Our 27th (of 214) posts was an article by Chris about twittering your lesson plans.  Recently, while playing around posterous, I realized how easy it would be to simply send an email to a blog post (or twitter) a couple of questions from the day’s discussions in order to store up questions for your exam.

I will start doing this as soon as I return from our break.  I will not give my students my posterous blog’s name because they should be taking notes.  However, as I tag my blog posts, I will have a record of topics they should revisit for the exam.

The beauty of this idea is that I could either post the actual information they need to know (like the rules of commas) to direct them to the blog around exam time.  Or I could write out the actual questions out and set the blog to private.

The reason I am so interested in posterous is because you can simply send an email from your computer or text message the question from your phone without ever logging in at posterous.com.

TO SEE MORE POSTS ABOUT POSTEROUS, CLICK HERE.

Chris Copeland, one of our writers, has won an award from M.E.N.S.A. for an article he wrote.  The award is presented to one individual each year who shows excellence in writing about intelligence and human giftedness.  You can read more about this award HERE on the M.E.N.S.A. website.

While I would like to say that his article was all about me, I can only live with vicarious association to the organization because I teach with Chris.  Good job!  Your articles have been spoken of many times in my classroom because I want them to see a “real” writer.  You are an inspiration to us all.

The other day I discovered POSTEROUS. It is a blog site that allows you to simply email your posts right to your blog. That way you NEVER have to sign in and deal with all of the passwords. All you do is drop whatever you want in your post into an email and send that puppy!

It is so easy to embed any of the following, which would typically require access to other sites to get embed code to insert things like:
Word Documents
PowerPoints [sic]
Pictures
ExcelDocuments
So on and so forth…

It says you do not have to create an account, but I would suggest doing so. That will allow you to have your own original name for your blog. It only takes a second. In fact, it is easier than setting up an email account.

Using Posterous for a classroom blogging community:

Before I wrote that I would not suggest using this for your classroom blogging community, but I have changed my mind. As you can see in my comments, Garry [sic] Tan one of the founders of that site has reported that there will soon be password protected groups. This will make this blogging community even more secure than blogger or blogspot. That’s AWESOME! Thanks for reporting back, Garry.

If there were settings that would allow my students’ blogs to be completely hidden, I would be sold on using this in my classroom. Any comment on that, Garry? (Garry promptly replied to this question as a comment below.  I think you will like his answer.)  

I would stick to blogger.com or blogspot.com as suggested in this post.

For more directions about establishing classroom blogging communities, see the first part of this post.

Here are the settings I had my students use for their blogs.  These settings apply to blogs created on blogspot.com  (a.k.a. blogger.com).

Once you have created your blog, follow the settings instructions below.  Be sure to follow them exactly.   Your grade will depend on it.

1. click CUSTOMIZE
2. Then click the SETTINGS tab.
3. AND FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS BELOW EXACTLY.

Click BASIC under the SETTINGS tab.

1. Type in the TITLE of your blog. (Remember, your name cannot appear ANYWHERE on this blog.)
2. Next to COMMENTS click SHOW.
3. Answer NO to all of the questions except these:
   1. Show Quick Editing on your Blog?
   2. Show Email Post links?
   3. Show Compose Mode for all your blogs?
4. Then click SAVE SETTINGS.

Click COMMENTS under the SETTINGS tab

1. Select the option to SHOW your comments. (Sometimes I will post a grade directly to your blog entry, so you want your grade to remain private.)
2. Select the option to give Users with Google Accounts the ability to comment.
3. Select the option to EMBED COMMENTS BELOW POST.
4. HIDE backlinks.
5. Scroll down to the “Comment Moderation” option and select ALWAYS.
6. Next to “Show word verification for comments?” select YES.
7. Next to “Show profile images on comments?” select NO.
8. Then, in the box labeled “Comment Notification Email,” type in your email address.
9. And click SAVE SETTINGS.

I often like to gather information from my students through electronic surveys — I like the ease of use and how it can visually show the data back to them. In the past, I have used Survey Monkey but recent changes in the Google Document Suite makes it so easy to create surveys and forms, gather the answers and then analyze the information that I have hung up my Monkey and gone to Docs.

You can read how to do this from Google itself (see the post) but it really is quite simple: create a form, ask questions, provide possible answers, embed or link to the survey, and get started. The responses get tallied in your Google Docs as a spreadsheet, but there is also a way to see the results as a visual chart.

So, how have I used this?

• At the start of the year, I gave out a brief survey just to get a sense of who my students were as an overall group, with questions ranging from interests and hobbies to how they use technology;
• I have used the form as a reflective writing device, having students think and write about a particular project. This now only gives me their thinking, but it also provides me with valuable feedback on aspects of the project that connected with them, or not.
• We used the form to gather ideas for student social action projects as a brainstorming session, then narrowed down the choices and plunked them into a survey. Students then voted on a particular project, which they have become leaders of at our school. The use of the tool allowed them to be in charge of the idea from start to completion. (See some of the ideas they generated for a proposed Teach the Teacher Day and results about a fundraiser activity)

I created this survey as a sample.

