Wiggio: Group Collaboration made easy


What it is: Yesterday as I was scanning through my Twitter stream when I came across this tweet from my friend @jasonshmidt123:  “Holy buckets of love, this is cool! RT @plugusin: Checking out Wiggio:  http://wiggio.com/ for collaborating.”  Now, any time buckets of love are involved I am intrigued- I had to check it out.  I must say, Wiggio is a way cool tool for collaboration.  Wiggio is a completely free online toolkit that makes it easy to work and coordinate with groups.  Wiggio is SO very simple to use and has a very straight forward interface that makes it easy for even those who are low-tech.  Wiggio lets you share and manage files, manage a group calendar, poll your group, post links, set up conference calls (including voice, webcam, shared whiteboard space, and screen sharing), chat online, send out mass text messages, and send voice or email messages to the entire group.  Wiggio has a lot of features that remind me of Google Groups but some additional features that truly make it a “holy buckets of love” experience.  Everything is in one place, handy and easy to use!

How to integrate Wiggio into your curriculum: I can see a lot of possibilities of Wiggio in the classroom.  Use it to create a class group with student families each year.  Keep families up to date with the latest happenings in your classroom, volunteer opportunities, and class projects that will need some parent support.  Share all important documents, videos, and resources that you use in your classroom for easy access from home.  (I can’t tell you how many, “I’ve lost the permission slip could you please send a new one?” I get in a year!).  Keep all those documents in your Wiggio group file and parents will never have to worry about lost paperwork again.  Live meeting opportunities mean that you can hold a virtual parent university where you catch parents up on the new math/reading/science/writing curriculum.  Teach your parents everything from reading strategies to use at home to working through math problems together.  Parents would love a little support in this area!  Offer virtual conference opportunities for parents who are unable to make it for a live conference due to long-term illness, job travel, or in multiple parent homes.

Use Wiggio to create student groups where you keep students up to date with classroom happenings and resources.  Offer your students a study hour where they can meet with you virtually for a little extra support or mentoring.  Remind your students of upcoming assignments by creating to-do’s.  Collect digital assignments using Wiggio files.

Students can create study groups of their own for collaborative projects.  As they work together they can meet virtually, share resources and links, and create a schedule to keep themselves on task.

Working with a class outside of your school?  Maybe in another state or country?  Wiggio is the perfect platform for connecting them, they can work together with shared space and chat live from your classroom.

Wiggio can be used with teaching staff to keep teaching teams organized and give them a place to share resources, ideas, and share a common calendar of events.

Have ambitious parents?  They can use Wiggio to collaborate and work with other parents for fundraiser events, coordinating volunteers, and special days.

I am currently using Vyew as my virtual classroom meeting space but Wiggio offers so much more functionality all in one place, I think for the next round of virtual class I will be making the switch!  To quote Jason again, “Holy buckets of love, this is cool!”

Tips: Wiggio has a demo area where you can play with all of the features yourself without registering or creating an account.  Note to all web 2.0 companies…this is a really nice feature, I wish you all would do it 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Wiggio in your classroom!

Stories of Learning: Christopher Columbus Creates 21st Century Explorers

Yesterday, Silvia Tolisano of Langwitches Blog (The Magic of Learning) shared an incredible story of learning.  After reading through her post I asked if I could share the story here and she graciously agreed.  Siliva and the fifth grade teacher she worked with did an incredible job of letting her students take charge of their learning.  It has been so successful that her students want to continue learning and connecting their knowledge about Christopher Columbus.  I love that Silvia’s story of learning begins with a glimpse of what the planning for the learning looked like.  Silvia lets us peek inside the intentional planning and organizing of the learning.  Using an iPad and the iThoughtsHD app, Silvia and the fifth grade teacher planned a unit on Christopher Columbus that went beyond the textbook and exposed them to authentic research,  multiple perspectives, and the opportunity to come up with their own conclusions about the “hero” status of Christopher Columbus in the United States.  The results are truly incredible. You can read this awesome story of learning at my blog Stories of Learning or directly from Silvia’s blog.

Symbaloo EDU and Weblist: Sharing the web with students

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What it is: Sharing the web with students can be a challenge.  Websites can often have urls that feel unending, students can copy down a url incorrectly, students type with different speeds, or characters show up in the address that they are unfamiliar with.  Complicated urls can single-handedly convince teachers to ditch a wonderful web resource for something easier to manage…like a worksheet.  Sharing websites with your students doesn’t have to be a challenge.  Symbaloo EDU and Weblist are two of my favorite ways to quickly and easily share websites with students.

