It is now time to join in on the bi-annual student blogging challenge!

This challenge is all about having fun, improving blogging and reflective writing skills, and building readership and connections with a global audience.

Last year, the two challenges included thousands of students from over 15 countries around the world!

What is  the Student Blogging Challenge?

• The Student Blogging Challenge runs twice yearly.  A new Challenge starts March and September, each year.
  
• It is made up of a series of 10 weekly tasks all designed to improve blogging and commenting skills while connecting students with a global audience.
  
• Starts mid-September – but registration is happening now
• The Challenge is open to both class blogs and to individual student bloggers from all over the world and of all ages – blogs doesn’t need to be hosted by Edublogs to participate!
• Participants can complete as many of the tasks as they like and in any order
• The Student Blogging Challenge is coordinated by Sue Wyatt,  Sue Waters and Ronnie Burt.

Past challenges have included adding comics and widgets, writing creative posts, discussing travelling, comment etiquette, and more.

How do I start?

We’ve now opened registration for students and teachers who would like to participate in the challenge which starts in mid September.

Here’s the links you need to visit to register:

• Teachers – register your class blogs here
• Students – register your individual blogs here

Who’s registered so far?

You can check who has registered so far here:

• Teachers – heres’ where you’ll find all the class blogs listed
• Students – here’s where you’ll find all the individual student bloggers

How do I get the latest news from the Student Blogging Challenge?

All weekly tasks and upcoming events will be published on Challenge Yourself to Blog (the Student Blogging Challenge blog).

We recomend you either subscribe to:

1. The Challenge Yourself to Blog RSS feed using a feed reader like Google Reader – here’s how to set up Google Reader
2. The Challenge Yourself to Blog email – just add your email address to the form below

Do you have any ideas for challenge tasks?

This is the fifth challenge Sue Wyatt have organized.  She would love  ideas for cool challenge activities.

Please help with ideas for challenge activities by sharing your ideas here!

And for extra incentive to share your ideas — we’ve decided to give away ten Edublogs Pro 12 month subscriptions (formerly known as Edublogs Supporters) to the 10 best challenge ideas!

Can you help us?

Every challenge, Sue Wyatt tries to visit each individual student blog at least 3 times over the period of the challenge.

This is becoming harder to visit all the student blogs — due to the numbers of students participating!

We are looking for volunteers who are willing to leave least one, preferably two, comments on student blogs such as:

1. A few clues about how to set up their blogs would be great for the newer students who have only had their blogs less than a week or so .
2. Alternatively choose a post they have written or look at their about page to leave a comment for them.

We would like to do is allocate about 20-30 student blogs to each volunteer.

This is excellent for teachers and preservice teachers (student teachers) who are:

• Wanting to increase their understanding of how blogs can be used with students.
• Unable to participate with their students in our current Challenge but who want to learn more about the Student Blogging Challenge.

Also excellent for students who have participated in previous Student Blogging Challenges and who would love to support other student bloggers!

And off course, we appreciate how busy everyone is so we’ve decided to give away twenty free Edublogs Pro 12 month subscriptions (formerly known as Edublogs Supporters) to our twenty best helpers!

Please leave a comment on this post if you would like to become a Student Blogging Helper!  Can you also tell which age group of students you would like to work with!

And here’s your badges

We thought some of you might like to add badges to your blogs to let your readers know you’re participating in the Student Blogging Challenge.

So here they are!

For Better Bloggers

For Better Commenters

For Student Blogger Helper

Adding your badge(s) to your blog is as easy as:

1.  Download this Student Challenge Zip file – contains the HTML code for all badges with links back to the Student Blogging Challenge blog
2.  Unzip the downloaded file to a folder on your hard drive.
3.  Open up badgecode.txt (contained inside the zip file)
4.  Copy the HTML code for the required badge(s)

5.  Go to Appearance > Widgets in your Dashboard
6.  Drag and drop a Text Widget from the Available Widgets or Inactive Widgets areas on the left into the Sidebar area on the right
7.  Now just paste your HTML code into the text widget, then click Save and Close

Setting up your class-blog

You may be just getting started with your class blog or are looking for ways to make improvements.

