Bloglines Spring Cleaning

Will Richardson writes about his decision to make more time by spring-cleaning his Bloglines account and culling fifty news-feeds. I’ve wrestled with my Bloglines account for some time, wanting to reorganise it and ensure that it was customised for my needs and not just a series of echoes in my personally-created edu-blogging echo-chamber.

As a result, I decided to just delete all the feeds with a view to building a new portfolio over the next months that is a more effective reflection of my day-to-day interests. Many of the feeds I have deleted will probably reappear in my Bloglines account but it feels quite refreshing to have wiped the slate clean. There are probably a few other slates that I want to clear as well – probably starting with my del.icio.us account.

A number of people have already told me how they couldn’t live without their Bloglines feeds. Get a life! Those people should really consider drastic rss spring-cleaning or alternatively, I can supply the address of a good therapist

Edugeek Conference

I presented a session on blogging today at the EduGeek North Conference in Rochdale. Edugeek is aimed at Educational IT staff and is doing a great job in supporting and galvanising these professionals who fulfil a crucial role in our schools.

I set-up a conference presentation blog again instead of using PowerPoint to encourage some two-way flows of information. However the set-up at the Learning Centre a conflict with my blog’s spam filter seemed to be blocking the ability to post comments which meant that people couldn’t post directly to the blog as I was speaking. There was lively discussion though and the crucial role of teachers in the adoption of new technologies was brought up, as was the potential benefits of providing students with an audience.

For me, every scare story about the use of blogs by students outside school is the perfect reason to grasp the nettle and harness them inside school in a structured, secure yet empowering way. By avoiding these new technologies in schools we are putting our heads in the sand in the hope that the issues raised will sort themselves out. Teachers and edugeeks have the key role in helping students make sense of the array of new tools that the internet has opened up to them.

Communicate.06 Promo Video

The Communicate.06 promo video was created by students involved in the PiE project on the day of the Communicate.06 conference. The participating students filmed interviews and recorded podcasts throughout the day and then edited together their movie in the afternoon. The completed movie was shown during the final plenary session. I have already written about how inspiring their involvement was but it is cool to be able to view the results online.
The video can be viewed here.