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WeeklyThreadsWeek1

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 1 month ago

Weekly Threads for Week One

(Messages #0-#718)

 

 

Visit our Blinklist for all the links mentioned during Week One.

 


 

Week One Welcome Messages from the Blogging Team

Name Message

Gladys Baya

Hi Everyone!

 

How are you all? Eager to become experienced bloggers??? Mon, Jan 15 is about to start in some parts of the world, and so it's time for "BLOGGING FOR BEGINNERS" to get down to action! ;;)

 

We, the Blogging Team (Carla, Erika, Claudia and Gladys, plus Silvana occasionally!), have been working hard so that this workshop meets your expectations, and are committed to making the next six weeks a worthwhile experience for each of the 140 teachers who've already chosen us. Thanks to those who joined us because they'd enjoyed learning with us before, and also thanks to those who joined us in spite of not knowing anything about us!

 

This week's aims are: To get familiar with the moderators and other participants and the online environments to be used. (read our Syllabus for a more detailed description).

 

How do you go about it? Visit our Weekly Tasks 1 to find out what to do. Surely you'll have doubts as you try the different tasks... just send a message to this group! And don't worry if there happen to be too many messages posted and you cannot keep pace: by the end of the week, a summary will be published at our wiki! (thanks to Mary Hillis for taking up this duty for week 1, we're still looking for volunteers for weeks 3 to 6, by the way).

 

Finally, make sure to check out the times for synchronous communication

synchronous communication and see if you can join us to say hello! We'll add reminders to the calendar too, so that you don't forget when we're around... By the way,congrats to those who managed to make it earlier today at EVO Grand Opening! We'll let you all know as soon as the chat log is available online so that you can all enjoy it even if you missed it.

 

So... welcome to every new blogger, and all the best to each of you!

 

Fondly,

 

Gladys (on behalf of The Blogging Team)

 

NOTE: As you must have seen in the messages you got when you joined this group, we'll be using this Yahoo Group to interact, and we have a wiki for reference materials. You have links to everything (including the group blog , which we'll explore later) on any of our pages, so just make sure to bookmark one of these, and you'll be fine. And remember you can save all webpages onto your hard disk if you need to work offline (Click http://bloggingforbeginners.pbwiki.com/WeeklyThreadsWeek1?edit=1

pbwiki :: Editing WeeklyThreadsWeek1on "Files" on the menu tool bar of your browser, and select "Save As").

Carla Arena

I can see that after our grand opening, everybody is eager to start! I´ve been working the whole day (and for the past months!) today together with the girls to have everything all set for you in a way that you feel at home, a latin home, by the way!

 

We already have a fantastic collaborator and dear friend, Dennis Oliver, who has kindly started to give you a warm welcome.

 

For the ones who feel a little reserved or uncomfortable, just relax! This is fun learning blogging time!

 

Gladys and Erika have already sent a message, Claudía is getting set to go to our fantastic Rio de Janeiro, but will be connected in no time.

 

The beginning seems a bit overwhelming, but just take a step at a time, browse through the tons of mails and answer the ones you feel are important. Little by little the tasks for the Week will make sense to you.

 

Tomorrow and Tuesday, I´ll have some "office hours" in Skype. So, if you have any questions, suggestions, doubts, just drop by! Check it out here . Then, on Wednesday I´ll be heading to Key West in Florida! I live in Brasilia, was born here, but I´m moving to the US with my family for two years. Life has been excitingly busy lately!!!

 

So, it´s a pleasure to see so many new and well-known faces around with such an interesting professional background. We´ll certainly learn a lot from each other. We´ve just organized the participants´ page to start giving shape to this community of bloggers and bloggers-to-be. Participants

 

We do hope that by the end of this session you´ll have gotten into blogging

just like us!!!

M.Claudia Bellusci

#571 Hi everybody!