The following 9 steps will help ensure that your blog is ready to go for the challenge:

1. Set up your class blog
2. Set Up Your Blogging Rules and Guidelines
3. Teaching Commenting Skills and Etiquette – Guest post byKathleen McGeady
4. Help Parents Connect With Your Class Blog
5. Add Students To Your Class Blog So They Can Write Posts
6. Add A Visitor Tracking Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
7. Setting Up Student blogs
8. Add your student blogs to your blogroll
9. Add Your Student Blogs To A Folder In Google Reader

FINAL THOUGHTS

The thousands of students that have participated in the past have found it a great way to improve their blogging and commenting skills and love the global interaction among the community that it builds.

For more information on the student blogging challenge, visit the Challenge F.A.Q. here.

Please leave a comment on this post if you would like to become a Student Blogging Helper!
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Starting your journey into the online world can feel like a crazy place where the inhabitants speak a totally new language.

So here’s a glossary of commonly used terms we’ve created to help you!

Avatar

An avatar is a computer user’s online representation of themself or their alter ego.

Your avatar is an important part of your online identity.

It’s an online representation of you that shows up in places such as where you leave comments, forum posts or on social networks and is part of how others visualize who you are.

For more information refer to:

1. Creating And Uploading Your Comment Avatar
2. Want A Comment Avatar That’s Globally Recognised By Most Blog Platforms? Here’s How!

Blog

The term blog originated from the blend of the term “web log”.

Blogs are normally made up of the following main elements:

• Posts - Posts are where you normally publish the latest new or new article on a blog.  They are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order with the most recent post at the top of the page.  Blogs are designed to have only one Post page.
• Comments - Posts commonly allow readers to publish comments on the posts they read.  This is where the reader can share their thoughts, connect with the blogger and interact with other readers.
• Pages – You normally use pages for information that you want to share with your readers but don’t expect to update frequently.  Not all blogging software includes the ability to add Pages.

Blogs are written on just about any subject and for a wide range of purposes, including personal, business, work and sharing news stories.

Here’s some examples of how blogs are used and educational blogs to check out:

1. Top ten ways educators use blogs with students
2. Class blogs:
   • MrToft.ca (Grade 5)
   • Huzzah (Grade 6/7)
   • Blog, blog blog blog, blog some more (English I)
3. Student blogs:
   • Jazzing up Eight Grade
   • Lauren’s Life
   • Dominique’s My Blog
4. Education blogs listed on PostRank

Cloud Computing

In really simple terms, cloud computing involves using off-site providers that you access via the Internet, and paying for what you use as it’s needed, instead of managing aspects such as hardware, computer applications and data storage on-site.

The term “cloud” is used as a metaphor for the Internet.

Examples of cloud computing include using:

• Google Apps for purposes such as email, messaging, documents, spreadsheets, calendar
• Skype for free online calls, messaging, video conferencing, applicaton sharing, file sharing
• Facebook as a free Intranet

Watch Cloud Computing in Plain English for more information.

Personal Learning Network (PLN)

Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) are all about using web tools such as blogs, wiki, twitter, facebook to create connection with others which extend our learning, increases our reflection while enabling us to learn together as part of a global community.

PLNs increase our opportunities to ask questions and receive help compared to our normal daily face-to-face interactions.

Best part of a PLN is it’s personal!

You make all the choices:

1. What tools you use!
2. Who you connect with!
3. How you want to learn!
4. When you want to learn!

Terms like Personal Learning Communities (PLC) and Personal Learning Environments (PLE) are occassoinally used in a similar context to Personal Learning Networks (PLN).

Check out PLN Yourself to learn more about building your own PLN.

RSS

RSS is an acronym which stands for Really Simple Syndication.

In simple terms, RSS is a simple and effective way of keeping in touch when new information is added to a website without having to visit the website to check for new updates.

How it works is you subscribe to your favorite website using the RSS feed in a RSS feed reader such as Google Reader.  Whenever new information is added to the website it is automatically sent to your RSS feed reader  where you can read it at your convenience.

For example, whenever your favorite blogger publishes a new post it is automatically sent to your Feed reader.

Sites with RSS feeds are normally indicated with the word RSS and/or the orange RSS icon.

For more information:

1. Watch RSS in Plain English
2. Follow these instructions to subscribe to blogs using Google Reader — just replace the student blogs with your favorite blogs and news services

Please note :

• Blogs on all standard blogging platforms automatically include RSS feeds and don’t necessarily use words or an icon to indicate the presence of the RSS feed
• RSS lets you do lots of cool stuff including adding latest updates from your favorite blog(s) or news website(s) to your own site using RSS widgets like FeedWind’s RSS widget

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking enables people to bookmark and tag online content such as websites they find useful so they can use for future reference or share with others online.

