Daily Archives: March 5, 2008

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I've finally done it this year.

Got my class started with blogs and blogging, that is. While it's early stages and they are still playing with the technology, I want to get them focussed on the connective capabilities and possibilities that this tool has before it becomes a novelty for digital writing.

Enter Al Upton and his mini-Legends. Al came with the Mentor A Mini idea to give his students interaction from adults from beyond his school to help guide them and give them feedback. Al wrote:

If you’re an educational blogger of any kind (or visitor) and would like to ‘mentor a mini’ then
please leave a comment on THIS page
saying who you would like to be connected with.
The idea is to drop into their blogs from time to time throughout the year and leave a positive comment .
Very simple … why not join in the fun?

Of course everyone can comment on anyone’s post or page.

What a great idea! So great I am appropriating and re-badging the idea for my own class. I'm changing tact slightly and calling for Blog Coaches (to appeal to a slightly older age group) to be connected to an LA20 blogger for 2008. I want the students to connect to other learners beyond their immediate surroundings and be a reflective commenter on their learning and posts throughout the year.

What will a Blog Coach do?

  • Visit our class blog to see who's in LA20.
  • Email me (learningarea20[at]gmail.com) and request involvement, picking a name or leaving it to my discretion.
  • Write an introductory post to the student that they will publish on their blog. Include a link to your own learning blog, show where in the world you are and why you think reaching beyond the classroom is a good idea.
  • Once notified, (by your protege) be prepared to put their blog in your aggregator and add comments in from time to time, tracking this one learner throughout 2008.
  • Point your protege towards other useful resources and learners when and if the opportunity arises - for example, when my students start their Personal Research Projects and start looking to answer their questions.
  • This could lead to other connections / ideas - you can help guide my learners as an extra Coach on the sideline, cheering your one young blogger on.

Sounds good - let me know if you think this is for you. I know it is a bit selfish on my part - but they definitely need to see past me as the driver of this initiative and connect with trusted others. My network is the best place to find that - you don't have to be a  K-12 teacher, you could be in VTE or a university or an instructional designer - as long as learning is at the heart of what you do. Like a coach, I'm looking for help in inspiring these kids. I don't want to, nor should I, do it on my own.

Are you in?

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to present to my biggest crowd yet - over 100 early childhood educators at the Term 1 EChO half day conference. It was a focus on technology and I was the closing act after Trudy Sweeney's opening keynote about Web 2.0. All went pretty well until slide 35... where my choice of Flickr image provoked a response from the assembled .... well, you can work it out from the audio. Let's just say that the image lost its innocence.

Anyway, here's the presentation in Slidecast format.

[slideshare id=291755&doc=echo-08-presentation-1204627497212177-4&w=425]

Here are my links from the presentation as well. I didn't get as much time as I wanted to showcase the Web 2.0 early childhood educators - Kathy Cassidy, Rachel Boyd and Maria Knee (who contacted me after seeing my twitter plea). I wish that I had left more time to contact these amazing teachers and inform them of my reference to their work - but adding their links here will be a small piece of acknowledgement.

http://www.flickr.com

http://search.creativecommons.org/

http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/index.php

http://www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/

http://creativecommons.org/

http://del.icio.us

http://del.icio.us/wegner

WEB 2.0 EDUCATORS

Kathy Cassidy –
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337&l=1143592742

http://staff.prairiesouth.ca/~cassidy.kathy/index.html

Rachel Boyd –

http://rachelboyd.blogspot.com/

http://room9nelsoncentral.blogspot.com/

Maria Knee –

http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=51141