Jonesieblog

I’m a relative newcomer to the blogging game. It’s not rocket science, but there are a few things that I wish I had been told when I started. I’m aware that there are a lot of new bloggers in East Lothian – this post is for you guys! I’ll explain how you can help your blog to get connected to the bigger world of blogs.

The blogosphere (a hideous term used to describe all the blogs out there) is held together by the connections between blogs. These connections do not form by themselves – you have to get out there and make them yourself. It’s like going to a party – if you stand in a corner and don’t speak to anyone then you are unlikely to have a good time!

Technorati is your friend

Technorati sits at the centre of the blogging universe. Register with Technorati (it’s free) and claim you blog. You will then get to something like this:

Not particularly impressive stats, but the number of links is an important measure of how widely your blog has been noticed. It’s nice, as time goes by, to see the numbers go up

Write some posts

Before you launch yourself onto the world of blogging, try to have several posts on your blog already. When bloggers become aware of a new blog, they are very likely to have a look at it. If they find an empty blog, or one where the last post was written 2 weeks ago, they may never come back! There’s good advice on launching your blog here.

Learn about RSS

RSS feeds are tiny files that each blog produces. They list all the recent posts on a blog, and can be used with an RSS reader to keep an eye on lots of blogs without having to go visit them all every day. Register with Bloglines (free) and add feeds from your favorite blogs. If you’re in Scottish Education, you might like to use this OPML file as a starting point. You can import this into Bloglines and you’ll get feeds from a whole bunch of education related blogs. More on the importance of RSS on edu.blogs.com.

If you want to get comments, make them

The most important way to get noticed is to start commenting on other people’s blogs. Be sure to enter the address of your blog in the relevant field, so that readers can easily get to your blog. Commenting on each other’s blogs is the central means of communication in the blogosphere. It’s good to talk

Learn about Trackbacks

The exact workings of trackbacks depend on what blogging software your are using, but basically a trackback is a message from one blog to another, saying “I mentioned this post on your blog.” If you look at the comments on some blog posts, you will see these trackbacks at the bottom. If you read an interesting blog post, and feel inspired to write about it, be sure to put a link to the post, and enter the address into the trackback field in your post editor if such a thing exists. That way the author of the original post and other readers of the post will become aware that you have joined the conversation.

Use you Blogroll

All blogs have some form of blogroll – a list of blogs that the author recommends. Use yours! Every blogger you list will notice that you’ve done so (via Technorati or a similar tool) and may potentially become one of your readers.

Have fun

Blogging is fun. Don’t let it become a chore

Stumble it!

Don’s post about a virtual advisory service has set me to pondering how far we have come in the last few years in our use of the Internet to support effective teaching and learning, and the extent to which central educational bodies can support further development.

We have reached critical mass for the live web to become an integral part of education. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been encouraging maths teachers to blog and to set up class blogs, and discovered that I’m pushing at an open door. Craig, Tim, Mags, Jenny, and Paul have all made a start already. I know that we still have a majority of staff for whom the whole thing is a bit of a mystery, but more and more teachers are realising that blogging is a simple, easy thing to do with classes that enriches the learning and teaching experience. My guess is that within a year or two class blogging will have become a routine activity – just another part of good practice that most people do. In the words of Darren Kuropatwa:

All my classes are hybrid classes. They have both a face-to-face component and an online component. Each class is supported by a blog.

In this context, it’s important that LTS’s actions nurture and support the growing blogosphere that already exists in scottish education. I think East Lothian’s work on Exc-el points the way. The key feature of East Lothian’s approach has been the freedom that bloggers have been given. Want a blog? – go ahead and set one up for yourself, no questions asked. No heavy corporate disclaimers and acceptable use policies to sign. No paperwork to fill in. No formal support mechanisms even! Just go for it! We trust you.

This has been a brave experiment, and the results are plain to see – usage of Exc-el is rocketing. It’s being used by everyone from lowly heads of education right up to the students themselves!

So, the future’s looking rosy, right? Well, not necessarily. The nightmare scenario goes something like this: every class in Scotland is given a bland, “Education Scotland” branded blog over which they have no control in terms of look-and-feel. A restrictive, risk averse blogging policy is created that forbids class blogging outwith this environment. A heavy-handed filtering system is implemented to censor access to blogs and who can post comments on them.

We’ve seen exactly this kind of approach taken to Web1.0 in education. Neil points this out in “Computer Say No” and goes on to examine the causes and possible solutions. Unless we actively engage with decision makers in educational IT at an authority level and try to persuade them to be less risk averse, we are bound to see these policies repeated. What is the person who believes Flickr, Blogspot and Youtube should be blocked going to think when they realise that a blog is a place where anyone in the world can write a comment? No chance. Wikis? You must be joking! We are still under the radar now. The struggle to keep the door open to Web2.0 in education has not yet begun.

I’m delighted to read that LTS are aware of the problems highlighted by Neil. All the people I know working at LTS in this field are definitely good-guys, far more forward thinking and knowledgeable than I, so I’m optimistic. My only concern is that the good guys may not be the ones that get to make the decisions.

Stumble it!

Some students writing a maths scribe-post blog in…. well actually, I’m not sure where!  Canada or USA I guess…are having trouble believing that a Scottish maths teacher called Mr Jones really exists, and is posting comments on their excellent posts.

Well, Sophie, I’m real

You can read their blog at http://prepcalcabb0607.blogspot.com/

It has lots of stuff that would be useful for higher or advanced higher pupils here in Scotland.

Stumble it!

Did I invent this game, or do other people already play it?

• Pick a link from your blogroll
• Follow one of the bogroll links from that blog
• Repeat at least 10 times – no stopping along the way!

I ended up here and read a post from a Texan teacher about how pointless in-service days can be. Different continent, same stuff!

And BTW, I don’t suppose that our American friends realise how close blogroll sounds in the UK to toilet paper

Stumble it!

Well do they? It is great to use blogs to share good practice, bounce ideas around and formulate new policies. But what about the negative stuff? There are many issues in a large organisation like mine (East Lothian Council) that might act to impede the development of effective learning and teaching. Is anyone brave enough to air such issues in a blog managed by their employer? Might they be in breach of their contracts of employment if they did? I have always been under the impressions that we are not allowed to go directly to the press with concerns. If not, will we really be allowed to air those concerns in such a public arena as Exc-el? What is more, should we be allowed to?

Now don’t get me wrong – I think Exc-el is a great tool, and the fact that blogs tend towards the positive is also good. It would be pretty pointless if it just became a place to moan. But without the ability to discuss the real nitty gritty of the problems we face, it runs the risk of just being a place to show-off and to dream.

To give you one example of the kind of thing I’m talking about, I read an East Lothian publication over the Summer that described a visit by the First Minister to see how PPP had gone. He described it as a resounding success and a model for other authorities to follow. How quickly we have forgotten this,this,this…
[rest of post self-censored to avoid risk of disciplinary action]

Stumble it!