List of Blogging Entry Styles...
Amy Gahran has compiled a great list of blog entry types on her blog. It is nice that even blogs, as free-form as they are, are starting to be more and more standardized. Here is her list:
Here are the seven basic blog posting formats:
- Link-only
- Link blurb
- Brief remark
- List
- Short article
- Long article
- Series postings
Keep in mind that these types represent points along a spectrum. A specific posting might blend aspects of two or more formats.
On another note, my wife and I are off to Dalian, China for 10 days. We will be visiting my in-laws in the booming metro of Wafangdian. My access to the net will be limited at best so do not expect any updates until we get back.
Zhong Qiu Jie Kuai Le! (Happy Mid Autumn Festival)
Today is the "Fifteenth day of the Eighth Moon" on the lunar calender or Mid Autumn Festival. It was never a holiday/festival that I knew about until moving to China. But is not exclusive to China. Many of the Asian countries celebrate it in a variety of ways. In China it means that you wish everyone a happy day and then offer them a 'moon cake.' However, the cakes have a taste that takes some getting used to. I have been here over 3 years and still have not gotten used to the taste. There is usually a bean-curd or some other bean style filling. Many westerns liken this holiday to thankgiving on the north american calender. It is really just a reason to get together with your family and friends!
Great Pics and Articles
I cannot tip my hat enough to Dan for his journey and excellent blog about China. I have been following his travels and made a few comments about it here and on his site. He has written a very insightful article recently that I would highly suggest reading.
On another note, I will be posting some pics from my recent trip to Taihu in Suzhou with my students. I have mentioned it before, but I have just finished downloading them and will be placing them on my 123travel blog.
Back @ Home...
We arrived back at school on Friday afternoon around 2:30pm. There was a little confusion as to what the students were to do because there were still about 25 minutes before the buses would take them home. Parents had started to 'gather' around looking for their children, which just crowded the hallways more.
The students really seemed to have a nice time. There was a rock-wall to climb, activities to do and they could visit the 'fishing spot.' The fishing spot was a shallow pool (maybe 5 inches) with gold fish in it. The students were each given a small net and bucket and could try to 'catch' the small fish. The first fish was 'free' but each additional fish was 1 RMB (or 12 cents). Where the owners really made there money was selling the 'tank' for the fish. They did not just give you a bag for the fish, you had to buy a tank. It costs 8 RMB or $1USD. Anyway, within a few hours 1/3 of the fish had already died and the students learned some lessons from it, so I suppose that was educational.
Where I was pleased with the camp was in seeing my students (ESL) interacting in English with other students from other classes. It was very encouraging and I plan to draw from that in classes this week. Stay tuned for more updates. Check my students' blog this week where they will be writing about their experiences!
Junior Camp TIME!
Each year at my school the 4th and 5th grades students take part in a three day/two night camp. It is designed to provide an opportunity for the students to be away from their family and develop bonds with their classmates and teachers. Last year we went to Hangzhou, about three hours south of Suzhou. This year we are not leaving Suzhou, and going to a park called Agriworld. This also means that I will be away from my blog for a couple of days, but will have lots of pictures (via my mBlog site) and stories here! See ya again really soon!
Several Useful Articles and A NEW BLOG!
I must first thank Anne Davis again for finding another set of good articles for addition to my 'reading' list. 1) Using LiveJournal for Authentic Communication in EFL Classes, by Aaron Campbell, who also wrote, Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes; both of which are very nice articles. Anne also brought the Intel article,"Harnessing Technology to 'Transform Education,'" to my attention. Thanks again Anne!
Another one of my fellow teachers has started a blog at school. The blog is called "Y4S" and the tagline is, " This is a blog dedicated to the best of the best!" It is my friend's first attempt at blogging and I am very excited and will help him out anyway I can!
Writing, writing and more writing...
This past weekend was spent helping my wife with a 3,000 word writing assignment that she has for her masters degree. Why I helped her was because she is not a native speaker of English and since I teach ESL and have a masters degree and mainly because she is my wife. I cannot imagine what it must be like to write a 3,000 word paper about issues and trends in the early childhood classroom in Chinese! She is studying through the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in Australia. To say the least it is in the mail today, but it was really a full weekend of activites.
