Stephen’s Untold Stories

Great story that got started because of a blog.

A collection of school supplies for students in Afghanistan all started with Riley Beler’s dad.

Paul Park, a teacher with the Prairie South School Division and Canadian Forces soldier with Task Force 1-08, has been serving overseas since February.

To keep friends and family up-to-date on how he’s doing, Park began a blog called “The Sandbox: Dispatches from a high school English teacher in Khandahar, Afghanistan.”

“People started asking him how they could help the people of Afghanistan,” said Sandi Kerney, a Grade 6-7 teacher at Sunningdale School, where Beler is a student.

“One day, he wrote a post about a school that had burned down. He said they could use supplies and it all kind of just went from there.”

A request for pencils, books and other items was included in Sunningdale’s monthly newsletter and the donations started rolling in.

A total of 14 large boxes have been packed up and are ready to be shipped through 15 Wing Moose Jaw’s free overseas shipping to soldiers program.

Link to article

Let these six and seven-year-olds from New Zealand explain it to you!

 

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Here is their blog.

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Fellow northwest Georgia blogger Professor Marvel also had some suggestions.

1. A story behind some of your favorite pictures
2. Tips on taking good photos
3. Using photos in the classroom - Going beyond VoiceThread use.

I’ll tackle the 2nd question here and try get to the others in future posts.

I’ve never had any formal training in photography. I do spend a good bit of time looking at other people’s stuff for ideas. I’ve mentioned Thomas Hawk in a couple of previous posts, and he’s probably my favorite.

I do try to look at things from different angles. For example, look down a one-way street in the opposite direction from oncoming traffic. That’s a view most people never notice. You can see buildings and other landmarks from a different perspective.

This photo is taken from a corner where few people ever stand.

This is the view that most people shoot from.

Since storage cards are so inexpensive now, I take lot of shots without much concern of running out of space. I’ll sometimes take multiple shots of the exact same thing in the same spot just in case I get lucky on the lighting.

I’m not afraid to kneel down, climb up on something, or stand at an awkward angle for a shot. I was practically hanging over the water when I took this snake photo.

When possible, I try to frame an object against a great background. I saw this boat, but I waited until it had the right background for both shots.

Okay…that’s all I can come up with for now. Feel free to share any tips you have!

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I can always count on my blogging buddy Rick for some good ideas. He suggested:

1. It’s baseball season. You could discuss the chances of Oregon State once again beating North Carolina in the CWS in a couple of months.
2. Go through your archives and re-publish some of the ones that stick out to you for one reason or another.

Okay, I realize it’s baseball season but I don’t watch a lot of college baseball. I could tell you about the problems that the Braves and A’s are having right now, but nothing about Oregon State and/or North Carolina.

But not knowing anything has never stopped me in the past, so I will unequivocally say that OSU will earn a three-peat by whipping the Tar Heels at Rosenblatt Stadium in June. Go Beavers!

I’ll start looking through the archives and see if I can find anything worty of a repost.

Thanks, Rick!

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I have no idea what to blog about. I’m open to suggestions.

Fire away.

Very well done!

 

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Seems like it works!

Mine must have been around 27 or 28.

Here are the top 5.

1. Gawker
2. MacRumors
3. Huffington Post
4. Perez Hilton
5. TechCrunch

Here is the complete list.

A total of 113 6th & 7th grade students took the survey and are participating in the study.

1. Is writing one of your favorite subjects in school?
A. Yes - 44.25%
B. No - 55.75%

2. Do you like to write things for school assignments?
A. Yes - 11.50%
B. No - 22.12%
C. Sometimes - 66.37%

3. Do you like to write things that are not related to school like letters or notes to family and friends?
A. Yes - 45.13%
B. No - 14.16%
C. Sometimes - 40.71%

4. How many times have you sat down to write something in the last month or so?
A. 0 - 11.50%
B. 1or 2 times - 40.71%
C. 3 or 4 times - 23.01%
D. 5 times or more - 24.78%

5. Do you think that writing is fun?
A. Yes - 23.01%
B. No - 23.89%
C. Sometimes - 53.10%

6. Would you like to write more often?
A. Yes - 46.90%
B. No - 53.10%

7. Do you think that writing is an important skill?
A. Yes - 89.38%
B. No - 10.62%

8. Have you ever written on a blog?
A. Yes - 48.67%
B. No - 51.33%

9. Do you know anyone who has written on a blog before?
A. Yes  - 69.91%
B. No - 30.09%

10. Are you looking forward to writing on a blog?
A. Yes - 63.72%
B. No - 11.50%
C. I’m not sure  - 24.78%

I got the pre-blogging surveys yesterday from the middle school I am working with for my action research project on blogging. I am in the process of compiling the results, but here are the questions from the survey:

(Survey Given to Students Prior to Blogging)

1. Is writing one of your favorite subjects in school?
A. Yes
B. No

2. Do you like to write things for school assignments?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Sometimes

3. Do you like to write things that are not related to school like letters or notes to family and friends?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Sometimes

4. How many times have you sat down to write something in the last month or so?
A. 0
B. 1or 2 times
C. 3 or 4 times
D. 5 times or more

5. Do you think that writing is fun?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Sometimes

6. Would you like to write more often?
A. Yes
B. No

7. Do you think that writing is an important skill?
A. Yes
B. No

8. Have you ever written on a blog?
A. Yes
B. No

9. Do you know anyone who has written on a blog before?
A. Yes
B. No

10. Are you looking forward to writing on a blog?
A. Yes
B. No
C. I’m not sure

I recently rediscovered the Shorpy Photo Blog. It has some of the best vintage American photos I’ve ever seen. Here is a shot of the crowd during game 1 of the 1912 World Series between the New York Giants and Boston Red Sox. This is the old Polo Grounds stadium in New York.

