Blogging/Blogger: Pros and Cons

Pros:
-free and unlimited blogs
-professional, personal, instructional uses
-unlimited content possible
-opportunity to share beyond the classroom
-opportunity for participation by all students in curriculum conversations
-personalizing with selection of themes, layout, images
-addition of video, audio, digital images, screen capture
-links to web sites, blogs, YouTube, web pages
-embed hyperlinks, video, avatars, widgets
-RSS feeds allow following of favourites
-capture favourite blogs in Google Reader or another aggregator
-tagging or labeling to ease searches
-allows collaboration
-socializes information with comments
-part of your digital footprint
-opportunity to write for a larger audience
-helps develop Professional Learning Community
-encourages critical thinking
-statistics are available

Steps to Web 2.0 audience November 20

Cons:
-institutional internet filter blocking of blogs
-Google accounts inability to "talk" to other accounts
-moderating of comment content may be necessary
-possible miscommunication or misunderstanding of posts

Google Reader-Reading Blogs: Step Seven

Reading
Don't tell anyone...I follow my own blog on Google Reader. It is just to see how it looks when I update with new posts...but is it really? I am usually pleased to read the new post, and if I'm not it is simple to edit and update.

It was easy to find blogs to add to my list. Colleagues who read blogs willingly suggest those they follow and my TLDL instructors have offered suggestions too.  I follow some book reviewers, a number of podcasters and the blogs of my group members in TLDL Web 2.0. Presently, Joyce Valenza, Buffy Hamilton, Will Richardson, Dean Shareski, Doug Johnson, Judy O'Connell are some of my favourites.
Adding a new subscription is as easy as copying the URL from a chosen site and pasting it in the Subscribe box, clicking on the RSS button on a blog and pasting the code in the box, or searching using the Subscribe box and key words. Selection based on content and the average number of posts per week seems to make a difference. Google Reader keeps me in touch with the educational and educational technology writing of quite a few professionals in the field. I follow Google news feeds using the search terms: teacher, web 2.0 and Web 2.0, education.
Google Reader allows users to organize their feeds in folders. I have created four.

My remaining subscriptions appear alphabetically. I will need to use more files as my collection of feeds grows.
The number of unread posts is indicated beside the title of the feed or the folder. Once the updates have been read the number disappears. I enjoy finding bold numbers beside my feeds, skimming through the reading list and watching the numbers get smaller and smaller until they disappear. I have even used the Reader Play feed setting which is similar to a slide show of the feeds.No matter which setting I use I always find something I want to read more carefully.
Being Read
Clustrmaps keeps track of visitors to my blog. I am astonished to see that because I have connected Clustrmaps to Twitter the Twitter logo appears on my map when I am mentioned in a tweet.

As amazing as it seems the above chart shows the country totals of viewers of my blog between November 9 and November 16. Add my blog to your Reader and see your dot appear and help raise the numbers.

Blogging A-Z: Step Three

Always be aware of your digital footprint. "In the 21st century our digital footprint conveys an important image and people should know what that is." (Nielsen, 2011,para.1)

Break down the walls of your classroom - "connect with people across the world, including experts"(Kist, 2010, p.81)

Collaborate with others. Create opportunities to engage other voices.

Draw readers by using widgets: RSS, Twitter, and Diigo feeds.

Enhance with video, digital images, and embedded graphics.

Find your voice."I'm still looking!"

Grow as a writer by learning, reflecting, and sharing.


Help students engage in preparing for  "an ever expanding information society." (Richardson, 2009, p. 28)


Interact with those who follow your blog. Communicate using comments on posts and expect comments on your posts.

Journal-blogs can be used to record, review, evaluate, and reflect on learning "and plan for additional research, as well as help when they begin to write."(Duncan, 2012, p.68)


Keep on blogging. Don't disappoint followers.


Link to other sites and interesting web pages.


Make use of email or external blog links (Diigo) to post to your blog.


"New technologies... and new possibilities...suggest that education itself is part of the revolution."(OSLA, 2010, p.38)


"Organize, manage and evaluate the information"(Trexler, 2011, p.95) used in your blog.


Post, post, post!


Question yourself and your readers in order to engage and create followers.


Read blogs by teachers, teacher-librarians, and technology educators.


Subscribe to other bloggers using Google Reader or another aggregator.


Tag (label) your posts to allow searching and finding.


Use blogs to "share successes and challenges with other professionals through Professional Learning Communities and Professional Learning Networks." (OSLA, 2010, p.12)


Voices need to be real, authentic and I am beginning to think-not too academic.


Write for your readers. "The Web is evolving to become more of an area for social and idea networking." (Crane, 2009, p15)


Your posts need to always be professional.


Zuckerberg introduced Facebook which can be considered a social blogging platform.

Delving Deeper into Diigo: Step Three

Updating my Diigo profile included adding a photo, my Diigo network groups and followers, a short bio and links to this blog, my YouTube channel and Twitter account as well as my top and recent tags. Access to this information through Diigo will hopefully encourage other Diigo users to follow me and increase the potential of my PLN.

I was able to search Diigo Groups using key word search terms and located groups reflecting my interests.  As a group member I am able to see statistics for these groups which indicate some have lost momentum and other groups have members who are regularly tagging and sharing. I will need to weed my list to remove groups with no activity.

I have become a member of the following groups:

Classroom 2.0
Comics for Learning
Cool Tools for Educators!
Discovery Educator Network
EdTechTalk
educators
elearning 2.0
Graphic Novels
LearningwithComputers
Let's Manga
Middle School English
Purposeful Learning Technologies
Social Bookmarking
teacher-librarians
Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0
Technology Integration in Education
Web 2.0 tools for teachers
Web2.0 at school

I have created a Diigo group which will provide sources of material for a column I will be writing for The Teaching Librarian. I am hoping to draw other teacher librarians as members and benefit from crowd-sourced material shared in my group. Berger (2010) suggests social bookmarking should be used in education because it "allows users to tap the 'collective intelligence' of the web,"(p.51) valuing more the sites tagged by more group members.

In order to access my Diigo in Education group on my home computer I added the RSS feed for this Diigo Group to my Google Reader. To encourage readers of my blog to tag, save and share my posts I added a Diigo widget to my blog.

One Diigo web service tool allows a user to automatically post Diigo links to a blog daily or weekly. Or users can post an enhanced linkroll which will feed recent bookmarks and annotations to a blog. It is HTML code and can be embedded to the blog layout or to a post.

My Diigo