I have come to a cybercafe to see how things were going and I foundvalmost 600 messages to check! That's unfair! I won't be able to catchvup even if I do nothing else for a week! I see you've been working hard and I'm glad you're starting to make

heads and tails of blogs (or so I hope! ;-D)...

 

Love,

Claudia (a "holidaying" member of the Blogging Team)

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GMT

Name Message

Carla Arena

We´ve noticed that some of you are having difficulty figuring out what time is your local time having as a reference Greenwich Mean Time, GMT. Don´t worry! Some time ago we felt the same way...Eager to participate, but kind of uncomfortable, uneasy...However, the great thing is that there´s always someone to help, to listen to us. So, here we are! If you still don´t know what time we´ll meet, check it out now! World Clock

We hope to see many of you tomorrow, today for some! And, remember, don´t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or

doubts.

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Synchronous Sessions

EVO Webcast Kickoff

Name Message

Dafne

Dear participants,

We are three days away from the official beginning of the 13 EVO sessions. On Sunday, Jan 14 at 15 GMT, we will be holding a webcast at Worldbridges to inaugurate our EVO sessions. Jeff Lebow has graciously accepted to host this session, as he did last year.

 

You are cordially invited to attend this live event and to start enjoying the wonders of meeting people live in cyberspace. I will give a short intro about EVO in general, and then each moderator will describe his/her session. Then, participants from the different sessions will have the opportunity to share their views with the audience.

Lena Vyushkina

Hello everybody! It's so great to take part in such an event even as a listener! I have no idea how I managed to do it! Sometimes the quality of the sound was not very good, once the connection was broken (I have a slow Internet connection), but almost an hour I was listening to moderators and participants! ...

 

Nina Liakos

#160 Nora, if it is any consolation to you, it is also very challenging for me, a native speaker, to listen to speakers while participating in the chat (even just reading). It was especially trying yesterday because I had a bad lag in my sound stream: I would see people in the chatroom reacting to someone who had not yet spoken! It think it is awesome that non-native speakers of English around the world are able to do (or even attempt) the same thing! I think it does get easier with practice; it has for me, anyway. Don't be discouraged!

Carla Arena

#236 Dear Nina, the lag was probably not from your computer...The thing is during the Webcast there were two ways to listen to it, one was the streaming through Worldbridges, the one I guess you were following. It has a lapse of approximately 20 seconds. The other was the skypecast. Then, that was real time! So, in my case, I was in the chat area, but listening to the skypecast, so I would write in the chatbox giving feedback on what was being told at real time. In your case, you had a lapse of some seconds and then it didn´t make sense what was being written... well, just a little bit that I learned as a Webcast Intern!!!

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Blogging for Beginners Chat Sessions

 

Name Message

Gladys Baya

#498 We had our first official chat session (those on Jan 15 and 16 were just office hours for those with doubts). 15 of us joined at Yahoo MSN (visit the chatlog to see what happened), and seeing them interact and have fun together you wouldn't have guessed we've just met. Special claps for first-time chatters!!!
Gladys Baya #626 The chat log for our live session earlier today is already available at

here

 

The text chat log can either be read online or downloaded to your computers. Remember you can click on the tab "Comments" at the top of the wiki page and share your reactions to what took place during the session...

 

PS: if I missed the names of any of the participants, pls let me know and I'll edit it!

 

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Feeling Overwhelmed and Tips for Coping

Name Message

Maite Martinez

I hope I am not the only one pretty lost around here...I am an EFL teacher wishing to learn as many communicative resources that help my students have a real contact with target language as much as a non-stereotyped culture acquisition. I think computers are so motivating to them...however I am completely overwhelmed by all this so I hope to get things little by little and get to know most of you as this course goes along. ...

Dennis Oliver

I understand your feeling reserved; I felt that way, too, when I first ventured into cyberlearning, but I "met" so many friendly, helpful

people online that my reservations all but vanished. I also understand how challenging it can be to become comfortable with computers. Although I've been using computers for many years, I can still remember how uneasy I was at first. I was involved in a materials development project and had to learn to use a computer because I couldn't keep up with the project by using a typewriter; I felt very ill at ease for a while, but now I'm comfortable with computers though not a "techie": computers are still "magic boxes" for me!

