Day: January 8, 2008

Checking my Google reader I came across the latest post by Jeff Utecht on his blog, The Thinking Stick.
In it, he relates how he has spent today teaching 9th graders about blogging –

The classes were each 80 minutes long…plenty of time to setup a blog, write a short blog post, learn about posts vs. pages, walk through how to manage comments, change themes, update options, change password, and have a discussion on the use of the blog.

Wow! He goes on to explain how he related blogging to Facebook, comparing their new blogs to Facebook pages, and the sidebar widgits to all the Applications you can add to your Facebook page. The language of Facebook was familiar to the students so it made perfect sense to them! That was the first thing that struck me – making things relevant.

The second was the fact that the teacher was in the room, and learning at the same time. It’s a model I like – my best lessons have been when I’ve been learning with the kids – and particularly when they’ve been teaching me. I never tire of learning and hope my pupils are as eager to learn as me!

Jeff comments towards the end of his post-
‘This is the reason why I love blogs, they open up a whole world of opportunities.’

I’d just read Ewan McIntosh‘s article in The Guardian as well in which he concludes
‘The future (of using new technologies) is in teachers seeing for themselves what bounties await down this yellow brick road, before worrying about how they are going to bring Class 2C with them on Monday morning.’

I’m new to blogging and the like but I can see that the possibilities are endless. The kids need little persuading when I suggest using the latest tool I have discovered, and are learning without realising it much of the time.

For example, my 9 year old son had to do a topic on the Egyptians and decided to do half of it using Photostory3 – the quality and quantity of information he gave in his presentations was greater than he would normally have produced. And he learned how to use a new application – because he saw me doing it and it looked fun!

So, I’ll keep learning and taking the advice of John Hunter quoted in Ewan’s article –

Continuing on the theme of ‘bling for your blog’, have you seen the latest – my Favicon. If you have the blog open in tabs, you should see my Weemee on the tab, and also by the URL in the address bar at the top. (Unless you use IE6 in which Favicons apparently don’t work!)

I was alerted to these little beauties by Silvia Tolisano’s post Add a Favicon to your blog
on her Langwitches blog. Although she offered the Wikipedia definition as well, I liked her ‘non scientific description’ – ‘The little thingy that shows up as a little picture right next to the URL address in the address bar.’ Sounded like a good idea – but couldn’t work out how to do it as Silvia’s blog is a WordPress blog with a hosting company so doesn’t work quite the same as a Blogger one!

Then Joe Dale blogged Favicon your Typepad blog
and, as usual, gave clear instructions on the way to go about it. But Typepad blogs are again different so still no joy!

However, I left comments on both blogs, and Silvia and Joe were kind enough to point me in the direction of Blogger Tips and Tricks and specifically Favicon for your Bloggerblog. (Thank you x)
And there, in words of one syllable and with clear step by step instructions, I discovered how and succeeded in adding my favicon using My Favatar.
And it really was quite easy! I could see that the post has been updated several times with additional information, and was cheered to see that the final ammendment was the idiotproof, step by step instructions in words of one syllable that I needed – so I’m not the only one who sometimes needs a bit of ‘intervention support’ ;o

And I’m quite fond of the latest use for my Weemee – she gets everywhere, that girl!