– Kevin

Part 2 of this blog can be found here.

Let me begin by saying that doing this is time consuming. It will require about 10 hours of your own time. However, you will quickly see that it save so much more time than that once implemented.

Over the past few weeks I have been working on getting all of my students (98 in all) blogging. There have been inquiries into student access to computers; and there have been hours devoted to figuring out how I would manage all of these blogs; but most importantly, there have been sleepless nights pondering the safety of my students. I started by having parents sign a form giving permission for their student to create a blog. Then I created a blog of my own. Then I walked them through both making their own and adding my blog to their reading list. You can read more about these steps below.

First, I created my form:

This form (as you can see when you click on it) explains how to set a blog up in the first place. I did that so that my students who know their way around the keyboard would go ahead and create theirs. Then, they become my helpers in the classroom. And, as you have probably found, it doesn’t really matter how computer savvy the teacher is. Once you show them something, they take it and make it ten times better.

I gave them a week to bring the signed permission slips back to me. Then we spent the week with the computers. However, each day I had a literature-relevant prompt to get them writing.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOUR SUBMERGE YOUR STUDENTS IN THE BLOGGING PROCESS AT THE BEGINNING.
Here is why:
1.) They are more likely to remember their passwords later if they are submerged in it.
2.) They become attached to it because they get time to personalize it.
3.) They immediately begin getting feedback from their peers.
4.) Then they immediately realized that they are writing for an audience that expects quality writing.
5.) All the kinks will get worked out in the submersion period (I will list a few I discovered below).

IT IS IMPORTANT TO LET THEM HAVE THEIR OWN VOICE
Give them content relevant prompts, but also allow them to express themselves about other topics. (You can see a list of prompts for younger students and another set for older students in the links embedded in this sentence.)

IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THEY EMAIL YOU THEIR USERNAME AND BLOG URL
Be sure to do this. When you have all of their emails, it save a lot of time. I went through and “followed” my students’ blogs once they followed mine. However, because they couldn’t use their real names, I didn’t always know who each blog belonged to until they each emailed me their URL and username. Then, I went to the dashboard of my google reader (which comes with the blogs made at blogger.com) and searched for each students’ blog address. Once I found it, I quickly changed their username as it appeared in my google reader to their real name. That helps when you are trying to give a grade for blog posts.

IT IS IMPORTANT THEY ARE ENCOURAGED (FORCED) TO INTERACT
Forcing them to comment on other students’ blogs will open the dialogue they need to 1.) feel like they are writers, 2.) know that they have an audience, and 3.) open dialogue that forces them to use academic language in “regular” conversation. They would not use this type of language with friends on facebook, but they would use it in the typical college classroom or English class.

ESTABLISH RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Make sure you have a discussion about appropriate conversations via the internet. I know I have had a number of near altercations from students who were quick to whip out unacceptable commentary in emails to me. Expect that they will do that to their peers as well because it will happen if you don’t talk about it from the start.

MAKE THEM ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR POSTS
*BE SURE to have them mark the setting for comments that force the owner of the blog to screen the comments. Then it is the owner’s fault if something inappropriate gets posted. That will make each blogger your front line of defense.
*If you don’t have an iphone or blackberry, and you don’t want to grade while walking the halls, then you can have your students print out their posts (with their comments) to turn in to you.
*Tell them that they must post by a certain date and time for it to count. Most students will be able to post from their cell phones, so they can do it on the bus or math class (no offense, math teachers).

To create an account via blogger (or blogspot), students need their own email address. If they already have an gmail account, they are good to go. If they have their own email address (that is not a gmail account) they CAN just use that.If they need an email account, but you worry about them having their own, check out this post written a while back by Kevin (the post is also referenced in the comments below). However, you may find that guerillamail.com may not work with some blogging sites.

Today lifehacker.com has a post about studystack.com.  Here is their post:

Study Stack is a collection of study guides covering a wide range of topics that can be accessed in a variety of ways, including being exported to PDA and mobile phone friendly flashcards.

Studying for the GRE and need to know obscure suffixes? Worried you’ll forget a medical term while studying for the MCAT? Everything from major standardized tests to the basics are covered in the archives of Study Stack. You can use the guides online in formats ranging from more traditional formats like virtual flashcards or word lists, to more novel like fill in the blank games and hang man. If you’re looking for a way to brush up before a test, it’s tough to beat the wide reaching and entirely free collection at Study Stack.

Original Post

So my wife has been exiting our grocery stores with a receipts that boast of her savings which are always higher than her spending. One recent one read, “You saved $51.08.” Just below that her total spending equaled $48.

She also visits multiple drug stores, such as CVS and Walgreen’s having spent around $15 dollars for about $70 worth of products we needed.

I have been trying to get her to write about it on here, but alas, she is not convinced that people are interested.

If you are interested, please leave a message in the comments below.