I join you in wishing good luck to all our fellow participants and am also confident that through this workshop, we will all advance very much in teaching and learning.

Erika Crunivel

Let me tell you a secret! One year ago I knew nothing about blogs. I started learning about it in an EVO session just like you and now I'm a big fan of blogs. The most important reason why I love blogs is that my students can use them to talk to real people and learn real language! I'm sure you are on the right track! ...

Nina Liakos

#78 I know this can all seem very overwhelming especially if you are a little technophobic as I was. Don't be afraid to ask even the silliest questions! Everyone will be happy to help you. We are all somewhere on the learning curve of these technologies. Have a look at my very first post on my very first blog, a year ago ain BaW06:

Nina's First Blog

I was so nervous about putting myself "out there". Later on I suffered through "blogfrustration" as I tried and tried, without success, to upload my picture to my blog. But I was helped by people who were more experienced than I, as you will be too. In a short time you will be quite comfortbale posting to your new blog, I am sure of it!

Nora B

#90 Maite do not feel alone ... I am as overwhelmed as you are and today I couldn't stop thinking about the amount of teachers around the world with whom I was sharing some time and information .

This morning I was listening to the coordinators and participants while trying to participate in the text chat,and I had the feeling that it was too much for me ... but this is part of learning. I guess our students may be experiencing this any time we introduce them to something new ... and they do get along...

Gladys Baya

#132 it's OK to feel overwhelmed, Maite! Just hold on, follow the weekly tasks as well as you can, and wait for the weekly summary to be published at the wiki by the end of the week, if you find the number of messages just too high..

 

Things will quieten down soon... don't feel frustrated!

Carla Arena

#233 At first, getting so many emails, interacting in different places can be eally scary, but stick a bit more and things will settle down! When I opened my mailbox today, I didn´t know where to start! But here I am, feeling a little better and happier for being part of this wonderful multicultural group. I´m sure you´ll find blogging partners here for your Spanish classes!

 

Jose Antonio da Silva

#256 About yahoo or Gmail. I have moved to Gmail and there is a huge difference. It is much easier to check messages. I am also using the digest mode (suggested by Nahir). I am sure you won´t regret it if you try.Big hug
Gladys Baya #263 More than 250 messages have been posted to our group today, and as I have to log off until tomorrow, I feel the crips wondering what will be awaiting me tomorrow... I imagine the headache this can be for less experienced members, or those with hectic work calendars at this time of the year!!!

 

JUST REMEMBER:

As a first step, make sure you've set your mailing preferences to "Daily digest". It may take Yahoo a while to process that, but when it does, you will be getting only one email for every 25 messages posted to the group. Then you'll find it really easy to scan the subject lines (which are all grouped at the top) and click only on the ones you really want to read (they're hyperlinked to the texts in the same message you get).

 

If you find digests still too time-consuming, you can change your emailing preferences to "Special Notices", in which case you'll be getting only messages we moderators post as special (the weekly tasks posted today, for instance). Or you may choose "No mail", and simply ignore the interaction at the group completely!

Try this help page for detailed guidelines on how to do this (you can change your mailing preferences as many times as you like).

 

Meanwhile, you can read everybody's intros at the Participant Gallery

, and at the weekend a summary of discussions "you shouldn't miss" will be published at the wiki too.

 

As you probably know, weekly tasks are also available

here, so you needn't worry about missing anything even if you don't read a single message!

 

If you choose to receive group messages (individually or digests) with your email, creating a filter that automatically puts them into a folder is a clever way to separate them from all your other emails. You can then look into that folder whenever you want to, and ignore it for the rest of the day. Try this

[http://learningwithcomputers.pbwiki.com/Textmails#Howcanyouautomatically

organizemessagesfromourgroupifyoureusingOutlookExpress|link] for a tutorial to do that.

