{"id":81,"date":"2009-06-13T23:22:38","date_gmt":"2009-06-14T07:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/?p=81"},"modified":"2009-06-17T02:25:13","modified_gmt":"2009-06-17T10:25:13","slug":"toolkit-activity-blogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/2009\/06\/13\/toolkit-activity-blogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Toolkit Activity: Blogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

My initial reaction to the ETEC 565 Toolkit information of there being over 400,000 educational blogs was \u201cwow\u201d. That\u2019s a huge number of writers, writing for a purpose and for an audience. I assume this number is growing exponentially by the month and I wonder how many languages are represented in the number of 400,000. <\/span><\/p>\n

My first experience with blogging was through MET. I designed a blog in ETEC 511, through KeepToolkit (<\/span>http:\/\/www.cfkeep.org\/static\/index.html<\/span><\/a>). However, I found it tricky to update and upload artifacts and files. In ETEC 565, I was introduced to WordPress. I found it much easier to use, and I decided to stay here! <\/span><\/p>\n

Explore: I visited the following blogs<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>http:\/\/theopenclassroom.blogspot.com\/<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Jo McLeay is a M.Ed student who focuses on English teaching, literature and knowledge communities. She has posted a good podcast on learning communities coming together to make a difference through volunteering and a T.E.D. video featuring a P.E. teacher who uses blogging in his courses.<\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>http:\/\/rachelboyd.blogspot.com\/<\/span><\/a> Rachel Boyd has embedded videos that are educational and relevant to my teaching environment. In addition, she has simple explanations for many Web 2.0 tools: Twitter, Blogs in Plain English<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>http:\/\/www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org\/<\/span><\/a> A great blog created by Scott McLeod, an expert on technology integration in the K-12 environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>http:\/\/educationwonk.blogspot.com\/2009\/05\/carnival-of-education-week-224.html<\/span><\/a> The \u201cblog carnival\u201d includes links and threads to issues and technology integration in K-12 education. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Contribute: In addition to my 565 blog, I created a \u201crough\u201d MET educational portfolio using WordPress to replace my KeepToolkit version. It can be found at <\/span>http:\/\/eringillespie.wordpress.com\/<\/span><\/a>, but it is a work in progress! The skills I learn in 565 are used within the same week on my blog. I have found blogging to be time consuming. There is a potential audience for my posts, and I take my time expressing myself. I want to maintain an atmosphere of a professional-MET student-lifelong learner, and this involves rephrasing, spell-checking, including references (when required) and avoiding slang.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an example, I’ve actually completed several Toolkit activities, but I save them as a document in Word. The reason is simple: I want to double check that the reflection reads well and I want to add to it. I know I can edit posts, but perhaps a visitor won’t return to my blog and will instead see a less structured post. <\/span><\/p>\n

Reflection: I would like to investigate why I don’t “love” blogging. I recognize it as a communications tool and an educational tool, but I don’t feel like it is an artistic release or an enjoyable activity. I feel guilty for stating that, but it is true. For some background information, I never really enjoyed writing classes in elementary school and chose art and drama over writing in high school. I guess that’s what the “private posts” function in blogs are for. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My initial reaction to the ETEC 565 Toolkit information of there being over 400,000 educational blogs was \u201cwow\u201d. That\u2019s a huge number of writers, writing for a purpose and for an audience. I assume this number is growing exponentially by the month and I wonder how many languages are represented in the number of 400,000. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":605,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3859],"tags":[67,4128,2139,4177],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toolkit","tag-blogs","tag-elearning-toolkit","tag-reflection","tag-toolkit-activity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/605"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/gillespieetec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}