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Blog Information

Blog Information
FEATURES TO CONSIDER 
• tool intergration 
• ease of use 
• support system 
• privacy and security functions 
• messaging accessibility (SMS text) 
• levels of control 

Announcements 
• Use MBs to post information regarding specific classroom activities, assignments, and events. 
• Use MBs to share informatin among staff members in different district buildings 
• Use tool for targeted updates to parents, students, athletes, alumni 
• Use tool to post school board minutes; competition results 
Academic Support 
• Use MBs for study groups, tutoring, library support 
• Use MBs for homework hotline and assistance 
• Use MBs for information FAQs on school policies, procedures, and safety informatin for students and parents 
• Use MBs for students who need targeted support (students "at risk", students who are absent) 
OUTREACH 
• Use MBs to inform the community of events at the school; sporting events, theatre productions 
• Use MBs to interact with community partners to improve instructional experiences 
• Use MBs to connect to local social service agencies that support students and parents 
• Use MBs for fundraising and scholarships 

INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES 

• Enhance class discussions with postings 
• digital storytelling 
• enhance cross-cultural experiences 
• fieldwork notebooks 
• medium for brainstorming 
• MBs can provide access to instant news coverage of events as they unfold - election night 
• MBs teach students appropriate ways to converse online 
• 140 word digital formative assessments 
• instant feedback 
• collaborative research projects through project based channels 
• enables opprotunities for students to answer queries within brief timeline 
• follow global trending topics (Haiti) 
• new version of pen pals 
• MBs can connect students to soical service agencies to address community concerns 
USE TECHNOLOGY 
• Promotes digital user content creation 
• teaches technology integration through the use of mobile phone, the web, and other apps 
• teaches students about parameters for "participant web technologies" 
• teaches students how to use medium for data collection and online polling 
• teaches students about social media
PLURK (goes back & forth in different languages) good for foreign language classes 

http://www.plurk.com 
• social journaling with a visual timeline (140 characters) 
• Can create "cliques" to send information to specific groups and manage audiences 
• Allows messaging: sharing of images and videos 
• Allows for keyword searching to locate 
• Nice built-in feature for posting 
• Karma - the more one uses Plurk, the more features one gains access to use 
• Cannot SMS to the timeline 
• User base is limited which can be problematic for finding resources, lots of vendors 
• Limited IM messaging 

Jaiku (good for ART Classes) 

http://www.jaiku.com 
• posts limited to 100 characters 
• "channels" allow you to separate conversation streams and thread comments 
• Lets you add RSS feeds from your blog or photo site; nice features for uploading images 
• each post has its own page for comments 
• limited "IM" restricted to Google (no AIM, Yahoo) 
• postings are either public or private 
• looks like Twitter, acts like twitter, but it is more blog-like in terms of design
• streaming content is not as timely if there are no responses to postings 
• mobile phone features are problematic 

EDMODO 

http://www.edmodo.com 
• many "classroom" type features 
• enables users to create groups and share files, links, embedded videos and images along with alerts, assignments and events. 
• SMS text; mobile phone app 
• several resources for teaching tips 
• new service; not many users = Pownce 
• limited access to public community (external rather than internal) 
• does not work well with other MBs 
• time consuming front end set-up
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