Blogs, & Wikis and New Tools for Community Development

[baynard]

Please share your experiences with working with your school communities to develop community. It seems that wikis and blogs are new tools for us to use to develop a sense of sharing and connection amongst parents, students, teachers, staff and community members. Please share your stories here.

[Marianne Cane]

I've been working (since yesterday) on posting my daily logs as a blog. Since I create my log in Microsoft Word with inserted pictures, I am very interested in minimizing the work of posting them. My son helped me figure out a way to do it.

First, I have to reformat my pictures to web quality. I do this by double clicking on a picture to open the formatting preferences. Next, I click the PICTURE tab. On my son's computer there is an option for WEB , and I set the preference to web and apply it to ALL PHOTOS IN THE DOCUMENT. I click OKAY, and have a much smaller document.

Then, I save it to my desktop blog folder. Then, I go to Google and click on the MORE tab. I scroll down to DOCUMENTS which launches Google documents. I choose BROWSE and go to the desktop blog folder, and then the log I want to post. I give it a name, and upload it.

Oh, by the way, I'm using Blogger, which is also found under the MORE tab at Google.

All you young folk probably know this, but it is brand new for me. Today, I will send home a notice asking parents to e-mail me if they want to be added to the list of readers.

I can't do this on my older computers. I'm hoping the computer I use at work will cooperate. I don't think my son would appreciate me taking over his.

[Marianne Cane]

I also started a wiki for work, but the other teachers are not using it. It is difficult (and pointless) for me to maintain it on my own. I suspect there has to be a desire to communicate before a wiki comes to life.

[Marianne Cane]

Also, Montclair State University, in New Jersey, is giving a free conference on Saturday, May 18 called, I think, Education 2.0: preschool to college and beyond. It looks like there will be a lot of good information.

[wendy jane]

I have been experimenting with Blogger for about 2 weeks now. I am realitvely new to projects in general, so I am still learning how to document effectively.

So far, blogging has been great for our purposes! I've seen a dramatic increase in parent involvement. The site is convenient for the parents to check -- whether at work or after the kids are all tucked in bed at night. Extended family members are getting involved and coming forth with new resources and activities that I know wouldn't have been possible if we hadn't provided this intimate view of the children's work. The children themselves have this new sense of pride as they see the adults in their life putting so much value on the things that they are creating and the new information they are learning. I am seeing lots of ways to boost literacy and other concepts.

Each day, I document with photographs and notes as usual. While the children are napping, I quickly load the pictures into my laptop and write up my blog post using my notes for the day. Blogger allows me to send an email of each new post to my families. Visitors have the opportunity to write in comments for postings. We read these during morning meeting or as the children are resting. When I am able to purchase a color printer, I will print out each day's post and comments to file in a binder for the children to use as a resource.

The other great thing I love about Blogger is that all your pictures are automatically saved in a Picasa web album. Saves me the extra step of backing up my picture files!

You can also add your school calendar, wish lists, links, and other important information. It's certainly a wonderful tool to maintain communication with your families. :)

You can also set up different safety features, as well.

[Marianne Cane]

Hi Wendy Jane,

Well, the computer at work did not have the same "shrink all the photos for the web" magic button that my son's computer has. So, I tried using Picasa to get the photos on the web, so I could get them in smaller. I didn't exactly succeed. I usually use MS Word to write the log and I drag photos with tight text wrapping to illustrate what I describe in the writing. I'd love to get them in the same relationships in the blog. Ay yi yi, is that hard! I think, although I can't get on my blog at the moment, that I put up several copies of today's pictures that have nothing to do with what I wrote. I also couldn't seem to get to the same screens I had last night that let me drag stuff around. So lost! I'll try again tomorrow. At least today's school picture day is over.

[Marianne Cane]

I'm having a tough time formatting the blog to resemble my daily log. I am really frustrated by not being able to wrap text tightly around the images, and sometimes the photos obscure the text. I tried using Picasa to upload the day's photos, but it only seems to take three of four. I haven't invested in Flickr, which sounds like a solution. How do you get the photos online?

[baynard]

Flickr has a really awesome uploader.

I can just select a folder and it'll upload them all.

Here are some recent pics from a trip to Crayola Factory and the Canal museum:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23968146@N03/collections/7215760566816...

-Baynard

[Marianne Cane]

Hi Baynard,
Now I want to go to the Crayola Factory. I could practically smell the crayons when watching your slide show.

[Abbey Daniels]

it goes to Picasa but can i use Photobucket...what i use currently to share pics with my parents?

[Marianne Cane]

I don't understand the question mark in your comment.

[Marianne Cane]

I've been posting my daily log as a blog daily. It is frustrating that I don't get comments about it, but the parents I've cornered say they enjoy it, so that will have to be enough. Next year, I'll ask parents to leave some response. I haven't yet figured out how to compress my Quicktime videos to get them to upload in a reasonable amount of time. I want to be sure the content stays accessible only to the people I've invited, and I don't understand You Tube very well. A little homework is in order, I think.

[Jackie]

Marianne, Check into Flickr! They also have video now!!! And...it's free up to 200 photos. If pay it is like $20 for the year and you get unlimited access!

Baynard...your photos are great!