What has Changed?
Watch Mr Winkle Wakes, the short video embedded here. Use this link if the video is not embedded below.Is it a good or bad thing that Mr Winkle feels that he is in a familiar place when he finds a school? Would he feel like he is in a familiar place if he came to your school? We are going to discuss this question and relate it to this week’s Stimulus presentations. We are going to present our response in a blog. Then we will share the URL of our blogs in the forum so that fellow participants can read them and make comments.
So what do you write?
- Obviously, the purpose of the question is to start you thinking about change in schools.
- You should also refer to ideas from the two videos in the stimulus section.
- Rather than summarizing the videos, respond to a selection of ideas and try and relate them to your teaching context.
- Write your blog so it would still make sense to someone who is not doing this class and make it a stand alone piece. For example, rather than referring to "this week's question" incorporate the question in your post. When you are referring to the videos you watch, refer to them by name and include a link.
- Aim for 400 - 600 words but do not feel bound by this. Longer posts are fine, but we are mindful that teachers are busy people.
- Go to http://blogger.com. If you would like a bit of help, go down a few lines and click the link for a video tutorial before you create your blog.
- If you have a Gmail account you may like to try another entry point. Sign in to Gmail or any other Google service and look for the links at the top left of the screen. Click More and look for Blogger. If you do not see it, click Even More. When you find Blogger, click Create a Blog or New Blog, depending on what is already there.
- Because of concerns about privacy, particularly identity theft, most people use a display name that is a pseudonym. Unless you like getting lots of emails, you would be best to deselect email notifications. Accept the terms of service and click Continue.
- Now you need to choose a name for your blog. Note that this will be used for the whole course, so the title should not be specific to week 1. Some people choose names that seem to have no connection with the topic, like Green Olives while others choose names that are less cryptic. The choice is up to you, so type a blog title and web address. Check your web address for availability and when you have a suitable address, click Continue.
- Choose a template and Continue, and finally Start Blogging.
- Type a title that relates to week one and you are ready to create your first blog post for this class. You can type it all directly into the Blogger interface or type it in a word processor then copy and paste the text into Blogger and most formatting will be preserved.
- Don’t forget to save frequently and preview it to see that it looks the way you intended. When you are satisfied with your blog, click Publish Post.
- Copy the address (URL) of your blog and go to the Week 1 forum. Create a new post to share your URL so others can read your blog post.
- Use the Week 1 forum to find blog posts from others in the class and provide feedback on at least two of them. The usual way is to use the comment feature found on most blog services but for this course you get credit for your comments and it is much easier to track comments using a course forum. Please create a reply to the post in the forum where you found that person's blog link and type your feedback comments there.
- We're looking for a quality conversation here - more than a simple 'I agree'.
- These may give you a place to start:
- Did the blog post present an idea that is new to you?
- That you were surprised at?
- Do you see the same thing (or something completely different) happening in your classroom?
- Were you confused by their idea(s)?
- Was there anything you disagree with? Share your perspective.
No comments:
Post a Comment