 

You can also help others follow by:

  • making subject lines as specific as possible
  • deleting all irrelevant text from original messages when replying

 

And remember just lurking is perfect!

 

Things will quieten down soon, just help us make it as easy as possible for everyone...

 

Ehsan

#404 (How Ehsan keeps up with 6 EVO sessions!)

...As for coping with 6 workshops, I should say that so far I've fared not too badly. I've created an EVO folder on my hard disk. Within that I've made a separate folder for each workshop. In each folder I've created 10 subfolders: one for each week, one for reading material, one for the saved pages, files & images, one for follow-up

activities for after the workshop, and one titled Miscellanious for stuff I can't accurately classify. I put everything in the relevant folder. It's already amounted to over 25 MBs. I've also saved some of the previous workshops of EVO. I guess I'm a bit behind but I'll catch up soon...

Nina Liakos

#500 Maite, and others who are feeling overwhelmed by it all--my advice is to do what you can during the course and remember: you have all the time in the world to explore the various tools after the session ends, also, and all of us will still be around to help you and answer questions. Just because the session ends doesn't mean you can't ask for help anymore.

Still, the more you can manage to do while the session is going on the better, because you are more motivated then. Last year I determined to learn about wikis after BaW ended, but I never did it until just recently (inspired, perhaps, by the return of EVO).

Monica BH

#678 this cyberworld can be a little overwhelming at times, too many things to click, too many new words to learn, computers that seem to have a mind of their own (at least mine does!)... But please don't worry and keep trying, I'm sure that, at the end of the six weeks, you'll be able to look back and feel really glad you didn't give up.

 

I don't have a lot of experience in the blogosphere myself(but I'm one of those people who enjoy "clicking to see what happens"...) and I feel that this first week has already helped me to boost my confidence, and hundreds of ideas are already popping up!

 

And, again, don't be shy: don't know something? Just ask, you couldn't find a more helpful and enthusiastic team of moderators and "classmates" than this! :)

Gladys Baya

#690 That's the spirit: Monika! You've just identified "the 3 Cs for success" in this process: ;-)

 

  • CLICK,click, click - hypertext may take you to unexpected learning, for sure! (just bookmark your starting point, or you'll get lost once and again)

 

  • CARE about the whole group at all times - this is a TEAM project, we'll succeed together or sink together! (probably strongly biased by a social interactionist background?)

 

  • CALL the group's attention to your needs and doubts whenever you need to (at the same time, it's almost certain you'll be asking somebody else's question too, and then helping those who don't even feel ready to post!)... As this is quite a large worldwide community, someone, somewhere, is bound to come to your rescue!

 

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A Foreign Language Learning Day?

Ehsan

#404 ...Today I was thinking that for almost everything people have a passion for, there's an International day to celebrate it, so is there one for foreign language learning? Would it be practical or useful to have one? Why/Why not? If so, what kind of activities could be done on that day to celebrate it? I thought such a day could be drawn upon as an excuse to further world peace and "dialogue of civilizations".

Gladys Baya

#407 The closest I know to this idea you mention, Eshma, is the "European Day of Languages" (not exactly what you had in mind, I know). It's celebrated daily on Sept 26.

Fidn out more about it here


Linda Neas

#413 Hi, Ehsan!

I really like the idea of a special day to celebrate language learning! I was thinking that it was not a coincidence that we opened this workshop on Martin Luther King Day (observed in US.). I remember how Dr. King spoke of his dream for all peoples to come together in peace. I have tried to follow his example throughout my life. Why not have an International Language Learning Day?!

How would we get it going? Through teachers??? probably a good idea! Haven't read your poetry yet, but looking forward to it. Thanks for your great idea!