On a lighter note, we ate Xin Jiang food on Saturday night with some friends from school. It was nice to have spicy food that was good for you and all. Xin Jiang is a region of China that is mostly Muslim. There is not any pork, but mostly lamb. I always get meat-on-a-stick 
! It was a nice time and I look forward to doing it again really soon. My wife also wrote about this in her blog in more detail.
ADSL Bombshell today...
...this morning I woke up and started my morning routine that included switching on my PC and making coffee and checking my e-mail (as I live 12 hours difference away from my family) in hopes of an e-mail or two from my folks. The problem was that info seemed to be going out but none going in. I have a wireless router set up to allow both my wife and I the freedom of surfing as we please. However, nothing was happening! I checked all the cables (did not want to look stupid) and switched everything off and on again. NOTHING. We had had this trouble once in the past about 6 months ago, but we call the phone company and they checked their server and within a short time we were back online, however, today was different. After hours of phone calls by my wife (she is the Chinese speaker) they hung up on her. Well, she was not pleased, so called back, but in the time it took for her to dial the number, the ADSL magically started back up! hummmmmmmmmmmm.... On a day like today, you just jump on your bike and ride as fast as you can and then stop for air and ride again!
Dan's Journey Around China is GREAT!
Dan Washburn, an American that teaches in Shanghai, China, is currently touring around China with a 'play by play' style blog that is just excellent! I would highly recommend adding it to your reading list! Right now he is in Ha'erbin, in Northeastern China. I wrote about my trip to Ha'erbin on my mBlog.com site. My students have added their "Best Friend" stories to their class blog. It is really great and worth the time to check it...
Blogging at its BEST...
...who could have imagined that in only two attempts my students would already make blog waves? EduBlog Insights, Anne Davis' blog at GSU, has included an entry from one of my students. When I discovered this and shared it with my student, she reacted the way I thought, blushed and ran away with her face covered. I have seen this play out on more occasions than I can count. It is a very normal response by an Asian student. They are taught at an early age to be humble and modest whenever praise has been directed towards them. Well, I am going to do it again by posting another student's words here. These words come from a student that is from Japan and has only been speaking English since May of this year. She had a two month break and did not speak any English in July & August. The entry was to be about an animal short story. They only had 20 minutes to complete it and had to think of the words with NO help:
elephant go to the river,dlink the water. today is very very hot. elephant play the water. long long noise teke the water. elephant like water.
I have not corrected anything, this is exactly how it was written.
Some PowerPoint Tips...
Kathy Jacobs, Power Point expert, has recently written a list of 6 tips for effective presentations. I found this via Robin Good's daily feed. I feel that they are useful enough to include here:
Tip One: Figure out what the audience needs to know, not what you want to say
Thinking like the audience helps you figure out what you want them to know after the presentation. You may have more you can tell them, but you need to decide if they need to hear it. If you don't tell the audience something they need to know, they will ask. If you tell them lots of extra stuff, they may walk away thinking about things other than your intended message.
Tip Two: Design from summary to detail
If you design from detail to summary, you will get so attached to the details that you won't want to skip them when you should. If instead you start with what the audience needs to know, the content will flow easily as the next step. Figure out the main points, and then add details layer by layer to each main point. Before you add the layers, think about if the extra information just needs to be available or if you have to cover it every time.
Tip Three: Hide the details
Once you know what the important stuff is, make sure that only that information is available during the base presentation. Create the detail slides, and then hide them so that they don't show unless you need them. While you are presenting, your audience's attitudes and attention span will tell you when they need to hear the details and when they don't. If they need the details, go to them. If they don't, go on to the next slides.
Tip Four: Create FAQ slides
To vary how your detail slides work, create a series of FAQ slides at the end of your presentation. The first slide in the series should contain the questions. Each question should be linked to its answer. When the question comes up, you can jump to its answer either via the question slide or via the slide number. When you give the presentation, keep track of questions that come up. Afterwards, add the question and the answer to the FAQ area.
Tip Five: Nest information
When you feel that you must put more information on a slide than should normally fit, use your imagination to make it fit. Only have part of the information on the slide at any given time. You can use any of a number of animation techniques to fit more information on a single slide, as long as you don't have too much on the slide at any given time.
