The LTD Project Blog

As part of a suite of portfolios developed using a variety of online tools, Helen Barrett (2007) explains and demonstrates how to create a portfolio in a Wordpress blog. She outlines five phases of portfolio development:

1. defining the intended purpose of the portfolio, perhaps in terms of “outcomes, goals, or standards;”
2. collecting and selecting artifacts to support that purpose;
3. reflecting on each artifact and group to produce rationales for their inclusion to achieve to the purpose of the portfolio;
4. interacting: getting and responding to feedback on the collection, reflection and satisfaction of the intended purpose, perhaps from peers or teachers; &
5. presenting or publishing the completed portfolio.

(Barrett, 2007, How To)

In Wordpress, she uses static pages and sub-pages to represent artifacts as evidence of five competencies, namely her:

1. Electronic Portfolio Competency – Knowledge, Skills and Experience
2. Digital Storytelling Competency – Digital Video Editing Skills
3. Technology Competency – Multimedia & Web Page Authoring Skills
4. Teaching & Instructional Design Competency – Presentations
5. Writing & Assessment Competency (My Publications)

(Barrett, 2007, My Portfolio)

Reference

Barrett, Helen. (2007). Helen Barrett: Electronic Portfolios and Digital Storytelling to Support Lifelong and Life Wide Learning. Retrieved March 15, 2007, from http://hbarrett.wordpress.com/

In comments on my draft blog plan, Claudia Ceraso inquires about students’ cross-blog reading and commentary, homework, RSS feeds, and the relationship between course blog and wiki. I’d like to respond between the lines of her inquiry (excerpts in italics, below):

• I understand from your post that drafting may be done at home, blogging will be done at the school. How about the reading of each other’s posts and comments? Will that be homework? Will you be encouraging students to use RSS feeds?

That is correct, students will probably do a large part of their blogging in class – especially those without access from home. A number of additional computer laboratories will go online by next fall, so opportunities to do homework in the lab’s will multiply. Another option, perhaps better suited to students’ lifestyles than mine, is that of blogging from ubiquitous mobile phones. Those who wish to do that can send pictures and blog stubs from almost anywhere.

I consider reading and commenting on one another’s blogs part of blogging, hence my rather optimistic projections of three to five student posts per week. Were they to devote their time to generating RSS feeds, I’m afraid that they would do much less communicative writing than they need to. English majors with the computer skills to generate feeds already may be few and far between.

• Does the wiki already exist? How do the course wiki and blog relate to each other?

Yes, the wiki exists – just barely (it’s not open to the public). I’m setting up a PmWiki and find it much slower going than Wikispaces, especially while B4B continues. To describe the relationship between planned course blog and counterpart wiki in few words is a challenge.

Suffice it to say for the moment (almost 12 hours into a constant keyboarding day) that I expect the two parts to be closely interconnected (for example: blog feeds on the wiki): the wiki to contain more mutable, less time-sensitive material than the blog (for example: grammar references); and the blog to serve not only as a model for learning bloggers, but also as a gateway to a local blogging community (as will the wiki).

• I am particularly interested in these questions because I am thinking about my own blog plans adjustments for 2007.

• I am adding a wiki to my FCE blog for students as from next April, so I hope you keep posting about how your project develops and the students’ response to it.

(Fri Feb 23, 03:25:00 PM JST)

I had visited and bookmarked Claudia’s FCE wiki not long before I found her comments on my draft blog plan. I’m looking forward both to returning for a closer look at the wikispaces she has started, and continuing to peruse her ELT Notes blog, which has been in my blogroll almost as long as any other but B4B!

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In a workshop on Blogging for Beginners, I’m learning a whack of different ways to go about blogging, even though I’m almost nine months into blogging already. A couple of them I’d like to point out here as I recommend a tutorial.

The following tutorial from Claudia Bellusci (2007) is great. It all but speaks for itself!

What it doesn’t say, however, is that by using a free online slideshow presentation tool to explain how to use another free online podcast recording and presentation tool, she is modelling two tools at the same time!

‘Nough said! Have a look:

Reference

Bellusci, Claudia (2007). Podomatic – Create or upload audio files and post them to your blog [direct link to tutorial]. Retrieved February 15, 2007.

In a Blogging for Beginners workshop that started in January 2007, I came across a catchy, interactive presentation of copyright information that I’d like to share with you HERE.

That little gem is nested in an Adventures of CyberBee page more for grown-ups, Copyright with Cyberbee, that lists a number of other resources and offers a lesson plan to explore.

For a rather more staid catalog of intellectual property (IP) references, please check out IP Related Resources and precursor posts in pab’s potpourri.

This post begins by recapping Parry (2006) and continues as a virtual dialog digesting and reflecting upon larger chunks of Parry’s article (a Blogging for Beginners workshop task-related reading).

