Why do some of us blog with our students? I’ve tried to address this at some workshops at the last two CEGSA conferences, but thought another perspective would be interesting. Who better than Sue Wyatt, a teacher from Tasmania, who not only blogs with her students, but has initiated a global blogging challenge, ably assisted by Sue Waters? Although Sue is a very busy lady, she kindly agreed to respond to some questions to explain how & why she has such enthusiasm for blogging.

1. How long have you been blogging?
I began my own personal blog in January 2008, my classblog in February 2008 and an international student blog in January 2009 after running the first student blogging challenge.

2. What instigated you starting your own blog?
Truthfully, I can’t remember why I began blogging.  I think I was on a wiki that was written by Sue Waters and she had some pages about blogging.  From there it just leapt ahead in leaps and bounds.

3. What did you see as the main purpose of your class blog? Has that changed?
My classblog was for students to post about topics of interest to them.  I began by giving lessons on internet safety using the “Cyberquoll” website from the Australian Government, then asked students to submit posts via email that I could put on our blog.  At this stage students had no rights as users on the blog.  But the very keen students loved the chance of writing, so I began to create individual blogs for each student.  I trained the first 5 who then became the teachers when other students earned their blog.

So my classblog then became a sort of demonstration blog, showing the students what they could be doing on their own blogs. In this time we moved from “Learnerblogs” to Edublogs” as the platform for the blogs. I began putting lessons on the blog about finding creative commons images, how to upload your avatar and other widgets etc. But once the students were using their own blogs well, very little was needed on my classblog, so I decided the students needed to widen their audience of readers as the only people commenting on their blogs were myself and other students at school.

4. What gave you the idea of a blogging challenge?
I noticed that the only people commenting on the blogs of my students were myself and other students in our school.  That was not the reason why I wanted my students to be blogging – I wanted to open their eyes to the world outside of our school.  So how to do this?  Using the people in my PLN (personal learning network), especially Jan Smith from Canada, Paul Bogush from USA, Ines Pinto from Portugal and my best mentor Sue Waters from Western Australia and editor of “The Edublogger”, I asked them would they be interested in a blogging challenge where we linked the students of our classes together via our blogrolls so they could connect more easily. Sue then mentioned it via Twitter and soon more teachers were wanting to be involved.  By the time the first challenge began we had over 500 students participating either on their own blog or via a class blog and they represented nine countries of the world.

5. What are the benefits you see for students who blog and/or join the blogging challenge?
Many of the students taking part are middle school age 10-14 years old and the challenge is a safe way for them to start building a PLN of their own.  They find students with similar interests in many countries of the world. Some might get the chance to Skype into their friends classroom or even their home if the time zones are that different. Their writing skills improve tremendously, see these two posts from Abbey about her blogging journey. As a grade 6 student in 2008, now grade 7, Abbey has taken part in all three blogging challenges I have run and she can easily tell you the benefits of blogging.

Taking part in the blogging challenge is a safe way of connecting with other students around the world.  Students have to register giving their teacher’s name and URL of the blog.  That way I check them out to see that they are suitable for being in the blogging challenge.  I can email teachers if something is not right – an inappropriate comment etc but have only had to do this once.

The student and class URLs are then added to a page on my classblog to make it easy for them to communicate with each other. I also use RSS feed to my Google reader to create a link to all the posts that have been written by the participants in the challenge.  Again making it easy for classes and students to see what is being written about. This is also linked to a page on my classblog.

6. What advice would you give to teachers thinking of starting blogging with their students?
My one and only piece of advice is get in there and do it.  There are lots of people out there prepared to help you especially those of us who have been blogging for a while.  Sue Waters is fantastic to have as a mentor and will answer all questions about blogging however silly you think they might be.  But, be prepared for a steep learning curve.  It is better to begin your own personal blog, write about your experiences while learning to blog before starting with your students.  That way you have already learned some of the hard problems about setting up a blog, hopefully you have built a PLN of other bloggers with similar interests in blogging with students and you feel more comfortable using a blog. Read these posts about using blogs with students written in “The Edublogger”.  Here and here and here and here and here. Make sure you spend a few lessons teaching students about being internet savvy and the purpose of the blog otherwise it might just end up like students sending emails to each other.