Jenny Denman #442 The European Day of Languages is an interesting example of an international language learning project centered around one day/week, and sometimes a theme. Most of the projects are internal (inside one school), though some governments and language organizations plan their own activities, and some teachers connect with teachers at other schools or even other countries. One of the problems at my secondary school is that the Day comes very early in the school year (late September) and it always manages to catch us by surprise! Activities really need to be planned in June or July in order to have a lead-up time in September, and very few of us seem to be well-organized enough to be thinking about them in time (at least in the northern hemisphere). I wish it were a bit later in the year.

Still, here's a run-down of some of the things we did this year:

- Each level (form, grade) had a project in a different language (Dutch, English, German, French, Latin, Greek)

- Teachers were not required to participate with their classes, but those who didn't, regretted it!

- The projects included poetry with rhyme and meter (Dutch), Haikus (English), personal ads (German), new text balloons for comic strips (French), and various

translation activities (Latin and Greek).

- The Dutch Secretary of Education came to the school to give a short speech on the importance of foreign language learning. The word of welcome was spoken by 6 students in 6 different languages, and some invited journalists made sure that the event got into the newspapers.

- The best final student products were put into a special 'language' edition of the school magazine which was distributed to all students and teachers; selected students won (modest) prizes.

It's a lot of work, and it would be even better if there were more international contacts, but it's certainly worth the effort!

 

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Getting Ready to Blog

Choosing a Bloghost

Name Message

Paul Beaufait

...By April, I plan to have established another blog specifically for two university level EFL writing classes in Japan. Deciding where to establish such a course blog is one of my first milestones. Any suggestions?

Carla Arena

#315 I hope that by the end of this session you´ll be able to decide for the best blogging host, set your blog and establish an audience to your blog. Next week, we´ll be dealing with some bloghosts and you´ll be able to define which one suits your preferences and needs best. This is certainly very personal. I´ve tried different ones and depending on the situation I make the choice...So, this workshop is exactly about helping you make informed decision on what to choose and how to go about it when it comes to blogging in the classroom.

Nina Liakos

#692 I have a lot of blogs on different hosts:

blogger.com, multiply.com, yahoo 360, wordpress.com...

 

So far I have the most experience with blogger.com and have used only that with students. It is not as versatile as multiply.com but it allows posting of text, photos and albums and the privacy settings are easy to understand. So at the moment, I would recommend Blogger. For k-12, I think edublogs may be more controllable (by the teacher).

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Tips for Getting Students Blogging

Name Message

Nina Liakos

#365 I have not used blogging yet with beginners, but I have used it with intermediate students, including those whose QWERTY keyboarding skills were null (students from Qatar). Two things I have done to support students maintain their own English blogs are:

1. Write along with them in a class blog on some of the same topics I ask them to write about, and

2. encourage them to compose their posts in Word, which will edit gross problems in spacing, spelling, and mechanics.

 

Blogger has worked well with students whose computer experience was limited, as it is really very simple to use.

Gladys Baya

#517 (Getting students to blog)

 

I teach mostly adults attending general EFL courses. Writing is an option for them, since the institution favours oral skills in this case, and no time is supposed to be devoted in class to developing writing skills... Most of the students find it hard to do homework, and they see writing as extremely time-consuming, and not really appealing...

 

One of the course requirements, however, is that students read a book on their own during each term... We teachers usually ask them questions on these readers at the final interview... But I wanted them to help them see writing as a true communication act... :-( That was how my class blog The Reviewers - the one I told you about yesterday- got born. Then I made a deal with them: students who posted their review and commented on at least one entry by another student would not be tested on their reader at the final interview... The ill-famed interview is actually an informal chat, so it didn't really matter that much, but most of them took it quite seriously.... Once they realised they had an authentic audience for their writing (somebody who read them for meaning and not to correct their English), they got quite motivated to keep blogging, and started forgetting about grades and course assignments... 8-D!

 

It wasn't a smooth road, many of them cannot even use a keyboard effectively, couldn't make head or tail of weblogs, or just mistrust the Web... and my school has no computers available to teachers or students! But telling you about all that would make this posting far too long, and we'll have plenty of time to go over the details during the following weeks.

