one.  The Word seems okay in most browsers (I didn’t check Opera) and most resolutions – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  Doesn’t seem too terribly broke to me….

So, the challenge for Day 8 is to leave comments for others on their blogs.  I sometimes comment, but more often I don’t, forgetting that comments (or the lack of) are one of the more frustrating things I find about blogging.  I post these random thoughts out there, but seldom does anyone comment, so I never know if anyone really reads this.  But yet, I do the same thing on the blogs I read – I read and don’t comment.

BTW – both Steve Dembo and Karl Fisch replied to the emails in which I thanked them for inspiring me to blog.  I did get a laugh, both replies were virtually identical – my thank you made their day.

Since I started this blog, first on WordPress and now on Edublogs, I have been only the occasional blogger – posting only when I thought about it and had something I thought might be worthwhile to write.  I added the blog to my email signature file.  But I never know if anyone reads this thing.  If they do, they never post comments.  Occasionally a teacher will email me about something on my blog, instead of comment.  Every once in a while someone says something related to a blog post of mine.  But most of the time, I wonder why I even bother. 

Then Steve Dembo who write the Teach42 blog wrote a post recently about being in a blog rut.  Beginning tomorrow and running the month of November, he is running a challenge – Be a Better Blogger in just 30 Days - 30 days of tips and ideas to becoming a better blogger.  I thought I would give it a try, see if maybe one of my fav bloggers can inspire me.  (Okay, knowing Steve gets into a blog rut, too,  does make me feel better…..)

Last spring I created a social networking site for teachers.  I envisioned a place where teachers can share lessons and ideas, commiserate, get help, talk about successes and talk about failures (we all have them).  The problem is, I don’t really know how to promote it.  For it to work, I need educators to join and, most importantly, be active.  There are some members there, but how to keep them coming back? 

TheSpace4Teachers

Have a peek, join, post, be active…..please??

I did it – I created a social network for teachers.  The vision is a site where teachers can share ideas and lessons, commiserate, share success and share failures (we all have them), get help – things every teachers needs in his or her classroom.

TheSpace4Teachers

Give it a try.

I was on VSTE’s “Why Technology Rocks in Virginia” social network today and thought “Why not create one of these for the teachers in our district?”  It could be a place for teachers to commiserate, share lesson ideas and plans, and post resources.  We (the ITRTs) have a resource web site that has resources across the core subjects and grade levels (and some electives).  But this could be a different sort of site.  Members to the site (ning.com is not blocked….yet) each have a page of sorts on which to blog.  Groups could be set up by subject and/or grade level.  I know there are teachers who would never participate, but then, there are teachers who might find it a “nice place to visit”.

Well, it seems we have made some progress in the world of the Web – 2.0, that is.

I convinced our tech coordinator to use a wiki to update our district’s tech plan.  It made sense to me – eveyrone is in a different building, meetings are impossible to get everyone to attend.  Why not put it all in a wiki and let the editing begin?  Of course, I got the lovely task of posting the original to the wiki.  Not a big deal except that the bulk of the material is/was in tables – which did not transfer well to the wiki.  C’est la vie, as my mother would say.  Now the state want an update two years early.  No problem, I can compare the original to the latest revision, print the changes for the Board to approve and it can be sent to the state…(except for that back to tables problem)

Another sign of progress – I will be teaching a course via the local community college, for 15 lucky teachers in my district (the course will be free, they’ll get 3 credit hours and 90 of the ever-needed recertificationpoints) – the topic?  Web 2.0 Tools for the Classroom!  The course will also serve as a pilot since it will be adminstered online (mostly).  If it works, we clone the course, each ITRT gets a section to use with their teachers each semester.  Teachers take the class, ITRTs stop by the classroom and see Web 2.0 in action.