Western New York Bioshare is a website that was started by Amy Balling in Lancaster. Its a group of Bio teachers around the Buffalo area. Its a place where people can post ideas, questions, links, etc... Its a great local connection the bio teachers have started to get/give help about Biology. It is newer, but I have seen from the chemshare what this kind of community can create. I will definitely be keeping up with this website.

A Learner's Analogy

I believe that a learner is like the outdoors. All of the individual pieces are always changing and being molded by their environment. Each of the individuals may exist, but they are also interconnected as in nature. The mountain is shaped by the wind, rain, ice, heat, the animals that tread on it. Learners are shaped by their interactions with other students, teachers, and community members. Just as the mountain is changing, as Siemens says in his Network of Learning post on youtube " what we know today is not as important as our ability to stay current ... if I'm not continually learning then I am becoming obsolete in my field." This shows how important it is to continually be willing to change what you know to be true and accept that as teachers we are forever learning. The other quote that I liked came from Siemens's article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age “One of the most persuasive factors is the shrinking half-life of knowledge. The “half-life of knowledge” is the time span from when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 years and is doubling every 18 months according to the American Society of Training and Documentation (ASTD). To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.” This little bit of information shows how important it is that learners are willing to allow themselves to open up to the constant stream of new information that is continuously shaping them. This bit of information reiterates Siemens's point made in his youtube video.

Why let our students blog...

I just watched the video "why let our students blog?" It was a great presentation that I would love to learn how to use all of the tools involved in that presentation. There were pictures, music, script... I'm sure more things than I noticed. Tech really needs to involve more for teachers in the summer than simply heading to a workshop for a couple of hours. I truly can't wait to attend technology classes for my professional education. Although I guess I don't really need to wait, now do I?

Just to explain the picture, I love to hike. This is a friend of mine while we were hiking last year up to Mount Haystack.

Lastly, as you'll notice, I have added some educational blogs you may want to check out. I am sad however, that when I tried to add a link from a PBS blog was not able to establish a connect to be added to my list (at least not at the time) please click here for the link to PBS Teachers . Learning.now.

Safety is the key

Some of the most important things I would want to consider when using blogging in my classroom are:
1. use first names only
2. no addresses, phone numbers, school names listed or anything else identifiable
3. TALK to the kids about proper conduct
4. model proper behavior
5. Make sure that you have access to every student's site (to be able to modify if needed)
6. Get consent of parent's and administration
7. Keep parents and administration notified
8. Always expect the unexpected....

Top 3 ways to use a blog for my classroom/ personal learning

I believe that I will be able to use this in my class quite effectively.
I can offer it an an option for students to be able to respond to specific questions I have put forth to the class. Students will be able to post comments, links etc. in addition to responding to other students' posts if applicable.
I believe that I could also use this as an option for students to ask questions to me and/or to their peers about anything in class.
I could have students create a blog as their medium to put forth their project or research on a topic for the class to see. It would provide a great opportunity for students when giving feedback to the presenter.
Finally this could be just a section where students can go (where I would be able to monitor) that gives them the space to converse about things freely.