Symbaloo EDU is fabulous because it was created with educators in mind.  Symbaloo lets you gather all of your favorite online tools and sites into a webmix about the topics you teach.  Symbaloo web mixes can be published and shared with colleagues, students, and parents.  Symbaloo can be used by students or teachers to create a personal learning environment. With Symbaloo folders can be created that contain sites and resources that are related.  Symbaloo can be used year-long, just continue adding sites and resources for your students throughout the year.  Everything that you have used all year-long will be in one easy place for students to access.

Weblist lets you pull together and organize content on the web.  Create a list of urls centered on a theme and it is combined into one easy to navigate url.  The list can be saved as a bookmark or a homepage.  What I like about Weblist is the visual aspect.  Each website is saved as a snapshot of that website with the website name and a description below.  The visual organization is perfect for younger students who may not be able to navigate links designated by text.

How to integrate Symbaloo EDU and Weblist into your curriculum: Symbaloo can be used by students to create their own “textbooks”.  As students search the web for resources based on subjects or inquiry questions, they can save what they find and create a virtual e-book of sorts.  Symbaloo can also be used by students to organize all of their online work in one place.  Students can add links to the slide shows, documents, videos, images, etc. that they create online.  Symbaloo becomes an e-portfolio.  Teachers can also use Symbaloo to create a customized “textbook” for their students complete with articles, maps, video, images, and interactive content.

Weblist is great for quickly sharing a collection of sites with students.  Weblists are fast and easy to create (you don’t even have to login or register first!).  Weblists are perfect for sharing a collection of sites in a computer lab setting or with colleagues.  The visual interface of Weblist is perfect for students.  Students can easily travel from one site to another because the web page is embedded in the Weblist, the url never changes.

Want to get really crazy? Combine Symbaloo and Weblist.  Create folders for your students on Symbaloo so that there is one central url to go to.  Have Symbaloo link to your various Weblists.  This combines the great organization and collaboration aspect of Symbaloo with the awesome visual interface of Weblist.  It is a powerhouse of learning for your students created by you.  Cool!

Tips: Don’t forget that both Symbaloo and Weblist make for a great way to share online resources with your colleagues!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Symbaloo EDU and Weblist in your classroom!

Create your own virtual classroom: Edu 2.0 and Vyew

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What it is: Tomorrow I launch my virtual classroom and honestly, I am a little nervous!  It is like the first day of school; everything is carefully planned, all the resources are ready to go, and the students are enrolled and have received their welcome packet.  But, there is still that anticipation and sense of dread that all that careful planning won’t be enough…that something unexpected will happen that will force me to think on my feet.  Really, isn’t that what teaching (and learning) ends up being every day? 🙂  I am using two tools to host my virtual classroom that I wanted to share here.  Even if you teach in a traditional classroom, these tools offer the ability to expand your school day and provide your students more of a hybrid learning model.

Edu 2.0 is the first tool.  I first wrote about and started using Edu 2.0 in 2007.  The tool has only gotten better with time!  Edu 2.0 is an outstanding alternative to Moodle or Blackboard as an online Learning Management System (LMS).  It is completely free to use, multilingual (it auto translates messages!), allows you to teach public or private classes, gives each student an online portfolio, includes a full gradebook, allows you to create curricula and track proficiencies, transcripts of all student grades, tracks attendance, includes forums and wikis, online quizzes, create and track to-do lists, completely web-based, mobile with a free iPhone app, tracks analytics, teach multiple sessions of the same class, upload and access over 15,000+ online resources, parent involvement, define and measure proficiencies, integration with popular web widgets, real-time chat, custom RSS feeds for your class, Calendars, private (designed with students in mind), create and share lessons, provide conditional pathways in lessons (you have to pass one assignment or class before moving onto the next), rubrics, groups, debates, messaging, public and private blogs, surveys, multimedia, and pdf integration.  That is a long list but it really doesn’t even scratch the surface of what Edu 2.0 can do.  This is your one stop shop for a LMS whether you are in need of one for a district, a school, or for your individual classroom.  It is relatively easy to learn and has fantastic tutorials, guides, and support.  The biggest challenge that I have with Edu 2.0 is navigation, not because it is difficult, but because it is so comprehensive!

