Following our launch of the DET blog trial last week, time to take a moment to reflect on a number of break throughs which have occurred in achieving this.
For some it might be a ‘so what’ just another blogging tool but this one consists of three applications: the blog itself, a media library (for private and sharing across DET) and the group builder which facilitates the grouping of blog participants.
A couple of firsts for DET in implementing a new application:
Listening to the field- blog workshops were held last year resulting in a matrix of recommendations for the applications
• Based on opensource- although requiring customisation for integrating into the schools/TAFE environments the blog is based on Apache Roller and also incorporates tiny MCE.
• Peoples trial of the application- 16 school and 5 TAFE teachers, trialling over seven weeks and recording their experiences in a trial bloglog.
• Phased release from experiences gleaned out of the trial, resulting in release 1.1 in third term.
• Schools and TAFE joint participation in developing requirements suited to both.
• Personalisation of the blog-while range of widgets and interface customisations are for 1.1 release- worth noting other features-
o Enabling personal tagging (media & posts)
o Styling content via the editor
o Electing notifications (email/RSS)
o Managing the blog (moderation, membership, levels of access, type of blog)
o Personalising your Profile including Avatars and Aliases
o Options to share media
o Descriptions of blog
Week one and I’ve seen what could be described as the normalisation of blogs in the workplace, a hint that at last maybe web 2 collaborative tools are mainstreamed into DET- even Twitter has a DET and BOS input- the real test now is to see how Gen i embrace an institutionalised application- or like Gen y will they move to other channels?
May 10, 2009
May 11, 2009 at 8:18 am
Tim,
I eagerly await 1.1.
Many DET people have started following me on Twitter in th elast week; I think we are over the hump and have main stream acceptance.
May 11, 2009 at 10:20 am
Darcy-lets hope so- lets see if a ‘institutionalised’ blog can provide the potential advantages of system integration & secure usage without compromising the flexiblity of opensource blogging tools
May 13, 2009 at 9:48 pm
This set of blogging tools as it appears in the presentation is a good entry level implementation of Web 2.0 tools. Even with this glance however I can see that teachers will need to incorporate information literacy strategies into their pedagogic repetoires to maximise effectiveness in student learning. This is a great opportunity to study multiple literacies.
May 14, 2009 at 8:01 am
Kevin – I like the ‘good entry level’ while we are treading crefully in this space, I think there are some ewll thought out workflows around an ‘intitutional blog of this type. MOre enhncements coming very soon. The multiple literacies dimension i interesting as we see new genres of blogging emeging- already there are text types meging from these, ven in microblogs. look foward to having your ideas contibute futher esp in relation to tagging these.
May 15, 2009 at 1:51 am
It is great to see the blog tool on the way. Now we as educators can start to tackle the real pedagogic questions: What is the purpose(s)of using a blog? Who is the audience for the blog? Luckily we are not leading in this area and there are lots of models to follow.
I do like Scott Leslie’s “Matrix of uses in Education” as a starting point as it attempts to treat the questions of audience and purpose –
http://www.edtechpost.ca/wordpress/2003/10/09/Matrix-of-some-uses-of-blogs-in-education/
May 31, 2009 at 6:28 am
Sorry for the lag in replying Ian- but my feeds were down. I’ll check Scotts matrix out- am keen to reference some of these in DET blog DashBoard.
May 16, 2009 at 4:59 am
Well I drew from my archives at http://informationliteracybghs.wordpress.com which incorporates narrative with a matrix with addresses commonly accepted information literacy indicators. Then I sat down with a Stage 4 teacher and we pulled out 4 outcomes she wanted to aim at. We shared the class. The workbook which analyses bibliographic metadata for specific items retrieved from the catalogue is linked, as are “Mr Davidson’s” set of text types. One MP3, a googlemaps link, two jpegs of the Great Wall of China and a wikipedia link. I had two 90 second videos of two excepts of Aladdin as well. Every student except one made multiple posts. The one left who had no Portal password at the time cried a bit but I had a hardcopy for her to work from.
May 25, 2009 at 5:45 am
SO are you after other people to trial the blog – I am currently using a wordpress hosted blog for stuff for my Yr 11 students – but it is a hassle!
June 15, 2009 at 9:16 am
Let me know where you are teaching. Certainly be interested in hearing a bout the limitations of using wordpress with your students.
June 18, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Our trial blog isrunning hot, the kids are posting comments by the shedload.
June 21, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Darcy – look foward to the debriefing- will miss you there but will keep you posted of outcomes
June 21, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Talk soon. Probably early Ter 3.