Tip Six: Tell them where to find more information
When you don't have the time you need, send them to the source. If you know that your content won't possibly fit in the space provided, then set up a slide or three at the end of the presentation with where more information can be found. If you are using this technique, be sure to provide the links and source locations on paper or via e-mail. Just putting it up on the screen probably won't help during a live presentation: The information won't be able to stay up long enough for people to write it down.
With as many presentations that I have been to that really SUCK, it is nice to have some good tips!
My Review of "Educational Blogging"
For the past few weeks I have seen several references to Stephen Downes' article in the Educause Review. Today, I actually got a chance to read it. I must say that it is probably the most well written and complete article that I have read about blogging in the classroom. I truly wish that I had had it when I was writing the article that I presented in May in Beijing, China. There were several sections that I would like to highlight now.
" It seems clear that although blogging can and does have a significant and worthwhile educational impact, this impact does not come automatically and does not come without risks. As many writers have noted, writing a weblog appears in the first instance to be a form of publishing, but as time goes by, blogging resembles more and more a conversation. And for a conversation to be successful, it must be given a purpose and it must remain, for the most part, unconstrained."
I must reply to this in my own class. I have been trying to teach with blogs in my ESL classroom. I have been giving the assignment and letting the students comment on the blog. I must re-think this approach to ensure that this is not just another mindless activity for my students.
" Despite obvious appearances, blogging isn’t really about writing at all; that’s just the end point of the process, the outcome that occurs more or less naturally if everything else has been done right. Blogging is about, first, reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting. If a student has nothing to blog about, it is not because he or she has nothing to write about or has a boring life. It is because the student has not yet stretched out to the larger world, has not yet learned to meaningfully engage in a community. For blogging in education to be a success, this first must be embraced and encouraged."
I would like to take these above ideas of culture, community, ideas, and then reflect, criticize, question and react and this is what I want my students to accomplish and if they use blogs to do that it is even better. This article has given me a lot to think about in regards to my own teaching and I will try to adopt a new approach to fit in these concepts. I feel that we (educational bloggers) are the new pioneers of the educational landscape of this new century!
Warm Up Exercises
I started today much like I do everyday that I have ESL class, with 'warm-up' exercises. I usually do a number of things to get the students geared up for class. For most of the students this is actually stressful. They must say things that are even hard for native English speakers to say and do. First, I ask them to stand up and stretch a little bit. We shake out our hands and feet and then loosen up. (much like a person who is about to physically exercise, why not a person who will 'intellectually' exercise) After this we loosen our mouths. After a few really strange noises, which the kids really enjoy, we start with some sayings. I use a number of sayings, but the most effective are these:
"Mississippi" (first by saying a few times; then by spelling a few times)
"Rubber Baby Buggie Bumpers" (saying 3-5 times)
"She sells seashells by the seashore" (saying 2-3 times, then each child once)
"How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?" (this is their favorite)
Does not sound too hard, but for 5th graders that do not speak English at home, it can be a challenge...
New RSS Feed Reader...
...I have been using Sharp Reader for some time now and I have been happy with it. However, in my wanderings around the web I found something that I feel has much more usability. It is called SauceReader and it is still in the BETA stages, but I am pleased with what I have seen so far. According to the website:
Sauce Reader is an easy to use, innovative and full-featured feed reader.
- Clean, intuitive Outlook 2003 style user interface.
- Integrated weblogging environment with full posting functionality.
- Share content with friends using the Windows Messenger integration.
- Automatic application updates.
- Feed discovery and one-click subscription to RSS and Atom feeds.
- Full-text search of archived items.
- 3-pane interface with newspaper style views.
It is worth a try!
On a different note, the weather today is so nice and BLUE! Which is a real change from what I have become used to here lately. Maybe this is a sign of things to come!
SKYPE!
I am trying out SKYPE for a trial period to see if it is up to all the hype. It seems a lot like IM and Internet calling together. So far I am impressed with the interface and it seems pretty cool. I really like the idea, whether it works or not is yet to be seen. If you are interested in 'Skyping me' just download the software (9+ mb) and then click on 'skype me' on the right hand sidebar. I look forward to talking with you!