Vyew is the second tool I am using for my virtual classroom.  Vyew is an online meeting room that is simple to use.  The free version is the one I am using, premium versions are well priced and offer increased options and capacity.  Vyew allows up to 10 students to participate in a room at a time.  Teachers can create and upload course content for real-time and anytime collaborative learning.  Vyew is a lot like Elluminate but doesn’t require any downloads, it runs completely inside the web browser.  This makes it a really easy virtual meeting option for students as they aren’t required to do a lot of extra prep.  The authoring area of Vyew is easy to use, it is a lot like creating a PowerPoint presentation with slides.  Vyew allows for external publishing which means that you can embed the finished presentation on your Edu 2.0 site for those who couldn’t attend the live Vyew session.  Vyew supports a HUGE amount of files including video, pdf, PowerPoint, swf, and many more.  It also allows for real-time desktop sharing which means that all of your students can see what you are doing on your computer as if you were sitting side by side!  There is a built-in screen capture tool for making step by step tutorials.  Both students and teacher have whiteboard drawing tools for on-screen collaboration.  Embedded comments let you include information on the page to be expanded.  Vyew lets you communicate with VOIP (voice over IP), webcam (all 10 can use the webcam!), free tele-conferencing with a unique phone number provided, and voice notes (voice recording embedded in on-screen sticky notes).  This is such a simple to use virtual meeting room and it’s features are among the best.

I am using both edu 2.0 and Vyew together for my virtual classroom.  I felt I needed an online meeting room where I could create meetings on the fly because this class is being held completely online.  I am working with students in third through eighth grade and teaching a 5 week digital storytelling class.  We will be working together to discover the power of story, and how to use different digital mediums to tell a great story.  I am offering this class to everyone but advertised specifically to the students I used to teach for the first virtual classroom.  I did this for a few reasons: parent requests, as a way to stay connected to my students, and I knew what technology skills they had already learned.

How to integrate Edu 2.0 and Vyew Virtual Classrooms into your classroom: Creating a hybrid classroom is an incredible gift to your students.  It offers them the ability to connect with you outside the hours of the school day, and on their own terms.  It gives students time to review content, interact with other students, and learn at their own pace.  Virtual options provide a whole new dimension to learning.  Use a virtual classroom to: extend your classroom and teaching, tutor students individually, offer courses to home school families, connect your students with other classrooms, record in-class learning for students who are absent or have a long-term illness.  There are hundreds of ways that taking your classroom online can benefit your students.  Taking your classroom online gives parents an additional way to be involved in their child’s education and goes one step better, allows them to learn along side their child.  Have a tough new math curriculum that parents are lamenting?  Offer a virtual parent university where parents can learn more about how to help their child with the new learning.  Have teachers that need professional development but can’t find the time?  Use Edu 2.0 for learning on demand.  Edu 2.0 can be utilized as a classroom online learning solution, or as a school or district wide learning management system.  Use Vyew for live meetings with your students.  Make yourself available in a Vyew room at the same time every day for additional academic help.

Tips: You can offer your virtual classes for free or charge depending on their purpose. I wouldn’t charge for a virtual classroom that was an extension to my regular classroom, but you might charge for tutoring or specialized classes.   I am charging for my class and treating it as an after school club.  Edu 2.0 allows you to charge for a class with checkout support using Paypal or credit cards.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Edu 2.0 and Vyew Virtual Classrooms in your classroom!

EdTech UNconference- Win a year of professional development!

What it is: Recently I received a free year long pass to the EdTech UNconference from Simple K12 to review.  Not only did they offer me a free pass, they offered me a free pass to give away to a lucky reader, very generous!  After spending a few days learning and playing around in the EdTech UNconference, I am impressed!  The EdTech UN conference is a year long, 100% online all-inclusive resource to help educators learn about and use technology in an “UNintimidating” way.  It is professional development that works the way you need it to.  Teachers are some of the busiest people I know.  We constantly work, think about our students, and strive to make ourselves and our classrooms better.  The problem: because we are so busy, professional development can be an after thought or put off all together.  It isn’t convenient to leave your family and travel across the country for a 4 day conference…not to mention the expense.  The EdTech UNConference has a low admission fee $199.99 (or free for a lucky iLearn Technology reader), lasts 365 days, has a recording of ALL sessions, is online and on demand which means no travel, no sub plans, and no rearranging your schedule.  In addition to the great sessions, EdTech UnConference will send regular email updates, twitter updates, offers a private social networking site, 500+ hours of learning programs, and online support.  That is a lot of professional development for your school $$.  Learn about Internet safety, technology integration through podcasting, wikis, interactive whiteboards, Microsoft Office (for both Mac and Windows), iMovie, monthly live edtech sessions, live follow-up Q&A, ongoing collaboration with other educators from around the world, your own blog (so easy it is already set up!), 2 min. edtech talks (professional development in those spare 2 min!), and printable reports of training time that you can share with your supervisor.  And that is just the beginning 🙂  Presentations come from some of the best in education including Steven Anderson, Kyle Pace, Richard Byrne, Shervette Miller, Cory Plough, Adam Bellow, Kim Munoz, Steven Katz and more!  If some of those names seem familiar, they probably are, a few are members of the iLearn Technology Edublogger Alliance.  The kickoff session for the conference starts today, October 1.  Online Professional development is amazing, it is there when you need it, available any time, and in a manner that works for your schedule.  What can you learn in 365 days?

