The First Omaha Blog Co Installment

This morning I had the privilege of attending the first meetup of the Omaha Blog Co, organized by Danny of Silicon Prairie News fame. The event, held in the cozy, not-easy-to-find-for-a-suburb-guy Caffeine Dreams in Midtown Omaha, was attended by bloggers with a wide variety of backgrounds: new bloggers, personal bloggers, professional bloggers and even a "Professional Bum." It was great to meet them and start discussions about our purposes for blogging. Some blog for their friends, some for their job. Some blog for an audience, some blog as a creative outlet. And it was really a reaffirming moment for me - blogging is writing. Writer's write for a variety of purposes and audiences. Some write papers for teachers, some journal for themselves. We expose our students to different styles of writing and ask them to write in the those styles...why can't that be done online? Getting back to what we always harp on here in the Fridge - don't blog to blog, blog to write.

I'm very interested to see where this group goes. I'm continually impressed with the "creative class", frequently and proudly having their horn blown by outlets like Silicon Prairie, in and around the metro area. I'm hoping I can bring something positive to the table, albeit being an "outsider" to many of their ventures having an education background. I think there is a lot of talent in the area and think it will be a great thing to be a part of. Thanks again to everyone who was there for sharing great ideas and thoughts and to Danny for organizing! Now to double check my spelling since I let that out as a pet peeve about blog posts.

Speaking of blogging, here is a reminder about a great series posted by Steve Dembo a while back - 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger.

Omaha Blog Company Meetup #1

For those of you in the Omaha metro area, the first meetup of the Omaha Blog Company will be October 8th at 7:15 am at Caffeine Dreams. A representative from the Tech Fridge (like there's more than one) will be on hand to share the same wisdom as you have come to expect from the sporadic posting done here. More so, I'm hoping to score some good ideas from the others who show up!

Please check it out for more information.

I found out about the meetup by reading the hippest blog in Omaha, the Silicon Prairie News.

Hooked On Classroom Blogging - March/April 2009 L&L

Below is embedded an article from ISTE's March/April 2009 Learning & Leading with Technology, Hooked on Classroom Blogging by Rachel Peters. The article is a great resource if you are looking to convince classroom teachers, even in elementary, why their students should be blogging. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to try out their embedding. Hopefully everything works well.

Look Inside >> March/April 2009

The Prose of Blogging - Rama Ramaswami (THE Journal)

The cover article of the November 2008 THE Journal is on blogging in the classroom. "The Prose of Blogging (and a Few Cons, Too)" asks if blogging, an ever-growing tool that has changed how we get our information, can really improve student writing. Because there has been very little research done on this still fairly new technology, it's a difficult question to answer, more so prove to non-tech believers. Barry Bachenheimer of Caldwell-West Caldwell Public Schools conducted one of the first studies in an English and Spanish class at his school. In both classes, students said that blogging helped their writing skills and that they felt better about their writing. As you read through how the experts quoted see blogs being used in the classroom, which part do you feel most strongly about? Or which do you agree with the most and why?
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So What is the Future of Schools? - Will Richardson

The school that I teach in looks nothing like the one I attended. The room I started teaching in wasn't the same as the one I finished teaching in. Will Richardson's blog post "So What is the Future of Schools?" ponders what "schools of the future are supposed to be about." He says while at the Microsoft School of the Future Summit, one conversation talked about teachers not using technology because the students were passing the tests fine without it. Is that acceptable? What should be the goal of a school: Pass a standardized test or prepare for the future? How do we blend the excellent teaching that is currently going on with the available technology? More importantly, how do we convince those who disagree with technology in the classroom of it's benefit?
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Dear Friends of the Fridge

This is a warning post that, over the next few days, you will be seeing multiple posts here discussing current events in tech ed. My grad class students will be (hopefully :) ) making comments as part of our last class. Please feel free to join in. We talked last week in class that blogging should not just be writing, it should be a conversation between intellectuals (yes, even here). So join in!

Cleaning up the Fridge

It was high time to clean out the Fridge a little. I've been following Steve Dembo's 30 Days to a Being a Better Blogger, and while I've made a few changes here and there due to his posts, Day 13 has been by far the biggest change.

I have added and added and added to my sidebar, giving you EVERY SINGLE PLACE that I am. That has made for a loooooooooonnnnnnnnnngggggggggg sidebar. But thanks to Day 13, I have found Retaggr, the all in one sidebar item. With Retaggr, I get all of my information into one little pop up bar. Because it combines Twitter, Skype, Diigo, Google Reader, etc., I can take multiple items off of my sidebar, which was getting to be almost twice as long as my front page posts.

So, my suggestion is to a) catch up with Steve's posts and b) if nothing else, skip to day 13 and check out Retaggr. It'll make your blog so much cleaner and spiffier.

Picture taken from Steve's blog.

Live Blogging in Class?

A great article showed up via the Assorted Stuff blog. A student is being reprimanded for blogging and Tweeting about her class...her journalism class. The class name: "Reporting Gen Y." Is it a bad thing? I have felt bad for the presenter about the live blogging during a presentation. Especially when they are Ustreaming, the comments and back channel sometimes seems a little out of control. I know this issue was mentioned during NECC, but I guess we shouldn't be surprised that it has come to this. Should a student be able to live blog or tweet during a class? Does it take away from what's going on? I don't feel I pay complete attention during a presentation if I'm more worried about the live blog. But I don't know if it is a bad thing. With all of the focus from major media outlets of spreading user generated content (or what I like to call cheap labor), we shouldn't be surprised that it has made it into education. I'd love to hear how you feel about that.