DEEWR Integrating ICT Pedagogy in School Communities Workshops

 The Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) in association with the Australian National Schools Network is funding a series of workshops nationally to integrate ICT pedagogy in school communities. The workshops aim to enhance the skills and knowledge of teachers and school leaders to enable the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the teaching of Mathematics, History, English and Sciences in Australian schools. The workshops complement other Teaching for a Digital Age initiatives occurring nationally.

In South Australia workshops will be held in four regional centres Port Lincoln (Tuesday Oct. 6), Port Pirie (Wednesday Oct. 7), Mount Gambier (Thursday Oct. and Mannum (Friday Oct. 9).

Teaching through the use of ICT is a new way of working that can transform the way we facilitate student learning. DEEWR is funding a three phase professional learning experience in ICT pedagogy for regional/rural school teachers at both primary and secondary level.

The professional learning experience is in three phases:

Phase 1 - Online self reflection and preparation; building connections and sharing resources (Edna group site will be available on line from 10 August 2009)

Phase 2 - One formal seminar for professional conversation and professional development to connect teachers to ICT teaching techniques and online resources and assist in the development of individual action learning plans

Phase 3 - School based action learning research project supported for three months by a Learning Mentor culminating in a celebration of learning.articipants will have access to online support and resourcable you to implement your action learning project, share and exchange ideas and build sustainable networks.

A State Based ICT Support person will be each participants local link and the face to face seminar will be delivered by a national Learning Mentor skilled in Integrating ICT Pedagogy into school communities and action learning projects.

The project is being managed by the Education Queensland International (EQI), with assistance from Australian National Schools Network and engagement from Australian Government Quality Teacher Program Project Officers.

For more information or to express interest in participating in this workshop please contact your local State Based ICT Coordinator on email neilt@adam.com.au or phone 0438722187.  Alternatively, you can contact Katy Stuart, the Project Manager for the Workshops on (07) 32370616 or katy.stuart@deta.qld.gov.au

Neil Tregenza, South Australian ICT Support Person,  Phone +61 04438722187   neilt@adam.com.au

I have been invited by the CEGSA president to provide some information and perspective on the filter – blocking debate, “to filter or not to filter”. It’s to add to the issues and data posted by Kerrie Smith in her recent blog post http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/ksmith/2009/08/25/site-blocking-alive-and-well/

The following comments are my own. It is my conjecture that it would naïve to not think that we live in an un-filtered world.  By filtered I mean that there are laws, processes, protocols and community expectations to safeguard the young, the naïve and the innocent, against the impulsive, the inappropriate and the reckless behaviours of people. 

We have laws covering our speed limits and road ‘rules and laws’ to protect us against the reckless.   We have protocols in our schools to sign in if you go on to school premises.  We even have local policies safeguarding our students when a dog wanders into the school oval.  Yet as adults we seem to question whether or not the internet should be filtered or not for students and ourselves. 

My position is quite simple.  Filtering centrally is a protection against the reckless to protect the naïve and the innocent in our schools and pre schools.  This filtering is not dissimilar to the ways teacher librarians make decisions about the resources that are put on the shelves in schools.  It means that there is a human engaging in making some decisions about the quality and appropriateness of a resource, which is backed up by the school, communicated to the school community and has a process of appeal as to whether it is placed in the learning environment. 

When a new resource that’s being considered by the teacher librarian as controversial, then there is a process whereby community members may be consulted.  The Principal is informed, some decisions are made about whether or not it will be purchased and, if it is purchased, is it for all or a select group of students.  DECS has a policy on the selection of materials and resources, here’s the reference http://www.decs.sa.gov.au/policy/default.asp?id=16717&NAVGRP=61.    

The DECS blocking or filtering system has categories whereby content is filtered out so that the naïve or innocent do not trip over it if they are unsupervised or undertaking global searches.  That is not to say schools have no voice in making decisions about what is appropriate or not to go through the internet door and be made available to their students. 