How to integrate EdTech UNconference into your classroom: The EdTech UNconference is sure to launch your classroom into the 21st century  with practical professional development that you can implement into your classroom right away.  One of the difficulties of a regular conference, is hearing a new idea, getting excited about it, only to have it fizzle out when you try to implement it because there is no one to talk to, no ongoing support when you hit a roadblock.  Not so with the EdTech UNconference.  This is professional development that you can really use.  The recorded sessions mean that you can review a topic as many times as you need to.  Still need some help, head over to the forum and get on demand help from other educators from around the world.  How cool is that?!

How to register to win the iLearn Technology EdTech UNconference pass: There are two ways to enter to win the iLearn Technology EdTech UNconference year-long pass.  1.  Tweet about why you need free professional development using the hash tag #iltUNcon or 2. Leave a comment below about how much you would love some free professional development.  You have until Oct. 4, 2010.  On Monday, I will put all of the entries into a Google Doc and use a random number generator to choose the winner.  Good luck!

Please leave a comment to enter the EdTech UNconference contest!

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Join Me

What it is: Join Me is an incredibly simple way to share your computer screen with others.  It works on both Windows and Mac allowing you to share your screen (and whatever is on it instantly).  The simplicity of this site is brilliant.  If you have even a sparkle of being a “techie” among family, colleagues, or friends, you most likely get regular phone calls asking for your help with something.  The problem: those asking the question don’t usually know enough to accurately articulate what their hang up is.  Join Me is a simple solution, it lets you share screens so that you can see what the problem is and walk them step by step through the solution.  Join Me is also great for the classroom, it lets students and teachers quickly share their screens for instant collaboration, feedback, or virtual meetings.

How to integrate Join Me into your curriculum: In my computer lab, I often wanted to share my screen with a student so that I could share a process with them, or provide them with feedback.  I usually used Apple’s Remote Desktop for this, the only problem was that students couldn’t initiate the shared screen.  Another problem I ran into was Remote Desktop dropping connections or crashing.  Join Me would have made an excellent backup!  With the increased use of technology, Join Me would be a great tool to help students collaborate on homework projects, enabling them to easily share screens and work as if they were in the same room.  Join Me provides a unique URL for the screen share, enables a conference call phone number, an on-screen chat, and the ability to choose a presenter and switch control of the mouse.  Join Me would be an easy way to extend the learning day for your students, or allow a student who is absent to be included in a live lesson (this could be students who are sick, students with a long-term illness, students who are traveling, or students who know they will be attending your classroom after a move).

Tips: When you use Join me, a package is downloaded to your computer to allow it to run.  If you want to use this tool with students, make sure that they have privileges to download and run packages.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Join Me in your classroom!

Project PLN Take 2

Yesterday was the release of Project PLN, it didn’t come without some hiccups in the form of technical difficulties.  First Openzine seemed to have crashed and then Slideshare didn’t want to make our document public. Stressful after the build up Nick and I had so carefully planned out.  It happens!  If you were affected by the difficulties yesterday, let me share the Openzine version here for you.  Hopefully it will be nothing but smooth sailing from here 🙂  We so appreciate all of your encouragement, thoughtful comments, and passing our idea on to others!  For those of you asking how you can contribute to the next Project PLN, please take a look at the Mission: Project PLN article from Nick and I.  Nick gives you a list of our upcoming topics and offers a variety of ways to submit your work.


projectpln10 – Project PLN Issue 1 PLNs

Create Your OpenZine

On Blogging

This is a cross-post of a blog I wrote on the Edubloggers Alliance social network site.  If you are a blogging educator we would love to have you join and contribute to the community.  Cross post from your blog, write original content, ask blogging questions, and meet other educators who are blogging for themselves or with students. Hope to see you all there!  If you aren’t blogging yet but have been thinking about it, join us and get the support of other edubloggers.

