Greetings, and I hope that you are having a wonderful Sunday holiday.  I've been working on Class Blogmeister, the comments features to be specific.  That part of CB has been tweeked so much that

the code was coming too look like the spider's web of an intoxicate arachnid.  So I completely rewrote all of that code and it seems to be working fine.  There were actually a number of different programs that handled comments, depending on the type of comment and the security settings of the teacher.  Now it's all in one program.

Also, I took the opportunity to change the way that comments are made secure by the teacher.  Rather than choose one setting from a list of three options, you can now choose to switch on or off for different settings.  They are:

• Teacher Approval Required
• Class Password Required
• Must be a Class Blogmeister member
• Must be a Class Blogmeister member and a member of the class

You're going to love this -- and if you live north of the equator, your going to hate me for waiting until now.  Thanks to some urging from my Catalan friend, Dolors Permanyer, I've done a little research and I found an open source code script that will help us use a more graphical user interface in your blog writing.  Another term for it is WYSIWYG -- or What You See Is What You Get.  This means that you'll have an option of getting a more word processor way of writing blog entries using Class Blogmeister.  See here:







And here's how it works.  The next time you go to write or edit a blog article, you will see, just above where you normally set the text size, the following text:

[Text] / Graphical  (wysiwyg)

Notice brackets around "Text."  This means that you are currently in text mode.  If you click "Graphical," the page will reload into the graphical mode, with the brackets appearing around that word.



If you run into problems, then just switch back to the text mode, and I'll fix the problem when I get back from North Dakota.



I've hesitated doing this, because making this much use of Java (and probably some Ajax) runs into browser compatibility issues.  I'm hoping things have gotten to the point where this is not so much of a problem.



Good luck to you all!

This is certainly one of the more interesting things to happen through this blog. Yesterday, Barcelona educator and Class Blogmesiter user, Dolors Permanyer, and I realized that we met over 10 years ago at a conference in Callus, Spain. I was presenting at the conference about ThinkQuest and she was a local attendee. When I learned that she was an English teacher, I asked her and she agreed to translate my talk into Catalan. Here are some pictures that I captured with a cheap camera and later digitized.



Me talking in Near English By the way, it looks like we're using one of those old LCD panels that you placed on an overhead projector to project computer display. Remember those days?

I'll be delivering an ISTE Webinar later this afternoon, and it occured to me last night that I might try to suggest some instructional uses of blogs aligned with the new ISTE NETS Refresh. I'm including them here as a reference for the Webinar participants and for you.

1. Creativity & Innovation



Assignment:

In the coming weeks, major news outlets will start talking about the leading events of 2007 and the most influencial (or best dressed) people, i.e. Time's "'Man' of the Year." Few of your students will remember when these same agencies were talking about the events and people of the century and even of the millennium.




As a creative blogging assignment, we might ask students to look through the lists of the people and events of the year and of the century (People of the Year & Man of the Century) and then speculate on an achievement that might define the 21st century, describe it, and describe a ficticious person who is most responsible for the achievement.




After the original blog posts have been made, then classmates and others could comment on the articles, describing how the achievement of the century might impact on them.



2. Communication & Collaboration



Assignment:

As you are studying a part of the world in Social Studies class, ask students to write blog entries about what they are learning and also their reflections about the places and people they are learning about.




Connect with another class in that part of the world (Use ePals' Class Finder), and arrange for students in that class to read your students' blogs and then comment on them with clarifications.



3. Research & Information Fluency



Assignment:

As students are engaged in a major research assignment, as them to journal daily about their experience, listing what information they have found, how they found it, and how they evaluated the information to assure its appropriateness to the assignment.




Read and comment on the blog entries, giving support, tips, corrections, and other aide.



4. Critical Thinking, Problem-solving, & Decision-Making



Assignment:

After reading a story, novel, or play, ask students to pretend to be one of the characters, and describe one sentence that might have been spoken to another character and at what time, that might have overcome the roadblocks of the problem more quickly and with less cost.




Ask classmates to read the blog entries and comment what the second character would logically have said in return.



5. Digital Citizenship



Assignment:

Through class discussions, establish a bloggers code of digital citizenship and then ask students to select one of the elements of the code and write a blog entry about why it is important, describing the harm that ignoring it can harm, and strategies for making it a practice of habit.




Have classmates read and comment on, expressing support and making recommendations about strategies.



