Communicating and Collaborating Workshop

Communicating and Collaborating in the Classroom

and in the World!

Stephanie Jacques

Agenda

1. Uses for Blogger in the Classroom
2. Setting up your Blogger Account
3. Questions/Concerns/Comments

ELA Classes:

1. Virtual Writers Workshop
2. Creating a class story
3. Virtual Debate

Math Classes:

1.      Problem Solving – students can write about and provide images of where they applied math to solve a problem.

2.      Real World Math – students/teachers provide or create videos or visuals of everyday math problems.

3.      Problems of the Week – students work in groups to solve challenging word problems.

4.      Glossary of Mathematical Terms – students collaborate in defining math terms using images, links to detailed explanations, and online videos on Teacher Tube.

Science Classes:

1.      Video Labs: Students can post their own experiments on the blog.

2.      Previewing topics for the coming class

3.      Class created resource post.

Social Studies:

1.      History Day Project

2.      Students discuss important topics in history

3.      Global Problem Solving

In Any Class:

1.      Portfolios

2.      Action Projects

3.      Homework Links

4.      Useful Web Links

5.      Students Questions

6.      Polls on the topics/assignment

Benefits:

1. Primarily Student Creation
2. On-going discussions
3. Constant editing…which means constantly revisiting work.
4. Linking it to the world with social media
5. Linking it to parents

Creating Your Blogger Account without an Invitation

To start using Blogger, simply sign in with your Google Account. (If you use Gmail, Google Groups, or orkut, you already have an account.) If you don't have a Google Account yet, you can create one now.

Creating Your Blogger Account with an Invitation

(I have invited you through your email)

Go to your school listed email.  You should have an email from me that provides a link.  Click on that link.  Go through the sign-up process.  This is the process the students will go through.

Creating a Blog

To get started with Blogger, visit the Blogger homepage, enter your username and password, and click Sign in. Enter a display name and accept Blogger's Terms of Service. Then click the Create a Blog link and get started!
Pick a name and address (URL) for your blog. Then, choose your favorite template (this is how your blog will look when you publish it). Now get creative, add information to your personal profile, and customize how your blog looks, if you feel up to it. Start blogging now!

Write Your Post

Once you've signed in to Blogger, you'll see your dashboard with your list of blogs. Here's what you need to do:

1.      Click the NEW POST button and enter anything you want to share with the world.

2.      Next, you'll see the Create New Post page. Start by giving your post a title (optional), then enter the post itself:

3.      When you're done, click the Preview link to make sure it's ready to go:

4.      Once you're satisfied with your post, click the Publish button. This will publish your new post.

Privacy and Permissions

By default, your blog is completely public, and can be read by anyone on the internet. However, if you want to keep it private, you can do that, too. You can change these settings on the Settings | Permissions tab.

1.      Under the 'Blog Readers' heading, you'll probably see 'Anybody' selected as the default. When you change this to 'Only readers I choose,' you'll get an Add Readers button.

2.      Click the Add Readers button and then enter the email address of a person to whom you'd like to grant access to your blog. To add multiple people, separate their addresses with commas.

3.      For each address entered, the Google Account associated with that address will be given access to view your blog. If an address is not associated with an account, that person will receive an invitation email with a link allowing them do one of three things:

·         Sign in to an existing account.

·         Create a new account.

·         View your blog as a guest (no account required)

How Do I Create a Team Blog?

Team blogs are quite useful when small groups of people wish to contribute to a single blog. Basically, one person initially creates the blog, then adds other people to it as members.
Team members can either be administrators or not. Administrators can edit all posts (not just their own), add and remove team members (and grant admin access), and modify the blog's settings and template. Non-admins can only create and edit their own posts.
Here's how to add members to your blog:

First, go to Settings | Permissions:

Then click Add Authors:

Next, type the email addresses of the people you're inviting to the blog, separating each address with a comma. They'll receive an email with a confirmation link soon. Note that they must have Google Accounts, and if they don't already, they'll be prompted to create one.

When you're ready to send the invitations, click Invite.

Posting a Video to the Blog

If you already have a video on your computer, you can upload it to your blog as follows:

1. Click the film strip icon on the post editor toolbar.
2. In the popup window, click "Browse" to find the video on your computer.
3. Enter a title for your video.
4. Agree to the Terms and Conditions (if this is your first video upload).
5. Click "Upload Video."

Moderating Comments on the Blog

The ability to moderate comments as they are added to your blog can be very handy if you want to catch any comment spam before it reaches your page or if you'd like control over the kind of messages people can leave on your blog. You can find the comment moderation setting on the Settings | Comments tab, along with all of the other comment settings:
Selecting "Always" will automatically enable comment moderation for all incoming comments on your blog. You may also choose to moderate only older comments by specifying a number of days in the "Only on posts older than" setting. Selecting "Never" will disable comment moderation for this blog.
Enabling comment moderation then drops down an email form. This lets you moderate comments via email without affecting your regular comment notification setting. It is optional, since you can always moderate comments through the Blogger interface.

In order to see the comments for moderation on your Blogger account, go to your dashboard (by clicking on the “B” in the upper left corner). Click on “Comments”.  You will see: “Published”, “Awaiting Moderation”, and “Spam”.  Click on “Awaiting Moderation” in order to accept or delete comments.  You will also be emailed these.