Here is a link to the full sized version.

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In order to make this list, the blog has to have a Technorati rank of 50 or higher.

Some blogs here I’ve been following for a while, some new ones I need to check out.

http://www.livemocha.com/education-blog-list.htm

I’m about to start an action research project on student blogging in an area school system, and it is fascinating to see the results of this study. It is actually the dissertation written by Jeff Felix, Superintendent of Bonsall Union School District in Bonsall, CA.

Some quotes from the summary:

The data clearly show teachers using blogging as a motivational technique to encourage students to perform writing tasks, which they feel leads to greater depth of thought. As the students perform these writing tasks with deeper thought, teachers perceive that the students begin to make sense of what they are learning and make connections with previous experiences. They are also likely to explore the subject beyond the immediate requirements and are likely to have positive emotions about learning.

The results show that most teachers continue to be enthusiastic about the practice of blogging even after two years of use. This enthusiasm can be seen through the change in a teacher’s communication technique with students. The enthusiasm also seems to carry over to the use of blogging to increase students’ time and opportunity for writing. Because of the changes to instruction and the increased motivation of the students, a teacher will generally increase the time spent on practices that are perceived as beneficial. In this study several benefits were identified that seemed to be motivating teachers to invest time in blogging: (a) higher levels of student motivation, (b) increased levels of writing, (c) increased insights into their students through the personal exchanges of comments on readings and writings, (d) greater interaction and collaboration among students in the classroom, (e) increased computer competence, especially for older students, and (f) a teacher’s own professional development. A few teachers stated that achievement scores and proficiency levels had increased since they began using blogs. Almost all teachers in this study indicated blogging did take increased time, especially in the beginning when they were developing their skills, but all seemed to feel the time was well spent in terms of a time to benefit ratio.

Asking blogging teachers about how they are using the blog differently today compared to when they first began to use a blog for instruction elicited significant, animated answers. Teachers felt strongly that students were receiving better learning opportunities through additional collaborative learning sessions. These sessions came about because of increased use of the computer as the students participated in the classroom blog with the teacher and with each other. According to the Survey 2 respondents, 89% of them felt their instructional style changed as a result of blogging; this finding was also confirmed in the interviews. As teachers became more reliant on the online uses of the blog, their lessons changed to fit the blogging process, and they perceived that their instruction had gone to a deeper, more complex level.

Read the Summary Here (8 pages)

Read the Entire Dissertation Here (283 pages)

Just in case you were wondering what the big deal is.

If you’ll look at the bottom of this and my previous post about FireFox Personas, you’ll notice a new button that will allow you to add the post to one of several social bookmarking options. I will remove some of the clutter from the right sidebar now that I have this new button.

If you want to add the button to your WordPress blog, you can download the plugin here.

Thanks to Wes Fryer!

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This is one of my new favorite blogs.

Charlie is a wild-born coyote who was unexpectedly delivered to my doorstep this past April after both his parents were shot for killing sheep. Whatever reservations I had about raising a wild animal simply didn’t matter - couldn’t matter - when I realized his survival, at least in the short term, depended on me.

At the time I write this, Charlie is nearly six months old. I don’t think of him as “my pet,” even though he sleeps curled against me every night (every night except the nights around a full moon), and happily rides in my truck, and adores my cat. I don’t wish to own him, just to live together in harmony. And that we do.

The Daily Coyote

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Very nice!

My esteemed colleague, Kristina McBride, gave me some grief today about how little I’ve been blogging lately. She’s right, of course. I have been swamped with school work, and my day job has kept me on the road more than usual. I know those sound like flimsy excuses, but they are the best I have. I hope to be able to put a few more things together in the next couple of days in an attempt to make up for it.

Until then, here is a picture of my cat.

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One of my assignments for grad school is to write a critique of a quantitative research article. Here is the one that I chose.

Research examined 12 randomly selected blogs from a population of 38 teacher-created, teaching-centered blogs to determine whether they were useful reflective devices for practicing middle school teachers. The amount and depth of reflective practice, as measured by a researcher-created rubric, was examined as well. Results indicated that all participants engaged in some level of reflective writing. However, the depth and level of reflection varied within and among the blogs. The results reported here are useful for framing future research on the efficacy of middle school teacher blogs.

The purpose of this research was to determine the usefulness of teacher-created, teacher-centered blogs at the middle school level. In particular, we sought to determine whether blogs supported reflective practice among middle school educators. Results indicated that a majority of entries examined demonstrated some level of reflective writing. Evidence collected from the analysis indicated that all participants engaged in some level of reflective writing.

Another research purpose involved determining the depth of reflection occurring within the entries. Results revealed that the depth of reflection varied markedly between and within individual blogs. Of the 56 entries demonstrating evidence of reflective practice, a majority (57%) did not support higher levels of reflective practice. Only 24 of the 56 entries (43%) scored 3 or higher on the rubric (see Table 3). This finding may be a result of the small number of entries examined. Further research containing a larger number of entries would be recommended.

Link to article

David Warlick is headed to Pennsylvania to speak to a group of educators who are in the process of reshaping education in the state. Here is what each high school core classroom will have:

• one laptop per student desk (cart of 25)
• a teacher laptop
• a printer/scanner
• imaging software
• productivity software
• a web cam
• an electronic whiteboard
• a projector
• up to three digital still cameras (per eligible school)
• up to five digital video cameras (per eligible school)
• Infrastructure (wireless network, servers)
• technical support

David asks the question, “in what fundamental ways might a school be transformed, when every core classroom can provide this kind of access to a networked, digital, and overwhelming world of information?”

I encourage you to think about an answer and post it on his blog.