6. Technology Operation & Concepts



Assignment:

Ask students to learn about a new web tool and prepare to demonstrate it to the class. Ask them to journal, in their blog, their process for learning the tool, how the went about finding the answers to questions about operation or reasoning their ways into the solutions.




Then ask classmates to read the blog entries and comment, identifying the skills that seemed to be the most useful to the blogger.

There is obviously a lot of overlap, as many of these blogging activities address a number of the ISTE standards. Bottome line is that blogging is about communication, conversation, language, sharing, and building.

1. Copy your RSS link URL
2. Go to feedburner.com
3. Paste in the URL and then click [Next]
4. Type a unique username, a password (twice) and your e-mail address
5. Click [Activate Feed]
6. Feedburner will give you a new feed address, possible something like this:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/classblogmeister/rVqB


7. Click [Next] and then click [Next] again, unless you want to add any of the services listed.
8. Back at Blogmesiter, go to your [Control Panel] and switch off RSS.
9. Go to the "About You" box and paste the following, replacing the "feedURL" with the url that you got from Feedburner. Make sure there are no spaces in the URL.

Me, being Gushy

I wanted to wait a day before responding to this announcement, so that this entry wouldn't be all gushy. I didn't want to say anything like, "Holy Sheep Dip!" ;-)

• alexanderhayes -- Alexander Hayes
• bgblogging -- Barbara Ganley
• Christopher. D. Sessums :: Weblog -- Christopher Sessums
• Purse Lip Square Jaw -- Anne Galloway

• 2006 The Edublog Awards
• Nominees for Best Individual Blog
• Vote for Best Individual Blog here
• Nominees for Best Wiki
• Vote for Best Wiki here

Technorati Tags: warlick edublogawards awards edublog blog wiki

• must have at least six characters
  
• must not appear in any dictionary
  
• must contain both lowercase and uppercase alphabetic characters
  
• must contain a number
  
• should contain non-alphanumeric characters such as !, #, $, %, ^, &, *, (, ), etc.

1. Login to your Class Blogmeister account so that you are in edit mode.
   
2. You will see a new hyperlink just above the control tabs and to the right. It reads, "New Approval Tool". (see image to the right)
   
3. A small web page will appear. It will list your classes, and with each class all of the students assigned to that class. Listed, as hyperlinks, with each students will be any blog entries that have been submitted for approval by the teacher.
   
   Note: This page will only work if you are logged in as a teacher.
   
   
4. To screen and approve a blog entry, click the title. (see image to the right)
   
5. The next page will display the title of the blog and its text in text boxes(1). Here you can screen the texts and even make minor edits. An additional scrolling text box (2) is provided for wiring independent comments for the student. These comments will be available only to the student.
   
6. Click the Approve checkbox to publish the article. To make the article available from the front page of Class Blogmeister, click the Feature on Front Page checkbox (3). Then click SUBMIT ARTICLE (4).
   
   
   

1. To list pending comments, click the round radio button next to Comments. If the list does not appear automatically, click the go button.
   
   
   
2. Again, you will see all of your classes, and the students in each class. If there is a comment pending on any of the students' blog entries, the title of the blog will appear next to the student's name. If there are multiple comments pending, then the article title will be listed more than one times.
   
3. To review a comment, click the title of the blog entry. (see image below)
   
   
   
4. The following page will display the comment in question with its author's name, e-mail address, and web URL, if given. Beneath the comment, you can read the original blog entry that is being commented.
   
5. Between the comment and the blog is the action line, where you can Approve, Hold, or Delete the comment.
   
   
   
6. Approving the comment will cause it to be viewed by readers of the blog entry. Holding take no real action, other than returning you to the list of pending comments. Delete will permanently remove the comment from Class Blogmeister, after you confirm your intent.
   
   
   

Even when they're out sick, students work on their blogs.

Carol Barsotti

I've got 6th graders coming in during their lunch and after school to add articles to their blog and to respond to their classmates' articles

Al Gonzalez

My students are floored when, as they say, "some random person from Texas commented on my blog!!" The students are getting real world experience with writing.

Brian McLaughlin

Why would my students want to write on paper for their teacher to see, when they could write on their blog for the whole world to see.

Kathy Cassidy

In fifteen years of teaching, I have never seen anything come along even CLOSE to motivating students to write - like blogging does.

Mark Ahlness

http://gaggle.net/gen?_template=/templates/gaggle/html/blog/index.jsp

1. Students' blogs are being read regularly (or at least predictably) and responded to.


2. The blogs are being read by students who, if they hadn't written on the subject the previous year, at least they have considered it before.