Using social bookmarking sites such as Delicious and Diigo means that you can access your stored references anywhere, anytime on any computer.

Social Networking

Social networking is the act of communicating and building relationships with people online.

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook,  Ning communities, LinkedIn, Flickr are all examples of popular social networking sites used by educators to develop their Personal Learning Network (PLN).

Tag

Tags are keywords or terms used to classify content and organize content stored online.   Tags are commonly assigned informally by person who creates the content.

The purpose of tagging is to help make it easier for the content to be easily found.  Tagging is an important part of many web 2.0 tools including:

1. Blog posts
2. Images stored on photosharing websites such as Flickr
3. Bookmarks stored on social bookmarking sites such as Delicious and Diigo

You’ll often see tag clouds used as a visual representation of tags used on a website.  The larger the size of the word in the tag cloud the more content has been tagged using that term.

Web 2.0

The term “Web 2.0″ begun its rise into popularity when O’Reilly Media and MediaLive hosted the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004.

It’s used to refer to the supposed second-generation of Internet-based services that let people collaborate and share information online in new ways.

Blogs, wikis, podcasting, video sharing websites (e.g. YouTube and Vimeo), photosharing websites (e.g. Flickr and Picasa), social networking sites (e.g. FaceBook, Twitter) are all examples of Web 2.0 technologies.

The phrase “Web 2.0″ hints at an improved form of the World Wide Web.

The early web development, retrospectively now labelled Web 1.0, involved static websites, the use of search engines, and surfing from one website to the next, and consuming of consumer created by geeks and web coder.

Web 2.0 involves a more dynamic and interactive World Wide Web where anyone can create content and connect with others to collaborate to build on each others content.

Wiki

A wiki is a website that allows easy creation and editing of webpages using your web browser.  Wikis are normally powered by wiki software.

The term wiki is derived from the Hawaain word ‘fast’ because non-technical users can use them quickly and easily to create their own websites.

Wikipedia is the best example of a wiki being used colloboratively by a community to create content.

Commonly used wikis providers chosen by educators include Wikispaces, Wetpaint, and PBWorks.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Thanks to everyone in my Twitter network who provided input into which terms should be included in this glossary and for sharing links to references.

There is a good chance that in attempting to keep the explanations short we haven’t covered them in sufficient details.  So would love to hear your thoughts:

1. What terms need better explaining? Or explained differently?
2. What other terms would you like included?

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Can you help?

I’ve been asked for advice for blogging with ESL/EFL students.

I’m sure that ESL/EFL educators and their students will provide the best advice.  So I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Larry Ferlazzo’s Thoughts

And to get the conversation started Larry Ferlazzo (from Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day……For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL) has kindly shared his quick thoughts on blogging with ESL/EFL students:

1. Help students get email addresses
2. Compile a list of user names and passwords because someone will forget theirs.
3. Choose a blogging solution that includes an option for leaving an audio comment as it is a MUST – (if you use Edublogs.org you need to use either a Pro blog or Campus blog)
4. Identify some very, very simple tasks that students can do (refer to my Class website Intermediate English for ideas) and then they just have to paste the URL address of their creation in the comments.
   • They’ll get used to the tech that way.
   • Model on a computer projector each task and what is required so everyone sees.
5. Next, have students leave audio and written comments.  Highlight examples on computer projector.
6. Gradually use more complex tasks, like on my class blog.
   • Students can paste essays they write in the comments section, but should type them out in Word first to take advantage of grammar and spell check.
   • However, first, they should write it out longhand so they don’t get intimidated by all the mistakes Word will show them making.

Your thoughts

Would love to hear your thoughts!

1. What have you found works well?
2. What hasn’t worked well?
3. Do you have any questions on blogging with ESL/EFL students you would like answered?

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As promised here’s my follow up post on general blogging questions asked during Richard Byrne and my ISTE Unplugged blogging session and in comments on my What Do You Want to KNOW about Blogging? post.

The aim of the post is to help educators and students with their personal blogging.

For my responses to student blogging questions refer to What You Wanted To KNOW About Student Blogging.

