January 2008

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RSS Readers for Elementary Grades

January 28, 2008 in Blogging, Technology | Permalink

Now that the students have blogs, I think they will soon see the benefits of using rss readers. Instead of hunting through blogs that may or may not have new content, a rss reader could deliver any new content to the reader. Unfortunately, all the web based rss readers such as pageflakes and bloglines that I have encountered require a minimum age of 13 because of CIPA regulations.

Alternatively, local computer based readers would not be individualized. The only remaining option I can see is installing a server based rss reader that supports multiple accounts.

I’ve looked into a few possibilities for the open source community. Rnews looks like a good candidate because it has multiple users accounts allowing students to customize the feeds. It must be installed manually in that one must upload the files via ftp, create a database, and run an installer through a browser. The installation went smoothly, but I got a 500 error because of the .htaccess had a php override turning magic quotes off (not Kosher on my server). I tossed it out and all works fine. If I find there is an issue in the future, I’ll run a php.ini override.

The Interface is simple. It does not require an email address or any other personal information. Those wishing to register must type in a pass phrase to create an account. One issue is that it reports a permissions error even after I corrected it. Knowing that the permissions were correct, I hacked the error message oout of the file and it now looks fine.

There is plenty of research and testing to undergo before I settle on a solution. There is also the issue of how it will work with our school’s Internet filtering. Hopefully our filter will block the feeds coming in through the reader.

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Blogging: The Haves and Have Nots (and the Do and Do Nots)

January 23, 2008 in Blogging | 2 comments

I have had the blogs set up for my students for a bit over a week. While I posted a question for the students to respond to on my class blog, I have left them to their own devices for a little while.

Some have really taken to it. One student, Blue Butterfly, has made several posts and leads the pack in terms of writing posts. She has made 10 posts since we got started on January 10 (13 days–she has me beat!). She clearly has access to the Internet at home. She has submitted a journal entry based upon literature that she is reading. I noticed that her writing is somewhat different than it is with pencil and paper, and even different from what she does in word processing or on an AlphaSmart. She has reflected upon her experiences in and out of school. She has also discussed her good friend’s motto: “Be happy.”

Purple Monkey, while not as prolific, has three posts all reflecting on life at school. Purple Monkey is a very social individual and has channeled her energy more into comments on other students’ blogs. This included a remark chastising a classmate who still has “Hello World” at the top of his blog. Again, she is one with good access to the Internet.

There have been a few surprises. One student has unfettered access with multiple Internet connected computers in his home has only worked on his blog with the time given at school. I am puzzled because he is extremely enthused about having a web presence. How do I get him going?

There are others with limited access. Some have to compete for computer time with parents and older siblings. They have managed to make a few posts, yet tend to focus on comments. Many of these are the same students that struggle more with writing in general. Can blogging help them get past their reluctance to write? Obviously, it would be helpful if they had more time.

One student, without Internet at home composed a burst of comments when he was visiting his grandparents. He too is a reluctant writer. It was great to see him seize the opportunity to write–even though they were generally one sentence blurbs. You have to start somewhere.

I am trying to provide more access at school, but it is tough to work the time in when more state test loom in the future. I am trying to provide access to the 30% of my class with no Internet access. Perhaps we can create opportunities after school. I am going to offer a few minutes during recess after their lunch.

Overall, I am delighted with this blogging experiment. Students are writing more and are have a greater awareness of audience. On the other hand, it certainly has accented the inequalities in access to technology.

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Moderation for School WordPressMU

January 16, 2008 in Blogging, Technology | 3 comments

I need to moderate all posts and comments for my students’ blogs. Out of the box, WPMU has a good system for taking care of comment moderation. Post moderation, while possible, is difficult to administer without a great little plugin.

