bookstudy3

Chapter 3 is about using blogs. As Will Richardson says, the best way to understand how to use blogs with students is to become a blogger yourself. As a response to this chapter, I would like for each of you to set up a blog. I would recommend that you set up a blog for your personal and professional learning rather than for working with students. If you set up a blog for your own learning it should be through a free third party provider. I would recommend one of the providers at the bottom of this page, like Edublogs or Blogger. If you decide to just make a blog for use with students, it should be through your SchoolCenter website. After you create your blog, please post a message in the discussion tab telling whether you are using the blog with students or for your own personal learning network, and copy the url of your blog and paste it into your message so others can go to it.

After you have created your blog, create your first post telling what you hope to accomplish with your blog. Then go to some of the bloggers that you see listed below or one that you already read and look for something they say to comment on. Click the title of the blog post that you want to comment on to open that post and all of its comments. Then click the URL of the post and copy that url by right-clicking and choosing copy, or holding the Ctrl button down while you tap C. Go back to your blog and write a post your ideas about the ideas about that other post, then paste the url you copied into your blog post. That will create a trackback and let the other blogger know that you commented on their ideas. This usually creates interest and gets people following your blog. You can also leave comments directly on other people's blogs and enter the url of your blog when you do. That gets people to come to your blog also.

I'll list several bloggers here, just like the first chapter that you can look at as examples of personal learning blogs. [|Jamie Gustin's blog] [] [|Will Richardson's blog] (How could I leave this one out?) [] [|Darren Draper's blog] [] [|David Warlick's blog] [] [|Scott McLeod's blog] [] [|Sue Waters' blog] [] [|Steve Hargadon's blog] [] [|Wesley Fryer's blog] [] [|Robin Ellis' blog] [] [|Chris Lehmann's blog] [] [|Miguel Guhlin's blog] []

Free blogging services for your personal learning blog are listed below.

Blogger - [] Edublogs - [] Tblog - [] Wordpress - []

To help you get started blogging, I would issue a challenge. Make a specific time everyday for the next month to post something new to your blog. It can be a reflection of the day, something you learned that day, or a response to something you read in a book or other blog. What is important is that you have a set time for this and that you make a routine. Once you establish that routine, it will tend to continue and your personal learning will really take off.


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