Want my blog to be well read and have a great appearance

Here’s my thoughts including recommended widgets:

1. Always put the most important widgets at the top of your blog
2. Search widget – top of blog or top of sidebar
3. RSS feed using Feedburner – here’s how to add it to your blog
4. Subscribe by email using Feedburner – here’s how to add Feeburner email subscription to your blog
5. Effectively use both categories and tags on your post to make it easier to find posts – here’s the difference between categories and tags
6. Place category widget above tag widget in your sidebar
7. Consider all widgets you add very carefully.  Do you really NEED them?  Do they help or distract from your blog appearance and content?
8. AVOID excessive use of bold, italics and colored font in posts
9. Use headings, number listed, bullet lists, short paragraphs to break posts into manageable chunks– here’s my first five tips for writing better blog posts
10. Use images effectively to engage attention –- read these posts:
    • Copyright and Using Images in Blog Posts
    • Finding and Adding Creative Commons Images To Your Blog Posts
    • Uploading Photos From Digital Cameras Into Blog Posts
11. Avoid blog themes with strong colors or text that is too small that distract the reader from content and make them not want to read it
12. Choose a blog title that is immediately meaningful and relevant to first time visitors – this can make or break their decision to become a subscriber.
    • For example, the original name Mobile Technology in TAFE for my personal blog is a classic example of a REALLY bad blog title

Here’s what to consider when choosing a blog theme.

And think about using your own custom image header like I’ve done on my personal blog – here’s how to upload custom image headers

Do a first time reader audit on your blog

A good approach to improving your blog appearance is to “Do a first time reader audit on your blog” by:

1. Following Darren Rowse’s Run a First Time Reader Audit on Your Blog instructions to observe how someone who has never read your blog navigates it
2. Contacting a few experience bloggers and ask them to do a quick audit of your blog to give you advice on what works and what doesn’t

How you see your blog and what you write about is often totally different from how viewed by others

What experienced bloggers spot differ from someone who normally doesn’t read blogs.

Can you tell how many times your blog has been viewed?

Knowing how many times your blog has been view doesn’t give you a true reflection of your readership.

Blog readership is made up of two totally separate components:

1. People who visit your blog site
2. Readers who subscribe to your blog using RSS or email subscription

The number of people who read your blog by visiting your blog site is generally considerably lower than those that subscribe by RSS or email subscription.

To understand your readership and changes you need to:

1. Set up Google Analytics for your blog
2. Set up Feeburner RSS and email subscription

PostRank is also good for monitoring other engagement factors.

How can a blogger attract more readers?

Hard question because it’s a combination of factors including:

1.  Your blog’s appearance

Some bloggers write great content but:

• Their blog theme and sidebar clutter distracts readers from appreciating the great content
• Lay out of their posts makes their posts hard to read -  here’s my first five tips for writing better blog posts

2.  Type of posts and how frequently you publish posts:

Bloggers like Stephen Downes, Larry Ferlazzo and Richard Brynes all have high readership because they all:

• Have high posts frequency (post several posts per day)
• Publish posts that provide great information for their readers

As a general rule high posts frequency combined with great content increases readership faster than low post frequency with great content.

But you don’t always need high posting frequency to have high readership.

For example, some one like Vicki Davis posts less frequently but  has high readership because of her great content and amazing support of the educational community.

It’s worth checking out Post Rank’s Education list even though their list is based on engagement factors (as opposed to readership) — to check out different edublogging approaches.

3.  Connecting with others

Being a blogger isn’t just about publishing posts.

It’s also about reading others posts, taking time to comment on their posts (in meaningful ways), engaging with your readers by commenting back when they leave comments — being a good blog citizen.

A natural part of connecting with others means that more people are likely to become aware of your work.

Don’t forget that linking to someone else’s post is an important part of blogging.  Why?

Because reading posts that talks about other bloggers or their posts but doesn’t include links to them is really frustrating for readers. Readers like to follow the links and check out the information in more detail but without the links they can’t!

And when you include links to another bloggers post it sends a pingback to that blogger.  Most bloggers check out pingback to their blogs.

Here’s more information on What’s A Pingback? And How To Write Links

But please note — I can’t stress meaningful ways enough when connecting with others, writing comments or using pingbacks.

4.  How you make people aware of your posts

I know other bloggers feel uncomfortable about this as myself.

But nowadays increasingly readers are reading blog posts by links shared on twitter rather than RSS.   So it is now a good idea to tweet when you’ve written a new post.

If you’re not currently using twitter – here’s how to get started.

Bloggers are also using Facebook to connect with more readers – here’s how you do it.

How do you get more people to read your blog and comment?

Increasing readership doesn’t necessarily lead to more comments.

As a general rule if you publish several post per day readers are less likely to comment on posts than if you publish posts two or three times per week.