Karen

Dennis,

In your section on blogs, you talked about "an initially less than positive experience that resulted from my trying to control postings too much." Would you be able to elaborate on this a bit? I am trying to figure out what some of the pitfalls will be so that possibly I can avoid them. I have used Blackboard in one of my classes and realize that going on-line definitely presents "issues" different from those we find in the actual classroom. Thanks for any tips.

Dennis Oliver

#669 I'm happy to provide a little more detail.

One of the main reasons my initial attempts to use blogs with my students weren't very successful was the fact that I posted academic-type topics and expected students to react to them. I also made quite a big deal about posting complete sentences in standard English which had been checked for spelling and grammar mistakes. As a result, my students saw the blogs as a chore and "just another assignment," rather than a chance to communicate their own ideas in writing. I also learned several other things:

 

-- that it was better for me to give topics in discussion-board assignments and that it was acceptable, in these assignments, to have requirements for posts (e.g., that the post contain x number of grammatical, on-topic sentences);

 

-- that it was better, on blogs, for students to choose the topics (I would help if they couldn't think of any);

 

-- that it was better, on blogs, not to be too controlling (e.g., requiring posts of x number of grammatical sentences) but simply to remind students to read their posts before submitting them and (for the first couple of times) to remind them not to use taboo words;

 

-- that for both discussion boards and blogs, I needed to be sure to comment either on individual postings or on groups of postings.

Nina Liakos

#694 Was it difficult getting them started?

 

They had little choice: I required them to post their corrected writing assignments on the blog. Some of them never did get everything up there--you know how some students are late with everything or just don't hand things in. It was frustrating for me because I wanted the same assignments to be grouped together. It was not until later that I discovered that there is a way to change the date of a post, which effectively changes the order in which the posts appear! This was the first class blog I used: I was taking Becoming a Webhead at the time. As I recall I did offer an alternative to posting on the blog in case some students were reluctant to "put themselves out there"--but nobody took it. Remember, mine are all adults, 18 and up.

 

Did you find that some of them were familiar with blogging?

 

I don't think anyone in that class had blogged before, but I am not sure. With other groups I have found that usually one or two have a blog in their native language.

As blogging becomes more widespread in EFL/ESL classes, I assume we will have more and more students who have experienced blogging in English. We need to remember not to overload them with requirements to create new blogs, and always, to clarify for ourselves and for them what benefits they can expect from blogging.

 

Any thoughts on the difficulties you faced with the first class blog you created would be greatly appreciated!

 

1. Some of the students had poor/nonexistent keyboarding skills. No real solution to this one--other than practice makes perfect. I can't touchtype either but I have gotten pretty fast just by typing a lot for years.

2. Most students will not post unless you require it of them. (Some students really get into blogging on their own, but they are not typical!).

3. Many students forgot the username and password they registered with Blogger and could not access the blogs they had created. I solved this problem the following semester by requiring that they give me the username and password as a precaution. I told them not to use a password they used for other, secure sites.

Dennis Oliver

#697 The message from Nina (in Maryland) was particularly good, I've also encountered all the challenges that she mentioned and did the same as she to try to overcome those challenges.

 

I like the idea of students' having their own blogs, but if I did this with my students, I'd make it in addition to participating in the group blog. Why? – Because there is much more potential for interaction (obviously) when the blog is for a group.

 

I think many teachers prefer blogs to moodles because blogs are much more straightforward than moodles and setting up and learning to use a blog is much easier than setting up and learning to use a moodle.

 

Yes, blogs and forums are similar, but my impression is that blogs are more loosely structured than forums are, and that it is usually much easier to add photos, sound files, video files, and so on to blogs than to forums.

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Useful Blogging Terms

Name Message

Gladys Baya

#477 (What is a "blog post"?) Each entry made to a blog by the contributors is known as a post, Maite. Viewers can then comment on each post, provided the blog administrator has allowed comments!

