Mini-Bloggers

People have a tendency to underestimate small children. A couple of years ago, I’d probably have been one of them. The combination of having my own kids and having an opportunity to teach younger and younger kids at school means I’m now a complete believer that there are no limits to their capabilities.

Like many people, I have been keeping a family blog (with the intention of keeping my family back home up-to-date with our goings-on) since 2005, when my daughter Scarlett was born. I have managed to keep blogging over the years, and it has been a wonderful reminder of events and day-to-day happenings that I would have forgotten about otherwise. The baby books I keep for the kids are somewhat embarrassing in comparison – lots of blank pages and photos falling out…

I thought about what a great way of documenting learning a blog is – I have a post about the time Scarlett first learned to crawl, learned to walk, wrote her name etc – and how that might translate to the classroom. I figured it would be handy to try this out myself before using it with others, so in the time-honored tradition of teachers everywhere, I decided to use my own daughter as a guinea pig!

I had already purchased domain names for my 2 children (together with Gmail accounts for both – a fact which my fellow ADEs found amusing during a session Jeff & Chrissy initiated over dinner one evening – “what’s the geekiest thing you’ve done?”) so setting Scarlett up with a blog was not going to be a huge drama. I knew exactly which blog platform I wanted to use – I simply haven’t found anything easier for kids than the drag-and-drop interface of Weebly. I wanted something Scarlett would be able to manipulate herself (with assistance from me of course).

I wanted Scarlett to be as involved in the process of blogging as she could be. Given that she is four years old, this meant that instead of predominantly typing, we recorded her explanations of pictures using my iPhone, which we then emailed to my address, and uploaded to the blog from there.

Scarlett has done the vast majority of the clicking (and dragging). She has typed parts too (that she has said and I have transcribed for her) and taken some of the photographs. Each time we do an entry together, she is getting better and better.

The impact on her literacy and numeracy, together with her geographical knowledge is encouraging. The other day, we went to the site and she said, “Oh look Mummy! Two comments!” though I’ve never taught her the word ‘comments’ before. She also wanted to look at her map (the clustrmap I set up to show her the location of her visitors) to see the dots around the world. She pointed out New Zealand (where our family is from), and Singapore, and then we talked about the other places people have visited from. The hit-counter has got up to 179 at last count, which was more than she could count, but now she knows past 100.

Thanks to my fantastic PLN, Scarlett has enjoyed getting comments from all sorts of lovely people around the world. It is amazing that she has had the opportunity to hear from such a diverse group of people. What a motivating experience! I’m sure it is largely due to them that Scarlett has been coming to me saying, “Mummy, I want to do my blog.”

I am also glad to help capture her voice (both literally and figuratively) explaining her world, as I am sure it will be something she will look back on fondly in years to come.

Scarlett’s not the only little kid out there blogging – I found out about Owen in HK through his Dad, and Kaia’s an inspirational photographer too (with tips from her Dad). Maddie and her Mum in Shanghai blog about their life overseas & Oscar in Hanoi makes movies that hope to improve the lives of disadvantaged kids in Hanoi (with help from his Mum & Dad).

I’m sure these parents would agree with me when I say that blogging with your child is a great activity to do together. It’s nice to spend time talking about events in your child’s life, organising content and reflecting on experiences together.

I truly believe if Scarlett and I can do this, anyone can! I would love to hear about other success stories out there.

Finally, please visit Scarlett’s Blog to leave a red dot from your country on the map. I can tell you – honestly – she will be excited to see it! A comment may even tip her over the edge..!

Mini-Bloggers

People have a tendency to underestimate small children. A couple of years ago, I’d probably have been one of them. The combination of having my own kids and having an opportunity to teach younger and younger kids at school means I’m now a complete believer that there are no limits to their capabilities.

Like many people, I have been keeping a family blog (with the intention of keeping my family back home up-to-date with our goings-on) since 2005, when my daughter Scarlett was born. I have managed to keep blogging over the years, and it has been a wonderful reminder of events and day-to-day happenings that I would have forgotten about otherwise. The baby books I keep for the kids are somewhat embarrassing in comparison – lots of blank pages and photos falling out…

I thought about what a great way of documenting learning a blog is – I have a post about the time Scarlett first learned to crawl, learned to walk, wrote her name etc – and how that might translate to the classroom. I figured it would be handy to try this out myself before using it with others, so in the time-honored tradition of teachers everywhere, I decided to use my own daughter as a guinea pig!

I had already purchased domain names for my 2 children (together with Gmail accounts for both – a fact which my fellow ADEs found amusing during a session Jeff & Chrissy initiated over dinner one evening – “what’s the geekiest thing you’ve done?”) so setting Scarlett up with a blog was not going to be a huge drama. I knew exactly which blog platform I wanted to use – I simply haven’t found anything easier for kids than the drag-and-drop interface of Weebly. I wanted something Scarlett would be able to manipulate herself (with assistance from me of course).

I wanted Scarlett to be as involved in the process of blogging as she could be. Given that she is four years old, this meant that instead of predominantly typing, we recorded her explanations of pictures using my iPhone, which we then emailed to my address, and uploaded to the blog from there.

Scarlett has done the vast majority of the clicking (and dragging). She has typed parts too (that she has said and I have transcribed for her) and taken some of the photographs. Each time we do an entry together, she is getting better and better.

