A Penny For Your Thoughts?

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Penny Bentley

12 months have passed since I started blogging as a way of recording, sharing and chatting about my professional development activities. Along the way I’ve created artifacts, received feedback, had discussions about new and innovative classroom activities, developed relationships with like minded people and helped others with their blogging.

There are many other benefits to blogging but one that I didn’t fully appreciate, until recently, was that of Reflective Practice.

Reflect and Connect has come to an end. Having just completed this course I’ve gained more insight into the process of and the need for self reflection as an educator. Without calling it “reflective practice” it’s now clear to me that blogging is exactly that…a means to record thoughts, actions and conversations about education.

What’s reflective practice I hear you say?

To me it means thinking about:

how I’ve done things in the past
my successes and failures
why students are disengaged in maths and science classes
how can I make their learning fun and relevant
what technology and tools can I use to enhance student learning
how do I know that my students are learning what is intended
what professional development can I do for ongoing learning and growth
how can I learn from and share information with other educators…develop my personal learning network more widely
as a tutor and online educator how can I reach and support students in my community
what are the best ways to assist my students with special needs

Reflective practice isn’t always easy, it takes time and needs to be ongoing. It keeps us from being stuck in a rut, feeling ineffective, outdated and irrelevant.

I’d be interested to know what other questions educators are asking themselves in order to keep up with the changing needs of our students.

Image found on Foxtongue’s Flickr photostream.

CLOUD9….a new home on the web

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Penny Bentley

My blog has been moved from here.

Thanks for visiting…I’ll be back with a new post shortly.

An Opportunity

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Penny Bentley

Almost 12 months has passed since I jumped into my first Web Conference….at the deep end. It was a Training Session offered by the Department Of Education and Early Childhood Development, in their Virtual Conference Centre.

I was hooked, the concept of communicating with educators in real time, from anywhere around the world, was was exciting.

Since then I’ve attended many sessions in Elluminate, communicated and shared information with passionate educators and gained skills in the area of eLearning.

Last week I found myself in this session: Blogging-A Digital Literacy on the 21st Century.

Award winning educator Anne Mirtschin, gave me an opportunity to chat about my blog during the webinar. I was honoured….thanks Anne.

Here is a link to the details about this webinar, along with the recording.

Teachers…there are so many ways to build up your professional development hours. Here are a few suggestions:

do the Web Conference training in DEECD’S Virtual Conference Centre
set up a blog and reflect on your PD
participate in the Australia Series webinars…they are welcoming, informative and fun

I know that time is short but these can be done online and, for some, at home in your own time.

Activity 8…Promote That Blog

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Penny Bentley

Last year I completed a 12 week professional development program for educators. The first activity was to set up this blog as a place to reflect on the course and communicate with other participants. This image shows the tools I used to develop my online Personal Learning Network (PLN).

For my post on “Promote That Blog” I selected words from this Wordle Build Blog Relationships to chat about.

Building a Personal Learning Network started with the 2010 Personal Learning Network for Victorian Schools program. Until then my PLN consisted mainly of colleagues at school, particularly those in the maths and science departments.

Now I think of my PLN as the whole collection of educators that I chat to, learn from and share information with, online and face to face.

The building of relationships started with a blog and grew as comments were exchanged between participants. Commenting built connections which started the process of peer to peer teaching, learning and the sharing of information.

The next stage of building a PLN took us out of the comfort zone of blogging and into the Twitter network of micro bloggers, using the hash tag #VicPLN.

After several attempts over a few months I was tweeting away and sharing links with my PLN. Twitter has become a place of professional development, with educators from around the world, at any time of day or night.

Connecting in real time, via Elluminate, in a webinar with passionate educators, has been a highlight of developing a PLN.

To appreciate my enthusiasm, have a look at Anne Mirtschin’s article “Building a Digital Classroom with Global Educators”, and read about yesterday’s Tech Talk Tuesdays webinar.

Lately Facebook has come to my attention, as a place for networking and continuing the conversation with my PLN.

I’ve created a professional account to chat with educators from around the world and a Group for mentoring participants doing the Teacher Challenge.

It’s early days yet, I need to continue scrutinising the settings and reading everyone’s tips.

