reflecting on completion of blogging challenge

I did it! O.K, I may have done the 30 days training program in 45 days or more…. but the bottom line is I was able to participate in all activities (even the Tweeter 101 despite the fact that I was totally technophobic about Tweeter!!). After a hard & challenging & motivating & super fun on-line professional training event  “Kick Start Your Blogging”, that is offered by Teacher Challenge I decided to run in circles and come back to the point that I started from; reflection. I decided to re-do one of the earliest activities that was requested as the my jubilee activity in Teacher Challenge. By the way it will also be the brand new beginning because I think I really loved blogging. So, here it comes…

Interview with the Blogster

 I would like to interview my newly flourishing blog.

Hello, when did you start posting and who is the person behind you?

Hi there. I was active as of the day my author decided to take part in Teacher Challenge. She is an English language teacher who is very much into technology. She is a digital immigrant but she is learning. She was afraid at the beginning. She couldn’t even find the dashboard of her blog in her attempt to publish the very first post, but the teacher community out there is amazing! And other bloggers helped us a lot. Many thanks go to them… I may not be the best blog but I am growing each day.

 What did your writer learn about blogging so far?

 She learned about heart of blogging; revising & evaluating your posts and reviewing & reflecting on other bloggers’ posts and your comments, which is phased as “blogging cycle”. Writing post titles was another learning point. What else… Let me think;

• How to write effective posts by looking at most influential blog posts , using heading, askins questions to readers for mutual communication, and using visuals
• Adding links in comments
• Working with pages
• She learned about RSS, RSS feed readers such as google reader, RSS widgets like FeedWind’s RSS widget which adds latest updates from your favorite blog(s) or news website(s) to your site
• How to open up a google reader account
• Creating on-line avatars
• Creating globally recognized avatars: Gravatars  
• Tools for Finding visuals with creative commons licence such as Flicr ,  Compfight ,  FlicrCC , Wikipedia Commons , Search by Creative Commons & Importance of Adding the photo attribution
• Tools for making own images including Image Generators such as ImageGenerator.org, Comic Generators like MakeBeliefsComix.com,  kerpoof, ToonDoo, Photo Editors like Befunky, fd’s Flickr Tools, Tag Cloud Creators such as Wordle, Graph Creators including GraphJam and Crappy Graphs

She also learned about importance of writing engaging posts by making use of variety of tools that could be used for embedding media

 Do you think teachers have embraced using technology and blogging in your country?

Well, I think that my country is in a transition period towards technology blended teaching learning environment. Some schools have language labs, wireless internet in campus, smart boards and some schools work with course management systems like Mooddle and Sakai. But some other schools do not have such facilities due to a variety of reasons. However I believe that the “people” factor lead to some very good examples of technology in teaching practice. For instance check out the project of Kızılhisar Primary School in Malatya in cooperation with Bergen Community College in New Jersey . Also check out these class blogs that are created by Aslı’s friends. Check out Aslı’s podcast page that she created with her learners. So using technology in education is on the rise and hopefully will be more widespread.

 Why did Aslı join Teacher Challenge “Kickstart Your Blog”?

She hopes to take the plunge into blogging and improve herself. She also wants to get involved and connected with other teachers to share knowledge, reflections and creativity. She learns a lot from others.

 Thanks.