The impact on her literacy and numeracy, together with her geographical knowledge is encouraging. The other day, we went to the site and she said, “Oh look Mummy! Two comments!” though I’ve never taught her the word ‘comments’ before. She also wanted to look at her map (the clustrmap I set up to show her the location of her visitors) to see the dots around the world. She pointed out New Zealand (where our family is from), and Singapore, and then we talked about the other places people have visited from. The hit-counter has got up to 179 at last count, which was more than she could count, but now she knows past 100.

Thanks to my fantastic PLN, Scarlett has enjoyed getting comments from all sorts of lovely people around the world. It is amazing that she has had the opportunity to hear from such a diverse group of people. What a motivating experience! I’m sure it is largely due to them that Scarlett has been coming to me saying, “Mummy, I want to do my blog.”

I am also glad to help capture her voice (both literally and figuratively) explaining her world, as I am sure it will be something she will look back on fondly in years to come.

Scarlett’s not the only little kid out there blogging – I found out about Owen in HK through his Dad, and Kaia’s an inspirational photographer too (with tips from her Dad). Maddie and her Mum in Shanghai blog about their life overseas & Oscar in Hanoi makes movies that hope to improve the lives of disadvantaged kids in Hanoi (with help from his Mum & Dad).

I’m sure these parents would agree with me when I say that blogging with your child is a great activity to do together. It’s nice to spend time talking about events in your child’s life, organising content and reflecting on experiences together.

I truly believe if Scarlett and I can do this, anyone can! I would love to hear about other success stories out there.

Finally, please visit Scarlett’s Blog to leave a red dot from your country on the map. I can tell you – honestly – she will be excited to see it! A comment may even tip her over the edge..!

Alert! A blog tip from Edublogs

Today I have had a neat surprise and was reminded of a very important blogging tip, which of course I need to share!

Earlier this afternoon, I was busily scrolling through my tweetdeck when I came across a tweet from Kim Cofino saying:

I found the link to the list of nominees, and proceeded to check them out. I love lists like this, as I always find some fabulous new people/blogs to follow.

Imagine my surprise to find that some very kind people had nominated Tip of the Iceberg for an award! I nearly fell off my chair!

I sent off a tweet to say:

@Edublogs (a.k.a Sue Waters) tweeted back right away, and let me in on who nominated me. I can’t thank Sylvia & Darcie enough for the gesture! You guys totally made my day!

Sue also made a super suggestion that I should set up an alert for Tip of the Iceberg, so that if anyone blogs about it, I get notified via Google Reader. I took Sue’s advice, and set up some alerts, so I won’t miss out on exciting stuff like this again!

Here’s the link Sue kindly passed on, which will give you all you need to know to set up alerts for your own blog.

Happy Blogging!

My Secret Identity

I have a secret identity. One very few of my real-time friends know about. It is my life online.

Online I’m a blogger. I have several blogs, documenting my work with students and my learning in technology education. I read other people’s blogs, comment on them and learn from them on a daily basis.

Online I’m a tweeter. Through Twitter, I have met a huge number of creative, talented, intelligent and inspiring people. I enjoy sharing information, ideas and random thoughts with many of them. I have certainly made new friends through Twitter.

Online I have followers. Although this fact never ceases to amaze me, there are people out there who read my blog and have me in their Google Reader! I can’t imagine a greater compliment than that!

Online people know me for my work. They know what I’m doing in my classroom, which tools I think are great, the highlights and challenges of teaching IT.

Online I help people find answers. I like being able to support newcomers to the online world I live in. I like being able to make a difference to people and help find solutions to their problems.

I have a very supportive group of family and friends, yet they seldom (if ever) read my blog posts. It appears am not alone in this: I put out the following tweet: Do your friends/family read your blog? Here are some responses:

That said, it’s important to get a balanced perspective on the issue. @nadinedickinson pointed out that her blog isn’t relevant to her friends/family, but it is for her coworkers.

If I take my particular situation, I am living overseas, and the vast majority of my friends are also teachers. Both of my parents are teachers. My sister is married to a teacher. I’m surrounded! My blog is particularly relevant to them as a group.

The intention of this post was not to moan about the number of friends/family members reading my blog, but rather highlight the fact that my friends/family have little idea about the extent of my online existence.

It makes me wonder what I don’t know about their lives.

Playing Piggyback

Photo credit: The Flooz

Some days I can’t help feeling like I’m just piggybacking. My best ideas with ICT have been borrowed from other people’s best ideas, and I’m merely reproducing them in a slightly different way. I don’t feel much like an innovator, especially not when compared with many of the well-known edubloggers out there. My links today were somebody else’s links yesterday. Sometimes I feel I’m a couple of steps behind.

One day I foolishly decided to try out this site which shows you who is following you on Twitter, and whether or not the people you follow are following you. If I ever wanted a slap to the ego, this was it! (Resist the temptation to do it yourself!) I felt a little deflated, like some of my ICT heroes didn’t even know I existed! But realistically, why would they? This blog is merely a couple of months old, I am just realising the power of tools such as Twitter, and have only been teaching ICT since September. In addition to that, I haven’t commented on enough blogs to make a blip on the surface yet (hey, I’m working on it!).

Just before I decided to send the invitations out to my pity-party, I thought, you know what? There are days when I get people coming up to me saying, “Where do you find all this great stuff?” and (even more surprisingly), “I’m learning so much from you,” and I realise it’s all relative. I have introduced people to some new tools this year, and for that I feel like I’ve made a difference, albeit on a smaller scale to some of the greats.

Whilst I am piggybacking on other people’s ideas, amazingly, some people are piggybacking on mine.