Scheduling posts several days apart gives readers time to process your posts and means they are more likely to write comments.

However, it does all depend on how you’ve written your post.  Has your post invited a response?

There are skills to writing posts that make readers want to comment — my Comment Count post should give you some ideas.

What are your best practices to ensure uninterrupted publishing posts?

We’re all always busy — so time can be a challenge.

The key is work out what routine works best you and set up a system that helps you.

For example, decide how often you want to publish posts?  Several times daily, once daily or a few times a week?

As a general rule writing a post 2-3 times a week is more achievable for most educators.   So how you do it is decide that Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days your posts will publish.

And to make life easier you can write the posts at the same time and then schedule to post on those days.

Some bloggers also find using a calendar where you plan the topic of your posts helps.  While I’ll also use Google Document which I update with new post ideas.

How do you determine “worthy” topics to attract readers

Really gets back to the reason why you blog.

For many edubloggers blogging is a bit about their readers and a lot about their own personal needs to reflect on what they are learning or what they want to share.

One of the commonest mistakes I see made by new blogggers is focusing on what they think their readers want to read.

My advice is forget about your readers and focus on your own needs.  You’ll be more passionate and it’ll come through in your posts.

And never assume that someone’s already written what you’re saying.

Have bloggers block.  How do I get going again, post length, finding my voice etc

Don’t feel alone — we all suffer from it at some stage.

Some find having a break helps.

Whereas breaks don’t help me and the best solution is to force myself to write the post (any post) to get back into my blogging routine.

Post length

Post length is an interesting topic.  As a general rule shorter posts are more likely to get comments while longer posts are more likely to be bookmarked.

It’s really about what works for both you and your readers.

For example, this post is definitely too long but I didn’t want to break into a series of posts because I normally post twice weekly.  Would it have been better as separate posts for each question?  Probably!

Finding your voice

Each blogger has their own distinct writing style which we often call their voice.

Once you’ve got your blogging routine back I’m sure you’ll find your voice comes back with it.

Final thoughts

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

1. What did I miss in my responses?
2. Do you have any other questions on blogging you would like answered?

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Can you over use hashtags on twitter?

Is obsessive hashtagging a problem?

And what advice would you give in terms of appropriate use of hashtags?

Why do I ask?

Because Marian Schembari left the following comment on my A Twitteraholic’s Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter post:

“Certain tweeters need to cut it out with the obsessive hashtagging. It dilutes the message and looks spammy.”

Now I feel I haven’t provided enough advice on hashtags so want to rectify it.

And why did I miss it?

Easy

How you use Twitter and what annoys you depends how many you follow.

A person who follows 1,000’s of people sees things differently from someone who follows 100’s.

So what advice should I be providing on using hashtags on twitter?

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Can you help?

I’ve promised to follow up What You Wanted To KNOW About Student Blogging with a post that  focuses on responses to more general blogging questions.

The aim of the post will be to help educators and students with their personal blogging.

But first I really love to know what you really want to know about blogging or have always wanted to ask.

Please leave a comment to tell me the questions you would like answered about blogging such as:

1. What would you like to know more about?
2. What have you always wondered or been trying to work out?
3. What have you been struggling with?

And to make sure I don’t miss any really important topics

– please feel free to also share your most important tips for new bloggers.

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Conferences can make you feel really overwhelmed and alone — especially at a conference like ISTE amongst 13,000 ed tech professionals participants who attend each year.

But never for a twitterer.

For us Twitter users conferences are like walking into a big party where you know everyone and are meeting up with old friends.

So how do we use Twitter?

Here’s advice on using Twitter written with assistance from my twitter network and readers comments on this post — thanks everyone for sharing their tips!

And for those of you who have heard of twitter and have dismissed it thinking ‘”Twitter is for people with too much time on their hands” — think again   Educators are connecting with each other on Twitter and using it like a big teachers lunch room that’s open 24/7 whenever they need help, assistance or just want to connect with others.

Here’s tips for signing up for your Twitter account:

1. Go to Twitter and create your account.
2. Remember first impressions count!  Choose your username and an avatar carefully
3. Choose a username that makes it easier for others to relate to you as a real person and conveys the right impression of who you are. e.g. Compare spwat3 with suewaters — which is easier?
4. But don’t stress too much — your username can be changed anytime without affecting your twitter account  (Settings > Account)

Before you start following other people make sure you:

1. Complete your bio and add your blog URL (if applicable) — people use this information to decide whether they follow you (Settings > Profile).
2. Upload your twitter avatar — people are less likely follow those using the default avatar (Settings > Profile)
3. Don’t start following people on twitter until you’ve published some tweets! Why would anyone follow you if you haven’t even bothered to update?

