Sunday, July 31, 2016

Amazing Interviews!

I teach a course through Fresno Pacific University called "ET 735 - Creating on the Web".
In it, I challenge students to create a blog, become active on Twitter, and really invest in creating their Personal/Professional Learning Network (aka PLN). One big assignment is contacting an educator that is much further along that path than they are - a "connected educator".

I really pushed the students to think BIG as far as who they interview. They delivered!

Here are the interviews - these links are to YouTube. They are all embedded on their blogs, also.
Vicki Davis

Jon Corippo

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Add Gadgets to Blogger

You are at the beginning stages of creating a blog using Blogger.
You know how to write a blog post.

Now it's time to add other content along the sides of your blog. These are called gadgets.

1. Go to Layout.














2. Choose a size for your Sidebar gadget.

They can be different sizes. You may want to choose one that fills the entire margin, or just half of the margin. I have already added some gadgets, which you can see on this blog.











3. Add a Sidebar gadget.
Here are some suggestions for gadgets you might want to add:

•HTML/Javascript - This is great for embedding your Twitter tweets, or any other HTML embed code you might want to put on your blog.

•Profile - Great for letting people know who you are (and show them why you should keep reading your blog).

•Labels - Give them easy access to the labels that you categorize your blog posts with.

•Link List or Blog List - Here is where you show your blog readers what blogs you read. What influences and inspires you? Where can they go for more great content?

•Translate - If your audience is multi-lingual, this one would be great for you.

When you have posted a lot of content, these two would be important to have:
•Search Box - They should be able to search your blog

•Popular Posts - Promote your most popular blog posts


4. Re-arrange your gadgets.


Click and hold on the vertical dots, and drag your gadgets around.










5. Lather-Rinse-Repeat (Revise)
Maybe now you realize that you chose the wrong size for the gadget that you chose. Go back and re-add the gadget with the size you prefer.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Peer Commenters

I had an epiphany today.

I’ve been commenting like the wind lately, giving feedback on my students’ writing. I’ve been saying academic, but somewhat cryptic things like “cap…”, which means they have a capitalization error. Or “verb tense”, or “proper noun”, etc.

They are finally mature and independent enough that we can do more independent writing time, with more and more feedback given.
Also, several of my students are ready to be peer commenters. They are proficient enough that I would trust their comments (at least enough to risk it at this point).

Today, we came up with a list of comments that I’ve been giving them, others that I could give them, and what they mean. We were also intending for the Peer Commenters to use these same comments.
I knew we had to be structured like this because I wanted to avoid meaningless wastes to time like “this is cool” or “good job” or especially “this duznt mak sens” or even more disrespectful things.
I want the comments to be worth our time, helpful to the original author, and a good example of digital citizenship.

I have extremely high hopes for this structure, and how it will help my students’ writing. I just wish I had been able to start this months ago!

I’m sure these documents will be dynamic, as this becomes more and more a part of how we function as a class…

Here is my list of Peer Commenters:

Here is my Comments Key:

FYI: The URL for this blog (edwardwarkentin.com) used to be https://ededtech.blogspot.com/

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