Paul

#648 Maite,

 

You ask, "What is a blog post...is that a comment? or a blog in itself?"

 

In sum, a blog is website that automatically receives, records and displays messages.

 

A blog post is a message that a blog owner or administrator (author) writes to her blog. Some blogs have multiple authors (members).

 

Automatic website management systems record and display the date, time and content of whatever an author posts (writes and sends) to her blog.

 

Whoever owns or administrates a blog may allow only members, or people other than authors and members, to post responses to blog posts.

 

Automatic site management programs receive and display responses to a blog post as comments on a website.

 

We often call both original blog entries, from authors, and comments sent in response to them, from members, posts.

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Blogging with Students and BESS

Name Message

Dorinda Contreras

#527 Unfortunately I have a small snag. The school computers block everything I've tried to do with blogging because BESS doesn't think they are fit sites. I've been frustrated as an educator because I'd love to do this. It is really true that students don't like to write because it is time consuming...I remember the days as well when Spanish was very time consuming to read and write and therefore, can feel for my students. I also feel like encouraging them to keep going because I know that they can

succeed if they keep going...Does anyone know of a site that the web filters will permit?

Gladys Baya

#533 I don't know hwat your school might allow you to try, Dorinda, but next week (when comparing blog hosts), we'll see some options give you closer control on students' blogs (Live Journal, for instance).

Students could always give you what to post, and subscribe to the blog to get new posts via email, anyway... but it'd be a real pity if they could never have a look at the blog itself, right?

Back to this issue next week!

Paul

#606 What Dorinda meant by BESS, I gather, may be a particular brand of website filtering tool marketed in the U.S.

 

It was reviewed by PeaceFire in 2003:

 

and by the Censorware Project in 2001:

 

Those reviews indicate what BESS did and didn't exclude by default, automated listed or human review.

 

To what extent current manifestations of BESS (or similar products and services) differ is a good question.

 

BESS was an N2H2 product acquired by Secure Computing in 2003. However, Secure Computing stopped taking order for BESS in 2005.

 

N2H2 Product Information,

 

BESS now comes in Secure Computing's SmartFilter, Bess edition

 

 

Though those pointers to Secure Computing may serve as stepping stones for further investigation, they are _not_ product recommendations.

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Coping with Passwords

Name Message

Deana Alonso

#642 I have not tried a creating a blog yet, but I have looked at a couple created by members of this class.

I have one questions, since we can use any blog we want (MSN, Blogger, Yahoo, etc) How could we manange the accounts and the signing in we have to do in order to post

messages. Are any of you overwhelmed with the number of accounts and passwords you are accumulating in the internet? I am!!

Nina Liakos

#691

Various people solve the problem differently:

1. Some people use the same username and password for everything, but many feel that that is unwise (security risk). For my own part, I generally use the same password (usernames have various requirements, so I have about 4 of those) for all my webhead stuff, but it is not the same password I use for secure accounts like student information at the university where I work or accounts involving money (e.g. bank accounts).

 

2. Some people use a Word document or Excel spreadsheet to record site name, url, username, password (sometimes coded), and email account used to open the account, and keep it on a zip drive.

 

By coding the password I mean: If your password is debussy, the code might be france; password beethoven gives a code of germany. One person does something like that.

 

3. There are some applications on the web made especially for storing passwords and user names. One that is used by several participants is KeePass

 

4. Others use a low-tech solution: store the information in a little notebook (Daf Gonzalez uses an address-type notebook to keep them alphabetical) or on index cards (I write down the info twice and cut the card in half. Half stays home and the other half travels with me, or stays at work. That way if I lose one, I still have a backup. I have a couple of passwords I use, and I abbreviate them (e.g., if the pw is education, I would write e-n) on the cards.

 

5. If it is just urls you want to save, blinklist, My Book Marks,

and del.icio.us are all useful tools.