Tips for who to follow:

1. Choose about 100 people to follow initially
2. Find people to follow who have similar interests or with blogs you like who either share great info and links or who willingly engage in conversations
3. Follow a few people you know and follow who they follow
4. Find a twitter mentor who will help and guide you.  Get them to ask their followers to add you.
   
5. You can always ask me to help by sending an @suewaters tweet. Make sure when people do start adding you that add them back quickly plus thank them for adding you to their account!!!
6. Don’t just follow anyone — follow those who have the same interests and who you like
7. Remember following does not have to be forever — vet your following list to suit your needs
8. And think about how you want to use it — to follow latest news? to follow other educators? to share what you know?

Tips for engaging in the conversation:

Twitter is very similar to a face to face conversation.  A mixture of small talk, relationship building, helping others, getting help and sharing.

1. Be patient it takes time to build your network.
2. Use it everyday for four weeks, even if only for 5 minutes per day.
3. Remember twitter is a two way conversation — you need to answer as much as you ask but most importantly share, share, share.
4. Participate and say something, anything
5. Get involved in the conversation. Don’t be afraid to reply and if you don’t get a response back, don’t be offended. It happens — you’ll soon see those that do/don’t engage in conversations
   
6. Learn the twitter language and how to use it well i.e. @, DM, #, hashtags, RT — here’s information that will help.
7. Use a twitter client where possible and not the web interface
8. Avoid using up all 140 characters as it makes Retweeting harder
9. Remember online is forever. If you didn’t want it online don’t say it in the first place.
10. It’s extremely easy for others to misinterpret your written text. Remember this!
11. Think about how what you say reflects on how people visualise you.

Getting more out of Twitter by Using a Twitter Client

A twitter client is a MUST as they provide instant notification of the latest updates and easy response to the tweets.

Which Twitter client you use is personal. Here’s recommendations from my twitter network:

For your computer:

• TweetDeck
• Seesmic
• Hootsuite
• Yoono – FireFox addon
• Accessible Twitter – optimized to assist disabled users
  

For your mobile device:

• Twitter for iPhone – iPhone, iPod touch
• TweetDeck – iPhone, iPod touch
• Twitterific -- iPhone, iPod touch
• Twitbird - iPhone, iPod touch
• echofon – - iPhone, iPod touch
• Osfoora – iPad
• Uber twiter – BlackBerry
• Twitter for BlackBerry – BlackBerry
  
• Tweetcaster – Android
• Gravity – Nokia, Symbian

Connecting using Hashtags

A hashtag is any word on twitter that starts with the “#” hash sign.

Hash tags make it easier to search and follow the twitter conversations on specific topics.

How it works is everyone agrees to use a standard hash tag in their tweets when they tweet about a specific topic.  Then you set up a search for that hashtag using your twitter client, or use twitter search tools such as Twitter Search and Twitterfall to track the conversation.

Hashtags are commonly used at conferences to share thoughts on presentations, organise meet ups and coordinate after parties.  For example, the hashtag used at ISTE 2010 conference was #iste10.

Check out What is a Hashtag by Silvia Tolisano for a more detailed explanation.

Hashtags commonly used by educators include:

• #edchat – used for discussions between educators on thought provoking topics.  You can read more about #edchat here
• #ebshare – Edublogs Twitter hashtag for sharing good links and for educators to tweet links at Edublogs so we can share them with our community
• #teachertuesday – used on Tuesdays to recommend educators worth following
• #followfriday or #ff – used by Twitterers on Friday to recommend people worth following.
• #comment4kids – used by educators to tweet student posts that deserves to be commented on such as a post that is awesome or student that needs encouragement.
• #lrnchat – used for discussions on thought provoking topics.  You can read more about #lrnchat here

Tips for using Hashtags

• Do not place hashtags in front of keywords in your tweet for no real reason
• Hastags are referencing events, news, software, or memes, not for random words
• Commonly used hashtags such as #edchat are great for finding new people and conversations you would never have discovered otherwise
• Excessive overuse of hashtags can make you look like a twitter spammer
• Most twitters don’t mind hashtags when used for specific things such as conferences, events, groups but can get annoyed with excessive use of silly hashtags like #thingsthatannoyme
• Always check the hashtag you’re planning to use by searching Twitter Search to make sure it isn’t already being used for another purpose

Thanks everyone who shared their tips on using hashtags!