Recap

Laying the groundwork of an argument for class-based RSS feeding, Parry (2006) points out need for learners to make effective use of two distinct sets of analytical reading skills, especially in online venues: “one, the quick analysis to find what is worth reading, and the second, a switch to slow analysis to carefully consider what has been found” (Parry, 2006, Helping Students to Become Better Readers to Become Better Writers, paragraph 3). He argues that RSS supports the first, and saves time for the second. Rather than provide an RSS tutorial, Parry points out a number of other guides, and concludes by claiming “RSS alters the transmission (reading and writing) of digital knowledge, and thus is critically important to any classroom instruction which requires digital composition, but especially projects which involve blogging” (Parry, 2006, Conclusion).

Three Large Tender Morsels for Digestion

To require students to write papers and then post them to a blog or website misses the point. In fact, this often results in frustrated students, because understandably they fail to see the relevance of such writing. Instead, productive classroom blog projects focus on teaching students how writing for the internet requires a different type of authorship—again, an important lesson in how context shapes meaning.

(Parry, 2006, Why it Matters for Student Writing, paragraph 1)The point Parry makes about relevance to learners is a point well taken. Simply transferring learners’ papers to blogs won’t necessarily foster awareness of or engagement with blog audiences. However, if they’re first time bloggers, and one of their initial tasks is to introduce themselves, blogging a previously written piece of introductory writing may serve to bootstrap inter-personal communication by almost immediately supporting commentary from group, class or community members. Blogging a prepared piece of writing at course onset also may provide a baseline, or sample, and serve as a proto-portfolio component, indicating learners’ initial interests and writing abilities.

… In order to be successful authors in this space, students need to construct content that takes advantage of the iterability and citationality that the web offers…. This type of citation and appending comments to citation is crucial to becoming critically engaged readers and writers.

(Parry, 2006, Why it Matters for Student Writing, paragraph 2)Granted, there is a lot more opportunity to experiment in writing spaces such as blogs than there is almost anywhere but in wikis – “Weblogs on steroids” (Tomei & Lavin, 2007, cited in Wikis and websites and blogs, oh my! B4B message 319). Nevertheless, starting with a prepared text at first (say something already composed in a notebook or with a word-processor) could provide learners with a ready-made platform for experiments with the kinds of web-based functions that Parry finds advantageous.

… By using RSS, you can syndicate all of the students blogs; every student in the class will get the class “newspaper” with headlines and synopsis of each student’s writing, allowing them to scan all of the posts at once, and then decide which ones are most relevant, and select them for close reading. Furthermore, RSS can facilitate commenting, as most blogs will allow you to syndicate the comments to a specific post, so that students can post to a blog and continue to follow up on the comment thread. Again, this will help students to realize how writing for the web is a matter of continuous conversation rather than static paper design.

(Parry, 2006, Why it Matters for Student Writing, paragraph 3)The third and final bit of Parry that I cite above (Why it matters…, para. 3) seems based on an assumption that learners within a group, class or community have individual blogs – as opposed to simple posting or commenting privileges on a group or class blog, and at least commenting if not also posting privileges on one anothers’ blogs. To extend the newspaper analogy, it seems educators then need to assume two inter-related roles: first, as editors and publishers of the learners’ stories through RSS newspapers; and second, particularly in case they are teaching learners of English as an additional language, teachers of newspaper reading skills.

References

Parry, David. (2006). The Technology of Reading and Writing in the Digital Space: Why RSS is crucial for a Blogging Classroom. Retrieved January 26, 2007, from http://blogsforlearning.msu.edu/articles/view.php?id=6

Tomei, J., & Lavin, R. (2006). Autonomy Arising from Community:
Experiences with Weblogs and Wikis [Keynote (trademark) presentation].
Kumamoto University: January 14, 2006.

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This post summarizes a series of recent chats that Rick and I have had about blogs. The first chat in the series took place online during the last LTD Project meeting (December 23, 2006), while I was introducing attendees to Google webmail and blogging services.

When Rick (a guest presenter on June 24) logged in to Google, I rang him through the Gmail chat module to let him know what we were doing. He was kind enough to point out three Japanese blogs that might be of interest to all LTD Project participants:

1. http://apple-tree.jugem.jp/
2. http://kerokerobookcafe.blog6.fc2.com/
3. http://nonlupao.blog16.fc2.com/

(December 23, 2006)

Today we chatted again, this time using an iChat (Mac) to Jabber (Google Talk) connection. In today’s chat Rick outlines his rationales for pointing out Japanese blogs to teachers whose primary interest might be developing their English proficiency. Below are excerpts from the chat transcript:

• Paul: Was there anything in particular that you wanted to highlight in them (the Japanese blogs)?