Blog posting is hard. No, not the actual act of posting, but the revealing of yourself to the world. It isn’t like writing for a magazine or writing a novel (those have their own challenges), because that kind of writing goes past multiple eyes, editors, and a process that perfects it. Blogging is different. My eyes are the only ones that have read it until I hit “publish.” The perfectionist in me reads, and re-reads, and runs it through a grammar and spell check and then reads it again. There is always a moment of hesitation before you commit to clicking the publish button because in the back of your mind, you know you probably missed something.
You try to convince yourself that it is no big deal…that people don’t really read your posts anyway. At best, they probably just skim. And so, you take the leap and hit publish, knowing that you can always come back and edit any problems. Of course, that is only after thousands of eyes have scrutinized it and judged you. You are, after all, a teacher. You aren’t supposed to make mistakes.
The process is repeated day after day and pretty soon you aren’t worried about that post because there is another. The posts get pushed farther and farther down the page until pretty soon they are a distant, archived memory. That is, until someone brings an error to your attention. Maybe it is a typo, maybe a homograph used in the wrong context, maybe the error is grammatical. It doesn’t really matter, the reaction is the same…utter embarrassment. What kind of teacher are you anyway? Shouldn’t you have caught that? People are going to question your teaching capabilities, they are going to think you are an idiot for making such an obvious mistake (at least that is how my inner dialogue goes). Now, if you are like me, your immediate reaction goes something like this:
Oh sure, they can find my one, itty bitty, minuscule mistake in this post. Who are they? Did they write 3 blog posts today? Did they read AND comment on 57 blog posts of fellow educators? Did they categorize thousands of websites so that they could intelligently write supplement guides for four weeks of reading curriculum? Did they answer 63 emails today? Did they make phone calls all day looking for funding for a new iPad program (that oh-by-the-way, I wrote!)? Did they finish reading one book and start another? Did they do 3 loads of laundry and pick up shoes that their spouse has left sprinkled all over the house? Did they interact all day on Twitter, Facebook, and instant message? Did they walk the dog? Did they cook dinner and clean up afterward? Then who are they to point out my one LITTLE mistake?! All things considered they should be impressed it was only one mistake. Harrumph!
That, of course, is my initial reaction. I hate being reminded that I am not perfect. I hate being reminded that I make mistakes, that I am human. My second reaction (after a few deep get-a-grip breaths) is one of thankfulness. Thank goodness someone told me about my obvious mistake so that I can fix it and don’t continue to embarrass myself in front of colleagues!

Blog posting is good for teachers. It keeps us humble, reminds us of how scary it can be to “speak” in front of the class. It reminds us of what it feels like not to have all the right answers. How it feels to get your work back with red marks all over it, exposing your faults.

Blog. Blog because it is reflective. Blog because we need you to share what you know with us. Blog because it is good to remember how it feels to be judged by others. Blog because you have an unique view on the world and by sharing it, we all have another piece of this puzzle that is life.

Just do me one favor, when you notice a mistake on my blog don’t tell me. Ignorance is bliss and I am perfectly happy to go on believing that I am perfect. Okay, so that isn’t true. Tell me so that I can fix it, learn from it, and still claim to be practically perfect in every way (like Mary Poppins).

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ArcGIS Explorer Online

What it is: ArcGIS Explorer Online is a neat mapping experience powered by BING that lets you use, create, and share ArcGIS (Global Information System) maps online.  The online software lets you read and write ArcGIS maps that can be used with the website, ArcGIS for the iPhone, and ArcGIS desktop version.  Mark up maps with notes that have photos, text, and links embedded directly in the map. Measure distances on the map and include them as a layer of the map.    Create a presentation in the map that guides viewers from one location on the map to another.

ArcGIS lets you create an interactive map experience.
1. choose a basemap to display your GIS data on top of.
2. Click on one of the map notes shapes to add a GIS note to your map.
3. Click "edit note" along the bottom of the note and add text, a picture, and a link.
Create a slideshow presentation of you map by clicking "Edit Presentation"
Click "Capture New Slide" to take a screen shot of your map to become a slide in the presentation.
Format the slide with the formatting tools above the map. View slides in the slide pane to the left of the map.
Click the home tab to return to the default tool bar. (You can switch back and forth between the two).
Click Measure to measure distances on the map. Click "add to map" if you want to add the measurement to the map.

