How to "Follow" a Blog...

In speaking of Spring, the weather guy that I follow at AccuWeather.com (Elliot Abrams) posted a blog this morning saying Spring was "Just around the corner but it's a long way to the end of the block!" I thought that was a great description. It looks like a moonscape around the campuses with 2 feet of snow on the ground! I hope the Groundhog was right...

Yesterday I mentioned that I would send out some ways to follow this blog... This way, whenever I post, you will be notified automatically. Here are 3 easy ways:

1. Subscribe via email. On the left of this blog page there is a "Subscribe via Email" gadget. Just enter your email address, go to your inbox and confirm by clicking on the activation link in the email that you will be sent. Its as simple as that.

2. Put it on your iGoogle Page. Many of you have heard me say that my iGoogle page is without a doubt the most useful, effective, and transformative resource that I have come across. If you do not have one, I urge you to make one and make it the homepage on your browser. You won't regret it. I will do an entire post on it again shortly. If you add Google Reader to your page, you can paste the address of this blog into the reader. Whenever I post a new post, it will pop-up in your reader right on your iGoogle page. Some blogs have their own gadgets that you can add to your iGoogle page. (for instance). Maybe I will figure out how to make one for my blog. If i figure it out, I will let you know.

3. Join MyBigCampus. If you Join MyBigCampus, you can "folllow" me and whenever I post to the blog, you will be notified on your wall. Here is a voice from the past, Keith Rafaniello, describing how to create a MyBigCampus account if you have not already done so.

Hope this helps!

Happy Ground-blog's Day!

After Caleb helped me shovel the driveway, I took the opportunity of a quiet day to do some reading and something really struck me... I often start at a blog (linked in the sidebar to the left of this column) called The Innovative Educator. This blog is provocative and sometimes controversial. I always agree with more than I disagree with, though, and i usually find it encouraging and inspiring. Every time I start reading anything on the web, though, I never know where I will end up. For instance- I began reading a post on 10 Things We Should be doing To help Our Students with more Self Directed Learning. Partway through the post, i saw reference to Zulama.com- a site that bills itself as offering "access to unique courses that students are passionate about...making Zulama a place teenagers want to go to learn." Of course, i had to go there and see what it was all about... this lead to the perusal of their course catalog. They have a strand of high school courses offered through Carnegie Mellon that teaches HS students about video game design. This led me to an interesting blog post someone did about the benefits of gaming... I got to thinking how powerful it would be if we all had the ability to converse daily about the interesting things we read and come across... some sort of place to write down observations and let people comment, share their opinions, grab links to resources, archive thoughts, and... oh yeah- we DO have the ability to do all that...That's what Blogs are for! So I logged on to my Teaching and Learning @ Mohonasen Blog and added the first post I have made in a month! I should be using this medium more...we all should. We need to read and explore and share as a learning community. There is SO much out there to learn and bring to our students. I am going to start trying to post something here every day.

Let me ask you to consider following and commenting on my blog or starting your own. It is so easy. Do it through MyBigCampus (its "Facebook" for Mohonasen)... (or do it through Blogspot.com? Do it through Wordpress... its NOT an official Mohonasen thing, its your professional reflections on education- ("blog" is short for "Web-log") so use what's easiest for you.) Share the name of your blog with me and I will get it out to everyone. Following a blog is simple... every time someone updates a blog that you are following, you are notified. Or how about this: If you find something good... write about it and send it to me and I will post it for all as a guest blog on this blog here... We have to build a connected community. Email me if you need help. I will be following Lori Gallo around for the next 4 Tuesday Tech Talks and I will be more than happy to help you get something started.

Tomorrow's topic: How to Follow a Blog

NOTE: I will be posting my daily reflection to two different blogs for now-my Teaching & Learning @Mohonasen blog and on my My Big Campus.com blog. Follow either one. MyBigCampus is supposed to be making significant upgrades to their blog in the near future so I may consolidate there.