I’ve been chatting about how my PLN developed without focusing on how to “Promote That Blog”. Having an online presence where you interact, comment on other’s blogs, tweet new posts, retweet great finds, share links, images, tools and quality information….that’s all good promotion.

It doesn’t have to be the explicit, in your face, shout it out from the rooftops kind of self promotion…for me it’s about staying safe online, feeling comfortable, being professional, making contributions, helping others and sharing information.

Would anyone be interested joining a Facebook Group to continue the conversation about using Facebook in education?

Let me know and I’ll start one up…

Thank you to the creators of Shabby Blogs for allowing me to use their images in this post.

Activity 7…A Blog With Legs And Bling

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Penny Bentley

I’ve enjoyed changing the appearance and content of my blog’s sidebar during this activity. After many face lifts it’s beginning to settle into a more professional space, thanks to the Teacher Challenge.

Believe me, I’m no computer expert and everything I have picked up has been self taught or the result of some basic professional development along the way. Back in the 90′s it was just expected that teachers would go digital with their report writing ordeal. It was a frustrating and steep learning curve for all of us.

I look back on those times and remember, not only feeling the pressure, but the excitement of this new way of processing and storing information. Back then I thought of CODE as being the language of computer gurus only.

Move the clock forward many years and I still have enormous respect for IT experts and their “language”. Last year I picked up some basic tips about HTML CODE from my kids and professional development coursework.

In this post I take a look at how to use HTML code to add bling to your blog, the essential widgets, adding a Creative Commons License and QR codes.

BLING

HTML code has become the source of my bling. I find it, move it, change it and use it to open up holes in my blog sidebar (Widgets) to let information flow in and out. I also use it to add other bits of interest, like images and video’s, to posts. A few symbols and numbers can transform a blog into a great looking, interactive space that connects with the wider web.

Here’s how I put the sparkling HTML bling into my blog:

go to Glitterfy and customse your word

select Gliterfy Text then copy the Website Code that appears

come back to the post you are editing, make sure you change the tab to HTML, paste in the code then publish

go and check out your bling

I’m predisposed to widget overload, so I took Sue Waters excellent advice “Getting more out of widgets.” and made sure that I’m using the recommended widgets.

They are:

a search widget

an RSS widget

subscribe by Email

a categories widget (which I have called Blog Topics)

and a tag cloud widget

OTHER WIDGETS

I’m all for sharing my work and am honored if someone wants to use or change it. Now I’d like some recognition and acknowledgement for what I’ve been up to. It’s not about ego or money, it’s about creating a professional identity as I contribute to the digital resources for educators on the internet. So, with all that said, I thought it time to put a Creative Commons License on my blog.

Here’s how I did it:

go to the Creative Commons Australia website

select License

choose how you want to license your work

click on Select a License

choose which button you would like on your webpage then copy the code

go back to your blog, place a Text Widget on your sidebar, past in the code, save

go and check out your new license

About the others:

The Flickr badge makes the most of a photo collection by displaying a different combination of images every time someone logs on.

The revolving earth is sitting in the universe of my header and provides a visual connection to visitors. The changing snow patterns around the globe are updated.

Another visual representation of visitors is the flags. If no comments are made at least the symbol of where my visitors come from remains.

QR CODESWe’re all familiar with the barcodes found on virtually everything in the supermarket. Their one dimensional pattern captures information, which, when scanned, identifies the product.


The barcode from a tin in my pantry.

Two dimensional Quick Response (QR) codes arose out of a need to store more information such as URL’s, mobile phone numbers, text and images. This QR code holds information about me, such as my name, email and web address, made in this Address QR Generator.

I entered my details, produced the code, copied and pasted the image to my desktop then uploaded it to this post. When I scan it with the QR Scanner (a free iphone app) my details appear and can be stored in the phone’s address book.


A QR code containing some details about me.

Apparently, McDonalds in Japan are using QR codes on the burger boxes which, when scanned with an iphone, takes the consumer to a web page to check out nutritional information. I wonder if you can scan it before buying the burger?

Enough of fast food, I’m more interested in the educational applications of QR codes that can give instant access to a wide range of information. To be honest, I’m not sure yet, but there are many great reads on the subject. Here are a few to have a look at:

Hot QR codes in the classroom and library

QR Codes In Education

QR code success using iPad and iPod touch