To activate comment moderation you need to go to: Options –> Discussion. Under “Before a comment appears:” Check “An administrator must always approve the comment.” You can make your life easier and moderate posts via email links by checking both the “E-mail me whenever:” options. It works great–you are notified by email, through the dashboard, and the “Manage” tab that there are comments awaiting moderation.
As installed, you get no notifications of new posts. Instead one must go to the backend of each individual blog: Manage –> Posts. At the top, one must toggle status. If any are in queue for moderation, the option “Pending Review” Appears. Click the filter button and those pending review are listed. Click edit on each one to review and approve.

This is incredibly awkward and time consuming. No fewer than 8 clicks from navigating to a blog to approving a post. Initially, I couldn’t even distinguish those awaiting moderation and drafts. I honestly thought it was a bug.

Finally I found a great plugin: Peter’s Collaboration E-mails for WordPress. A new post submitted for review triggers an email with a link directly to the edit window of the post. Click the email. Click the link. Click publish. Done. No ferreting through blogs looking for new posts. It appears that most technical and administrative difficulties have been removed. At last–viable work-flow!

I’d love to discuss anyone else’s experiences using WPMU in a school setting for a technical or learning point of views. I haven’t found a place dedicated to WPMU and Education, so I set up an area on the Moodle portion of this site with a forum and a wiki dedicated to WPMU.

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Blogging: Shift from Technology to Pedagogy

January 16, 2008 in Uncategorized | Permalink

My students and I are finding our way through WordPressMU (WPMU). I have worked through security, configuration, and administrative work flow. The kids post and comment. Now we focus more on learning.

Students customized their sites using themes, widgets, and blogroll. I set them to contributor so the posts would be moderated before appearing. Comments are also moderated. It was time consuming and awkward to trudge through each site to approve everything, so I set the blogs to email me any time new content is submitted. The email includes the message and handy administrative links to approve or delete. There is only one glitch–when a new post (as opposed to comment) is created, it is not put into a moderation cue, so I have to either have a contributor tell me when they have submitted content for review, or check through their drafts for content not posted. It appears to be a known issue and I hope to work through the hacks to make it work. I’d love to ask for a fix in the WPMU support forum, but unfortunately it is not a very friendly place and I suspect the response would be that I have no business using the software with my lack of PHP coding knowledge.

Most students have made a few posts. Now they use the blogroll links to visit each other and comment upon each others’ posts. It’s interesting to watch the interaction among the students. Our district superintendent asked for a login and replied to student posts.

Beyond that, I  will shifting my attention from the technology to the teaching aspects of using blogs with my students. Right now, I am watching an on–line community start to take shape among my students.

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Students Begin Blogging

January 11, 2008 in Uncategorized | Permalink

My students began blogging today. As mentioned earlier, we are taking baby steps, but baby has taken several steps already. There were a few obstacles and unexpected little glitches, but went very well. The kids are incredibly excited.

To begin, I had to create an account for each child. As a security measure, registration was set so that users had to be created by an admin, rather than allowing anyone to create a login. Users must be created one by one–no big deal with my small class size. Unfortunately, WPMU requires a unique email address for each user. While a few children had email accounts, most did not. Others could use a parent’s email addresses. A surprising number had no access to the Internet at home. I ended up creating email accounts to receive the passwords that WordPress generated. Entering a class of 25 students would be a chore. I’m sure there is a way to do this through the SQL database, but that is beyond me at this point.

Once I dealt with this, all went fairly well. I guided them through the log in process on the class blog. Then we created profiles (after a long discussion of Internet safety), and changed their passwords to something secure, yet memorable. Next, I showed them how to comment upon a post that I had created. After they commented on two posts, we went on to the next step.

Since they caught on so quickly, I created a blog for each student. I had to give them admin access to their sites to allow them to customize them with templates and widgets. For the sake of security, I set the each blog’s privacy setting so that they only could be viewed by me and the individual student. Once done with customization, I will set their privileges to contributor, and open their sites to the world. With this setup. I will be the administrator for their sites and will moderate all posts and comments.

Overall, I think I have the security figured out and I am beginning to establish an administrative workflow. The kids feel empowered and energized. I also have one one of our high school teachers ready to do the same with one of his elective classes.

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