Technorati Tags: social+networking commoncraft video Lee+LeFever networking

I recently added some accessories to my blog to track visitors. A Cluster Map displays the location of visitors to my blog, very cool. Visitors don’t have to click on it or enter any data, it just automatically recognizes a visitor and indicates his/her location on the world map. Up to this point, I’ve hesitated to have such a widget on my site, fearing the map would have only 3 dots. For the past few days the map has been totally blank, with just a message saying it would be updated soon. You can only imagine my joy when I viewed the updated Cluster Map today and saw the far fling dots all across the globe. I am truly surprised.

The other new accessory is MyBlogLog, which shows other MyBlogLog members who have visited my blog. If I understand this tool, any visitors not registered at MyBlogLog won’t show up in the widget. The idea is that I can connect with my readers. By clicking on a visitor’s image in MyBlogLog, I can see their profile which includes information about their on-line presence (blog, social network, photo-sharing, etc).

Continuing with this blogging topic, I came across a great slideshare show, The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging, on Mark Wagner’s Educational Technology and Life Blog. Rohit Bhargava and Jesse Thomas of 360 Digital Influence Blog published the show. Now that I know I have visitors, I will have to apply some of their recommendations.

[slideshare id=37589&doc=the-25-basic-styles-of-blogging-and-when-to-use-each-one-14243&w=425]

Technorati Tags: Cluster+Map blogging MyBlogLog Mark+Wagner Educational+Technology+and+Life Rohit+Bhargava Jesse+Thomas 360+Digital Influence+Blog

Months ago I heard one of the WOW2.0 ladies use the term Virtual Tattoo. It has stuck in my mind, since it is such a great way to describe the on-line presence we create as social networkers, bloggers, wikiers, podcasters, etc. I’ve heard about employers and universities investigating the on-line presence of their potential employees, students, or grant recipients. Just recently a pre-service educator had her certification canceled because of a photo of her on a social network as a drunken pirate.

All the cyberbullying we are hearing about in the news lately is related to Virtual Tattoos. It is easy for people to impersonate others on-line and add more details to their tattoo, without their consent. Allison Stokke, a California star high school student, who now has a virtual tattoo that includes a fan site, a fake Facebook profile, and YouTube videos, illustrates this point. You may be thinking, “Well, that will teach her. She shouldn’t have been posting all that personal information.” However, in this situation, she did none of the posting. I find this very disturbing. A photo of the champion pole vaulter at a meet, taken by a professional photographer, was posted on a high school website, which resulted in the sharing and reposting of this photo, and spiraled into 1 million Google hits. I read about this in Andy Carvin’s blogpost, When Students Become Accidental Celebrities, What Next? in which he quotes an article in the Washington Post. You may have heard about 14 year old Olivia Gardner’s cyberbullying situation on the Today Show, which has taken a positive turn with supportive letters being sent to Olivia and her family.

Many people think that if they just delete previously posted content, it is gone, but this is not true, thus the tattoo. Google keeps an archive which allows users to view deleted content. It is imperative that we teach our students how to be safe on-line. As a result of this story, I plan to recommend that no individual student photos be published on-line by our district. Group photos and project images are a better choice, but never with complete student names of course. I will do more to educate the parents in our community and provide them with resources about cyber safety.

Resources

• WiredSafety.org
• NetSmartz
• iSAFE
• Play It Cyber Safe
• INOBTR

Related Post: Stop Cyberbullying Day

Image: Mike Monteiro. Toontown Tattoo Parlor. Mike Monteiro’s photostream
22 July 2005. 10 June 2007. http://flickr.com/photos/dorkmaster/27879821/

Technorati Tags: virtual+tattoo wow2.0 cyberbulling Andy+Carvin Washington+Post Today+Show drunken+pirate

on-line+safety Olivia+Gardner

The On-line Publishing sessions for the Time4 Online Conference, feature Suzie Vesper’s session: Involved Community and Motivated Children – Publishing Presentations Online. Her wiki, Publishing Videos On-line has a wonderful collection of resources. I especially enjoyed her presentation for the conference for which she used Zentation, a mashup tool that combines Google Video and Slideshare. I’ve not seen this before. She also has a wiki on Web2.0 tools that has some great resources.

Online Conference and Zentation   3:45 Using online tools for publishing

Suzie recommends using Google video to post your educational videos because it allows you to set a level of privacy, but still provides code to embed the video in a wiki, blog, or website. YouTube also provides privacy levels, but requires you to make a video public in order to acquire the embedding code. I know that currently both of these sites are blocked by our filter, but TeacherTube is not. She provides examples of videos in education including to: demonstrate learning, capture events, publicize the school, and educate teachers.

I wanted to hear a New Zealand voice respond to me when I used the YackPack walkie talkie on the Publishing Videos On-line wiki, but alas, I was the only current visitor of the wiki, so no response to my yack. Take a go at it, as they say in New Zealand.

Technorati Tags: Time4online07 video Zentation Google+Video Slideshare Suzie+Vesper TeacherTube YackPack wiki New+Zealand mashup

I just finished watching Learning, Sharing & Connecting Online with 6 & 7 year olds!, a video presentation from Nelson Central’s Room 9 of New Zealand. Rachel Boyd is doing some amazing things with these youngsters. The classroom blog is wonderful, filled with photos, daily events, and of course, student work. I’m amazed at the Rubbish Audit post:

On Tuesday afternoon ALL the rubbish from EVERY bin @ Nelson Central School was taken and put into the hall. On Wednesday the seniors went and helped sort it into 4 piles: paper, cardboard, food scraps & plastic. We could see all the rubbish that our school makes in a DAY!

Download: Posted by rachelboyd at TeacherTube.com.

Six and Seven Year olds blogging?! Fortunately, this is not the first time I’ve seen this. There are other primary teachers also taking the plunge into the blogosphere with their students. Mrs. Cassidy’s first grade students are blogging and podcasting. Just recently Tom McMillan wrote an article for Canada.com about Kathy Cassidy’s classroom entitled Blogging 101 motivates students.

If you can’t run your own blog, it may be time to go back to Grade 1.

I’m looking forward to watching Presentation 2 from Rachel’s students. These presentations are a part of the keynote for Round 2 of the free, online Time4On-line Conference, and are my favorite of the lot.

Related posts:

• Taking Responsibility for Our Own Learning
• Last Weekend New Zealand, This Weekend Canada
• No Time4 Online Conference

Technorati Tags: time4online07 Rachel+Boyd blogs podcasting New+Zealand Kathy+Cassidy Canada.com Tom+McMillian