 

Gladys Baya

#693 Finally, let me share a secret with you: my first EVO session was "BAW-05". By the end of week 2 I was so overwhelmed with accounts, user names and passwords that I simply stopped trying any tools that required signing up! Months later, I went back and started once again, little by little... :-x (fraternal kiss)

 

Some people keep their passwords in a notebook, others in an Excel file, I have a folder in my mailing programme (Outlook Express) where I save the confirmation messages I get when I sign up...

 

It helps if you create a "difficult to guess" password, and just add some variation to it for each site (using one password for everything is tempting, I know, but not really advisable!)

 

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Coining New Terms

Name Term Message

Nina Liakos

Blogfrustration #78 ...I suffered through "blogfrustration" as I tried and tried, without success, to upload my picture to my blog. But I was helped by people who were more experienced than I, as you will be too...
Monica FOMS #147 I totally agree with you, all the courses seemed so interesting, I had a hard time picking blogging and baw07!... A friend of mine says that people like us suffer from a (not so) rare condition, called FOMS (Fear Of Missing Something)!!! And then we realize that our day has only 24 hours!

Gladys Baya

"wfw meeting" #494 a "wfw meeting" (originally "fwf meeting")is what Gladys's fingers type when half her brain thinks of "f2f meeting" (ie "face to face", as opposed to "online" or "distance") and the other half thinks "we should be going to bed / taking the kids to the dentist / getting dinner ready / etc"...

Blushful, Gladys

Nina Liakos Blushful #607 LOL Gladys! I also congratulate you on coining a lovely new word (blushful)!

It sounds like a mix of blush and bashful--I love it!

Gladys Baya Blushful #633 My dictionary tells me "blushful" is not my coining:

blushful:"Having a red face from embarrassment or shame or agitation or emotional upset" (WordWeb 3.03)

A word hardly ever used by native speakers, perhaps?

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KUDOS

Name Message

Carla R.

#428 Oh! one last thing... Would you mind reminding me what "kudos" means? I remember it was a very popular word during BaW06.

Dennis Oliver

#445 I also say "Kudos to all"!

Regarding the meaning of "kudos," here's a very useful link for finding definitions in multiple online dictionaries:

 

Gladys Baya

#452 Here's how my dictionary defines "kudos", Carla:

"An expression of approval and commendation"

BTW, I'm using Wordweb, which Claudia once tipped me on. Just highlight any word on any screen you're looking at, click Ctrl + W, and a window appears displaying the meaning, even if you're offline! You can download its free version

here

Barbara Tous

#463 Kudos: the fame and public admiration that a person receives as a result of a particular achievement or position in society:

Being an actor has a certain amount of kudos attached to it.

 

Wrapping up Week One

Name Message

Gladys Baya

#712Our first week will soon be officially over (it's now just past 7 PM GMT), and Erika is ready to take over, so it's time for me to thank you for all you've given during this first week of our EVO Worshop - "Blogging for Beginners". With...

 

  • 707 messages exchanged via this YG (plus God knows how many emails!)
  • 85 respondents to our survey - results to be

published at our wiki tomorrow)

 

... it's hard for me to believe we've practically just "met"! It looks like we've achieved this week's aims quite satisfactorily, wouldn't you agree?

 

All that's left for me to do is to thank everyone for all you've done so far, and wish you the very best as you give your first steps blogging... Our team will keep working to give the best learning experience we can afford. I leave you in the best possible hands: Erika will be leading you during week 2, then Carla and Claudia will

take over, and then I'll go back onto stage for our last week together! Of course, I'm not "disappearing" until then, but at least you'll see my name less in digests!

 

Just a final reminder:

You can visit these pages to go over everything that's taken place during this week:

 

All intros posted

Tasks... and links to answers!

Summary of messages posted

 

You're a wonderful "bunch" of enthusiastic learners, and I'd be hoonoured by this opportunity to lead you. Thanks once again!

 

Words from the heart!

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