• Rick: 1. If blogging + English = too difficult, then maybe blogging only = just right.

• Paul: Gotcha!

• Rick: 2. Even if blogging is forbidding, reading blogs by people studying English may still be of some use;

• Rick: If English output is forbidding, people could start with regular input.

• Rick: That last one was number 3….

He later amplified number three:

• Rick: “Start” implies an obligation to move on to output. I think continuing indefinitely with input only is a valid choice, too.

(January 4, 2007)

We resumed the conversation over lunch, when I asked for clarification. I asked, “For whom might indefinite ‘input only’ be ‘a valid choice’?”

In sum, we concurred that lots of input from other learners’ blogs might satisfy readers’ immediate or primary interests of language acquisition and maintenance, or serve as a stimulus for output. In retrospect, this position seems to tacitly support behavior that LearningTimes (TM) folks call lurking, for teachers in the field if not for students in courses, and to reflect beliefs that learners’ near peers may be their best role models.

Wobbleys
Originally uploaded by pabeaufait.

Where Rick suggests various roles for member participants in WinK, that is, in a message posted within a less than public BaseCamp pilot, I find it impossible to respond with a picture. So I’m posting this here.

The illustration above is a [third] try to get at “other possible forms of participation and types of members” than just blogging learners and blogging teachers, which Rick suggests “might be a key to [community] sustainability” (Extending roles and styles of participation, November 29, 2006). A list of types might include core developers, founding members, volunteer or hired agents, facilitators, active blogging members, and possibly veteran commentators.

To suggestions regarding roles and styles of participation, I’d like to add one for a unified venue. I think that things are getting pretty twisted discussing WinK blogging and community development in a venue separate from WinK (namely BaseCamp), rather than unifying and consolidating activities, discussions and resources in one bloggable, community-friendly venue.

A unified venue, with searchable, feedable, public and protected components, might well minimize necessity of navigating back and forth, and transferring, transforming, or recreating bits and pieces from one venue to the next. At present WinK-related activity seems scattered from the blogosphere, to Rick’s website, to Joe’s wiki, to a BaseCamp project, and possibly to unseen glaciers, cirques, and summits beyond.

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It takes tremendous effort both to model and reflect upon practices for learning and teaching, but perhaps there is a knock on effect from using technology for both purposes: Keep trying!

Since I’m exploring learning and teaching with technology, I’m bound to try things that don’t work – at least not right away – either for me or the folks I’m trying things with. Yet there are times when the technology fails to work, which isn’t always obvious; as it should, which isn’t always transparent; or when we fail to use it as effectively as we could, which may hardly ever be evident to novices without near-peer role models.

Among the techno-trials I’ve undertaken are blogging and wiki building, inspired by apparent success of colleagues. Earlier on, I decided my purpose in these endeavors was to find out how blogs and wikis might complement or extend upon conversations on a mailing list launched for purposes of continuing education.

As I struggle through uptake of tools and techniques (blogs, feeds, interfaces…), I find my time if not my attention deflected from purpose-full interaction with fellow learners and educators, into technical and problem-solving activities. That the edu-techno-learning curve would be so steep perhaps will come as no surprise to those reviewing the curve, once they’re over the hump.

As far as modelling goes, my blogging pace leaves plenty of room for improvement, at least on this blog in isolation. Though I’ve commented, drafted, edited, and tagged potpourri entries recently, it has been over a month since my last published blog entry about switching to blogger beta.

In retrospect, I’d like to think that I’ve suitably distributed my time and energy amongst a project-related mailing list, two blogs, and three wikis (one directly project-related, the other two course-related) these past few months. It just may take years to whip up just the right blend.

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There are a couple of changes to the LTD Project Wiki that I would like to announce here, since, the Wikispaces badge isn’t showing up on the right now in the LTD Project Blog sidebar (I’ll look into that later [Done: See comment.]).

One is the beginning of a list of pointers to Extended Reading Resources available online. For those, I’d like to thank Rick, who points out such resources on the topline mailing list and in other blog posts. Rick says, “If you blogged in English about the books [that you have read], you would have a system quite well-balanced in terms of input and output” (topline message 448, November 23, 2006).

The second is a related development on the Other Developments page. That is, since the list of resource collections was beginning to overwhelm the table of contents there, I moved all of the resource lists to a new page called Resource Collections.

Chikako started a new blog, a week or so ago, and expressed concerns about its content on the topline mailing list.

At issue are learners’ online identities and educators responsibilities with respect to photos on blogs. The photo issue Chikako raised has extended discussion, if I’ve counted correctly, on this blog-related discussion topic to thread depth seven – four levels deeper since Chikako announced her new blog on topline.