3. Students are reading the reactions of readers who have the benefit of one (or two or three) year's maturity.


4. Students are reading the reactions of readers who are considering the same topic with slightly more depth and sophistication. Slightly is good!


5. The upperclassmen are revisiting topics that were covered the previous year(s) from slightly more maturity and sophistication.

• The drop down menu on the opening page that lists states and countries and then teacher names, works much better now.
  
• The drop down menu that lists school levels also works better. You can now select the appropriate school levels of your school by logging in and going to your control panel. Students do not have access to this.
  
• I've redone the templates, but not changed them in any significant way. They may look cleaner, but that's only opinion. You can, however, change the font size of your blogs. Just login and select the "Articles" tab. To the right of the text window, just above the scrolling textbox where you type your articles are three copies of the letter "A". They come in three sizes. Click the larger size to make the text of your blogs larger. The system will remember your size.
  
• While we're at it, you've probably already realized that the control panel, articles, and class panel tabs popout a small window. The main reason for this is to decrease the number of processes taking place each time you make a change.
  
• You'll notice that the class panel is a little different, but not significantly so. I think that it will be self explanatory. Again, the goal was to decrease processes.
  
• Finally, when viewing your blog, there is now a black bar at the top and bottom of the blog page. From either bar, you can click to login or click back to the Class Blogmeister home page. Once logged in, you can use these bars to logout, or switch back into edit mode.
  

1. come up with a web domain (www.mrwarlick.com),


2. type it in,


3. they tell you if it is available,


4. you choose a service,




• $8.96/year to host a site,


• $34.95/year for an e-mail service,


• $2.99/year for just the domain




5. Login to Yahoo, and pay for the domain with a major credit card,


6. Type in a URL that you want to Domain to redirect to (your blogmeister URL)

1. Register your blog with Technorati. There are instruction on the NCETC Blogger page, but essentially, you set up an account on Technorati, and then "Claim" your blog.



2. Include the following code in any blog articles that are about NCETC.
   
   ncetc
   ncetc

1. Go into the edit mode of your teacher blog.
   
2. Click "Class Panel" in the nav bar.
   
3. Click the class name that you would like to deactivate (or activate).
   
4. To the right of the class password, there is not text that indicate the current status ("Active" or "Not Active").
   
5. To the right of the status is a hyperlink that reads either "Activate" or "Deactivate". Clicking this link will reset the status of the class.
   

1. Get the picture onto the Internet
   
2. Do a little bit of HTML coding.

1. There was a problem with comments not coming through for a specific comment security setting. That has been fixed.
   
   
2. I have also set the edit page so that you will see all of your blogs when you log in. This has confused a couple of people, thinking that they had not successfully logged in. If the confusion continues, then I will set it back.
   
   
3. A member suggested that as you are assessing a student's article, it would be good to be able to perform minor edits at the same time, rather than having to logout, and then log back in as the student. Brilliant! "It is so."
   
   
4. I almost forgot. I added a new template last night. It is all white -- very spare. That seems to be the modele du jour.

1. Comments are posted only when accompanied by the class password.
   
2. Comments are posted only when accompanied by the class password and the teacher's approval.
   
3. No class password is required, but comments must be approved by the teacher.

• students,
  
• Parents,
  
• Other classrooms,
  
• People who have been invited to read the blogs and comment

• All class blogs available to the public after approved by the teacher.
  
• Teacher blog is available to the public but students' blogs require the classroom password to view.
  
• All classroom blogs require the classroom password to read.

• Full Name
  
• First Name & Last Initial
  
• First & Last Initials

• At a basic, but valuable level, teachers can use blog accounts to post homework assignments and project descriptions.
  
• Teachers can post texts for students to read, research, reflect, and then respond to in a formal way using the comments feature.
  
• Teachers can use their regular blogs to publish ongoing impressions about the context of what is being learned currently in their classroom.
• These articles would describe why the topic is important, what it has to do with students' world, their future, and other topics that they are studying.
  
• Some teachers are using blog accounts as their exclusive classroom web page.

1. Login by entering your name or e-mail address by login (right panel of front page) and your password where indicated and click Enter.
   
2. From your edit page, click Class Panel to list your student accounts.
   
3. Click the twisty (arrow) to the left of the student whose article you want to feature.
   
4. Click the twisty by the article you want to feature
   
5. Beneath the teacher assessment comments text box and beside the publish checkbox, you will find a Featured checkbox. Click this checkbox and click Submit Assessment to publish the article in the Meister's featured articles section.