South Australia is one of only a few States that provides the authority and the opportunity to the schools to unblock sites filtered centrally.  This has always been the case since eduConnect and Edport have been in place.  There is an administrator in every school who has the opportunity to unblock any site that the school wishes to access, EdAdmin User Guide, beginning page 54.  The caveat, of course, is that, in unblocking such sites, the Principal as the manager of the site, is taking responsibility for this resource to go through the internet gates to the students in the same way as a book purchased by the teacher librarian.   

I wish to emphasise that this local decision-making process has always been in existence.  However, I am always surprised that many schools are either unaware that they can do this or unaware who the designated person is or unaware that in some cases it is the technician that undertakes unblocking with no educational or accountability process backing him or her up.  This is leaving the school leadership, the teacher and the site administrator vulnerable to local and community wide questioning and naïve mistakes. 

These are interesting times where a mass of information and knowledge is available anytime, any where.  I believe schools need to be proactive in engaging with the resources available on the internet and making informed quality decisions about what they will let through to their students, with the goal of enhancing their learning. 

I also fundamentally believe that the parent community needs to be part of that journey so when unblocking particular sites the community is aware of this from both the positive aspect and the risks associated to some sites having links off to inappropriate materials. Many parents are willing to except the risk by being involved in gaining the information, knowing that there are cybersafety processes and training in place for the child and for staff and there is a process of appeal if they really have an issue with a piece of content or material being accessed.

Recently, DECS has sent to all schools and preschools a set of guidelines on cyber safety called Keeping Children Safe in a Connected World.  The guidelines are also available online at http://www.schools.sa.gov.au/speced2/pages/cybersafety.  To assist sites there are a number of draft user agreements available online for schools to consider in respect of staff and student use of the internet, publishing to the internet and using student images in publications or websites.

To conclude, I believe DECS will continue to provide safeguards through filtering as a protection strategy.  Schools will continue to have the opportunity to review this, making local decisions about the teaching resources that are best for them and through the local decision-making processes make resources that are blocked centrally available to their students. 

I would invite you to seek out who your eduConnect administrator, seek out the local and state selection policies for material and age appropriate resources for students, establish local processes to bring these two things together so that quality decisions can be made for the benefit of both staff and students.  This may mean increasing the number of people who can unblock particular sites, if there is limited access to the designated person.  To Assigning Overrides to nominated people or all teachers can be achieved through the following reference link http://www.decs.sa.gov.au/docs/documents/1/SecureFilteringAssigningO.pdf.

Finally it is ultimately the Principal or preschool Director who takes responsibility for the teaching, learning and administrative programs and process with a site and so it my belief that these processes must be sanctioned by this person.

The Budd:e E-security Education Package is designed to raise the e-security awareness of Australian primary and secondary school students and help them stay smart online.

Budd:e E-security Education Package.

This was something I wrote about on my blog…but my rant raised itself again last weekend.
Earlier this month I was in Woomera where I was guest speaker at the Isolated Children’s and Parents Association State Conference. Prior to my presentation there was discussion about Internet access to rural families.
I was shocked that in 2009 these families are faced with a second rate education (IMHO). This is not from their educational offerings from Open Access College (DECS SA) but poor Internet access. OAC operates learning which is media rich and requires internet use…therein lies the problem.
The Internet access these families in remote and rural areas is inconsistent…up or down like a yo-yo….unreliable…and what would be frustrating all round for the student, teacher and family. The other issue is expense….. one family at the conference commented that the costs for her 3 children are $180 per month …with a $60 DECS rebate.
Dare I mention the problems faced with getting the information through Centra.
I feel our rural and remote families need to be heard…… and by the way there is no guarantee the new Telstra network will be any better for the isolated.
To top the initial rant off…last weekend I was in a small town just north of Adelaide, perhaps 50 kms….hmmmm no broadband of any description there either!
I know my suburb in Adelaide was one of the last to get broadband and wireless broadband is not reliable here either…… but what out ‘country cousins’ are facing is educational neglect.
I’ll get off my soapbox now.