Disqus - Latest Comments for Liz O'Neill

Re: Blogging for Beginners - Understanding the Glue

Liz O'Neill — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 12:35:39 -0000

Blogging is fun! Thanks for being willing to take your readers through the basics like this. It helps a lot.
Can you say something about what sort of posts work best, and length of posts and comments?

Re: Blogging for Beginners - Posting and Commenting Tips

Liz O'Neill — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:08:51 -0000

Jonesie (is Robert your Sunday name?)

This is a great conversation -and really helpful.

What learners need is a pathway through the information, until they have the skills to evaluate the difference between necessary, useful and nice to add on.

Regarding RSS, I have to confess that I followed Ewan's enthusiastic instructions on using RSS recently, set up an account on Bloglines and then...couldn't quite get the point of it. I don't go back to it regularly, but trawl round the blogs I like.

Sorry to be dense, but what exactly are the advantages?

I'm not especially interested in HOW it works technically. As Tess said, some of us need metaphors. I want to know where it comes in the great scheme of things. At the moment -metaphor coming up- RSS is that expensive answering machine I got because my brother says he can't live without it. I don't use it very often, and often ponder the question of what on earth he does with it.

Do you make bloglines your homepage or what? Do you get it to email you if its updated and so on?

Go on. You really can't make it too simple. Believe me!

Re: Blogging for Beginners - How to Read 500 Blogs

Liz O'Neill — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:29:36 -0000

Robert,

Great. Really useful. Succinct.

I read the articles you suggested and persevered with bloglines. You were right - it does making reading blogs easier. I am clicking there first. I hadn't realised that you could still access the blogs from it should you want to read comments etc.

(I am also using cocomments -still not quite got the hang of it completely.)

A couple of questions (just when you get a minute, or are blogging on this subject again.)

1. Why is it that when I subscribe with bloglines -several possible feeds come up?
I usually tick the top one -which looks most recent. Is that okay?

2. What's the thing about public or private subscription?

3. Is bloglines a good feed reader in your opinion?

4. Is a feed reader an aggregator? Or is that something else?

This help is really appreciated. I am sure there are blurkers (Neil Winton calls them that so blame him if it's wrong) benefiting from it too.

Re: Blogging for Beginners - How to Read 500 Blogs

Liz O'Neill — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:44:54 -0000

Thank you. Sometimes it is the most simple fact about something that seems obscure... Light dawns...

Re: What the DFES report on interactive whiteboards really says

Liz O'Neill — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 10:57:55 -0000

Thanks for posting about this. I've been thinking about my use of the IWB for a while, and wondering what might take me further forward with it.

I use my IWB every day putting up lesson objectives etc. I've tried to use it as more than a big screen for my laptop, with film clips, and very basic animation.

I've polled pupils on my use of IWB and got some quite helpful feedback. I was struck by how little they rated the aspects of it I thought they would most like.

My one concern is that it does seem to (as the report mentions) suit the more didactic style of teaching. I've seen demonstrations (on Teachers TV for example) where pupils get to come up to the board and write on it themselves. My lot don’t get quite so enthusiastic about it.

I'd be interested to hear how other teachers use IWB to engender a more collaborative style of learning.

Re: What the DFES report on interactive whiteboards really says

Liz O'Neill — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:16:15 -0000

They didn’t like the animations I had tried to add – little men, tick boxes etc. They didn’t like the added sounds of a typewriter or a crashing noise, when something happened, ‘irritating’. Didn’t like powerpoints with too many words – thought they gave them headaches.
Some of the stuff was my fault –they weren’t crazy about having to copy down from the whiteboard – we discussed this and it came out that they would have felt the same about copying from an ordinary board.

They liked images and things changing on the board but not quite as much as I had expected. Some of them even said they preferred ‘basic’ over ‘fancy’ –I got the impression that this was more to do with a general feeling that they didn’t like having their expectations raised that something was going to be more exciting than it turned out. Some pupils hated having to wait for people who were slower at reading stuff or who wanted to look at images longer (and vice versa).

They liked the idea of getting to ‘work’ the board – giving a presentation or talk using it. And they loved getting to see films on a big screen…

Re: What the DFES report on interactive whiteboards really says

Liz O'Neill — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 15:19:44 -0000

I'd love to use some games -seems like anything like that, which is interactive is blocked by the filter as 'games' or 'fun'!

The copying from the board issue: I use it as a way of making kids think about stuff -and for older pupils as notes for study. But I'm aware that it isn't the best pedagogical approach. I do try to add in highlighting, suggest they annotate as I have done -or mind map the information. Much better if they have ownership -but not always practical.

Re: What the DFES report on interactive whiteboards really says

Liz O'Neill — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:41:31 -0000

Not sure...

What do you suggest? I can always try!

Re: What the DFES report on interactive whiteboards really says

Liz O'Neill — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:46:36 -0000

Jonesie,

No sweat. I'll continue drawing dingbats onto the IWB.

Sad really...

Re: Praise Junkies?

Liz O'Neill — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 05:44:49 -0000

I found this article fascinating. I've been thinking a lot about confidence recently as we have been targeting underachieving boys in school. As you say, I like to think that we don't dish out praise so indiscriminately as our American cousins -but I'm not sure we don't have our own version of it.

Watching American Idol gives you a horrible insight into the results of ill advised 'self -esteem' philosophies. British contestants seem similar, although they tend to find it difficult to sustain quite the same level of delusion.

I have found AifL practices useful in giving targeted praise. I'm really interested in how we use failure and making mistakes as a springboard for renewed effort. But would also like to know what place accepting limitations has.

For example, what do people think about something I heard at an INSET recently:
'Do you believe all of your students can get an A at higher?' Most teachers (reluctantly) said 'No.' -and the response was 'Well that's why you aren't getting better results'.

Re: Have you used ScotEduBlogs.org.uk?

Liz O'Neill — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 17:31:39 -0000

Well, for what it's worth, I think the site is probably one of the best ways to introduce someone to education blogging. I have put ScotEduBlogs on my aggregator and I browse through it almost every day getting a flavour for what is happening in schools across Scotland (and beyond). It's a great advert for the work, enthusiasm and reflective practice of Scottish teachers.

Re: Is it just me?

Liz O'Neill — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:29:25 -0000

Is it a spoof? I was always a bit disappointed that Powergen hadn't really called their italian website powergenitalia.

Re: Heretical Thoughts.

Liz O'Neill — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:01:04 -0000

I agree. I think we completely underestimate the impact family life -or what passes for that with many kids- has on development and education. A teacher told me recently that, if we were to estimate the time we have with pupils to a percentage of a year - they would be done with us on Valentine's day (Feb 14).

Children who have those secure backgrounds and relationships transfer that confidence into their education. They really can start something new at any stage, and they learn at an incredible rate.

I do think however that Web 2.0 is meeting a need - the need for community. It can offer a lot but it cannot, no matter how sophisticated it becomes, replace the frontline relationships children, and all of us need.

That's not heresy, it's truth.