Public vs Protected Accounts

By default, when you sign up for Twitter your account is public and any one can see your tweets.

Some twitter users prefer to use Protected twitter accounts where their updates are kept private — where only approved followers can see their tweet updates. You change your privacy options in Settings > Account.

If you choose to use a Protected Twitter account then you need to appreciate there are people who won’t follow some one who uses a protected twitter account.

For those who won’t follow protected twitter accounts it is important to appreciate there are a range of reasons why an educator might choose to use a protected account and often it isn’t related to concerns of posting an inappropriate tweet.

It is also important to consider followers may be using a protected account when taking screenshots from Twitter — and where possible I prefer to ask if people mind me taking a screenshot.

Don’t forget here’s a cool way to grab a screenshot of a tweet and embed it to a blog post!

Thanks to Esra and Jane Lofton for reminding me to discuss Protected Twitter accounts!

And standing out from the crowd

Customzing your twitter background can make you really stand out from the crowd.

You change or upload your own twitter background via Settings > Design.

There’s a few options for creating your own twitter background such as:

1. Use software like PhotoShop to design it yourself.  Here’s some helpful “Design to and best practice tips”!
2. Use one of the many free online twitter background generators.

Here’s some worth trying:

1. Freetwitterdesigner.com

Freetwitterdesigner.com is very easy to use and provides a wide range of options for uploading your own images and adding text anywhere on the background.

2.  TwitBacks

TwitBacks is also very easy to use.  Creates a design with a text block on the left side of the background.

3.  The Escape

The Escape is a very simple, cute twitter background creator.

Keeping up with links shared on Twitter

A twitter network is a rich source of great links to read and it’s handy to grab these links using twitter tools so you can check them out at your leisure.

Here’s a couple of options:

1. Shiftlinks – creates an RSS feed of your links posted by your twitter followers which you can subscribe to using an feed reader such as Google Reader. This works works well when following a small number of people.
2. The Twitter Times – creates a daily newspaper based on the top links shared by your twitter follower.  This works works well when following a large number of people.  Here’s my personalised Twitter Times.  You can also subscribe by RSS.

Thanks to Dolores Gende for reminding me to discuss how to monitor links shared!

And let us not forget how we can use with our students

Check out Tom Barrett and friends 30 Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classro0om from Tom’s Interesting Ways To… Series.

Final thoughts

Everyone has their own secret ingredients for using Twitter.

1. What did I miss?
2. What are your tips for getting more out of twitter?
3. Do you have any favourite twitter tools?

And please share your thoughts on why educators should use twitter and how to get more out of using it.

Thanks to everyone in my twitter network that helped write this post –really appreciated it and apologies for not listing everyone’s names but there were so many who helped!

Photo from Bloggers Cafe at ISTE by ctkmcmillan licensed under All Rights Reserved and used with permission from ctkmcmillan (Karen McTeach).

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Richard Byrne and I co-hosted an ISTE Unplugged session on blogging at ISTE 2010 in Denver.

Thanks to everyone who submitted their blogging questions and here’s my responses — for those who were unable to attend!

I’ve focused my responses to student blogging and will do a follow up post on the general blogging questions.

What sort of rubric do you use for blogging?

There are opposing opinions on whether you should or shouldn’t use a blogging rubric; and if you do use a rubric how you would use it.

Konrad Glogowski’s posts are a ‘must read’ to appreciate the need to move the emphasis from grading to focusing on blogging conversations:

• Thoughts on Assessment
• How To Grow A Blog
• Replacing Grades with Conversations
• Making Assessments Personally Relevant
• Towards Reflective BlogTalk

For examples of blogging rubrics check out:

1. Clarence Fisher’s Blogging Rubric
2. Ryan Bretag’s Blogging Rubric post and Blogging Rubic

How do you have students blog for homework if they do not have access to the internet or a computer (in a poor, rural area)?

Steven Anderson covered this during our session by explaining how his schools provide open lab computer access for students without access at home.

What I didn’t have time to mention is some are using alternative approaches to providing a solution.

For example, in Scott Newcombe’s School District they are providing students with mobile phones which could be used for mobile blogging.

To moderate or not who has the time?

Educators have differing opinions on moderation and use two main approaches:

1. Students are allowed to publish own posts and approve all comments
2. Students posts and comments aren’t published until approved by a teacher

Normally those that moderate are either required to by School and/or District policy or are concerned by the risk of inappropriate content being published.