How to integrate ArcGIS Explorer Online into your curriculum: ArcGIS Explorer is an impressive online mapping tool.  Use it to create guided tours for your students that can be played on classroom computers as an independent learning system or on the interactive whiteboard as a whole class map tour.  Embed links to informational websites, pictures relating to learning, and text to help guide your students through their journey.  Do one better by asking your students to create a map where they layer information, pictures, measurements, etc. on a map.  Students could create and swap tours of their home town with pen pals/blogging buddies around the world.  Create historical maps by adding notes with primary sources, pictures, links to additional learning (or blog posts that your students have written), and text that indicates the importance of the place.  Create literary maps by making note of key locations in literature that students are reading.  Students can add a note to the map with a quote from the book or a description of what happened there.  When they are finished reading, students can create a presentation/tour of the literature by creating a slide out of each place in the book.  An interactive literary tour of learning beats a traditional book report hands down!  ArcGIS would be a really neat way to plot a Flat Stanley project in the elementary classroom!

Tips: ArcGIS requires the Microsoft Silverlight plugin to work.  You can download Silverlight for free directly from the ArcGIS website.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using ArcGIS in your classroom!

Edublogger Alliance Wack Wall

In the last year I started two edubloggers alliances (you can learn about them here and here).   I have had wonderful teachers from around the world join me on this journey of blogging, commenting, and supporting fellow educational bloggers.  As it stands, there are nearly 200 educators who have committed to reading, commenting, and encouraging other bloggers.  I am still truly amazed at the results of this “crazy” idea I had.   Many have asked me when I am going to start another alliance or when I will open it up for more to join.  My answer, I have NO idea.  You see, when I started the edublogger alliance, I committed to commenting on each and every post that members of the alliance posted.  I did really well with this until the end of the school year hit.  I am still commenting, but I can’t seem to get through the 400+ edublogger posts in my Google Reader.  It made me re-think the reason I started the alliance in the first place.

My initial goal was to encourage others in their blogging.  It can be hard for those new to blogging to break into the “club” and stick with it long enough to gain readers.  My thought was, if we could encourage each other from the beginning of the blogging journey, more would stick with it.  The problem?  There are teachers who are new to blogging every day!  I can’t keep up with it on my own and yet I still have a desire to help those who are new to blogging.  My solution?  Create an edublogger alliance social network on Wack Wall.  I know what some of you are thinking: “is she out of her mind?  I already belong to 15 social networks, subscribe to countless numbers of blogs, follow people on Twitter, how in the world am I going to keep track of one more thing?!”  This isn’t my intent.  For those of you who feel overwhelmed by the prospect of joining ANOTHER social network, don’t.  It won’t hurt my feelings.  I get it…I feel the same way every time a new social network pops up.  It is too much, I can’t keep track of it all.  But, I also know that there are thousands of educators out there who would like to try their hand at blogging but need a support system.  You need someone to encourage you, answer your newbie (or not so newbie) blog questions, help you figure out how to blog with your students, help you navigate the blogging platform choices, etc.   You need a place to be plugged in with others who are working through all of this themselves.  Don’t misunderstand, the Edublogger Alliance is for everyone; of course I would love to have all of you join!  I just don’t want you to feel an obligation to sign up for one more thing if you are already overwhelmed.

Let me be clear, I am by NO means an expert of any sort on blogging, I just know that I wish that I had someone to guide me in my blogging journey.  I wish I had someone to ask questions, and sort through WordPress and blogging etiquette with.   My hope is that this will be a place where blogging educators can come together, share what is working and what isn’t, ask questions, and get answers.  I want it to be a place where those who have been blogging for a little while can help those who are just dipping their toes in.  I want it to be a place of discussion and encouragement.

If this social network isn’t for you, if you are already stretched in a million directions, that is fine…I truly do understand.   I will ask you to keep your ears open and offer it as a suggestion for those new to blogging, or those looking for a place to connect with other educators.

Below are a few screen shots of the new iLearn Technology Edublogger Alliance with some explanations about how it works and what you can expect to find there.

The dashboard is your
On the blog tab you can write, share, or read a blog post.
Add the link to your blog on the link tab.
Join a group to find others using your same blog platform, or to share blogging tips, tricks, and ideas.
Start or add to a discussion on the forum page.

If you are interested in joining me on this journey, you can sign up here.  Don’t forget to pass this on to all those teachers who are deciding to try blogging for the first time this year.  They are going to need help!