Here’s how you moderate all comments and posts on student blogs — if you need to/want to take this approach.

Those that don’t moderate all comments and posts generally spend a lot of time educating their students about blogging processes and appropriate online behaviour.

It’s common with this approach to see students’ slowly progress from writing comments on the class blog to publishing posts on the class blog to eventually having their own blog.

Good practice with this approach is to monitor all comments and posts from student posts using Google Reader — here is how you do this.  Google Reader makes it easier to monitor all the student content and if necessary deal with inappropriate content.

Could people please share ways to increase the audience for their students’ blogs? Students are excited and motivated when they begin blogging – but without a real audience, excitement and motivation begin to diminish.

What can we do to increase readership?  How can a student blogger attract more readers?

Realizing that your blog is being read by a global audience and receiving comments from readers in other countries is highly motivating for student bloggers.  It encourages them to blog and improve their writing.

Here’s examples of how you can help your students attract more readers:

1.  #comments4kids

The #comments4kids hashtag is used by educators to tweet student posts that deserves to be commented on such as a post that is awesome or student that needs encouragement.

Here’s more information about #comments4kids:

1. #comment4kids Wednesday
2. Comments4kids wiki

2.  Student blogging challenge

The Student Blogging Challenge is run twice yearly starting in March and September.

It runs for 10 weeks where students are given weekly task designed to improve their blogging skills while connecting them with a Global audience.

I’m wondering how best to create a scenario in which students blog 3-4 times per week, but also a site that will work as a legitimate social network for the course as well (groups, pages, etc.).

What’s the best way of going about putting together such a network?

BuddyPress is one of the best ways of transforming a fully functional blogging platform into a social network.

BuddyPress is a suite of plugins for Wordpress that transforms into a fully functional social network platform.  It is very similar to using a Ning site, except BuddyPress doesn’t have Ning’s blogging limitations as it’s a multi-blogging platform environment integrated with a fully functional social network platform.

Here’s more information on BuddyPress:

1. The BuddyPress Manual
2. WordPress as a Learning Management System – Move over, Blackboard

Check and try a BuddyPress site for yourself here!

Final thoughts

Thanks to Richard Byrne for co-hosting this session with me.  Special thanks to Kim Caise for all her hard work supporting ISTE Unplugged and to Paula Naugle for giving permission for us to use the photo.

Thanks again to those that submitted questions via our Google Form. Apologies but I’ve left one question on student blogging for another posts as I’d love to hear others thoughts on it.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

1. What did I miss in my responses?
2. Do you have any other questions on student blogging you would like answered?
3. Remember I will be doing a follow up post on the general blogging questions — so please leave a comment with any questions you would like answered.

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Our Edublogger, Sue Waters, and Richard Byrne from FreeTech4Teachers.com will be co-hosting an ISTE Unplugged session on Wednesday June 30 from ISTE 2010 in Denver!

Anyone can tune in and participate in this live event which will start at 12:30pm Mountain Time.

If you have questions for Richard or Sue Waters about blogging, please join them in the Elluminate session.

If you like, you can submit your questions ahead of time through the Google form embedded below.

To listen in to the live stream, visit isteunplugged.com and scroll down to near the bottom of the page for the Elluminate link (which isn’t published yet, but will be before the event).

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We hope that you can make it!

Final thoughts

This post was adapted from Richard Bryne’s post by Ronnie and posted with permission from Richard.  Thanks Richard!

We already have questions coming in.

So far the questions are mainly about student blogging, which is great.

We’re also more than willing to answer questions about general blogging issues such as comment moderation, post length, finding your voice, etc.

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It’s that time of year again!

And I’m off to attend ISTE 2010 conference and network with people:

What does this mean?

I would love to catch up with anyone.  I’m always happy to chat and answer questions.

I’ll be in the following locations on these dates:

1. San Francisco from 12 – 16 June
2. New York from 16 – 25 June
3. Denver from 25 June – 2 July
4. Los Angeles from 2 – 7 July

If you would like to meet:

• Send me a tweet using twitter @suewaters
• Leave a comment on this post to coordinate a time
• Or, look for me at EduBloggerCon 2010 on Saturday June 26 and in the Blogger’s Cafe at  ISTE 2010

Final Thoughts

Thanks James for sending me!

Please feel free to share traveling advice, ISTE tips, ‘how not to get lost’ tips etc!

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