What a Power Session - it’s done!

I have just powered on this afternoon and the new look technoLOTE site is up! I wasn’t planning on having things done so quickly, but was so keen to finish, that I just kept going. Feels good to be done!

Please have a good look at technoLOTE and let me know what you think of it. Have a look around and let me know if it’s too hard to find things. I’d also love some feedback on the About page - which I rewrote as part of the 31 Day Challenge. There is also a page on how to subscribe that I love for someone to read and tell me if it’s all clear enough for someone who has never subscribed to a blog before.

Phew, I think it might be bedtime…

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Double the Blog, Double the Challenge

bubble infinityOk, so I’m onto this 31 day challenge to better my blog. I’ve had a bit of an unorganised start due to visitors and being totally distracted by searching for a new theme for my blog. Nope, not this one, my technoLOTE blog - though don’t look there for a new theme yet.I’ve got one, and am working on tweaks and making sure everything works properly. I’ll let you know when I officially ‘launch’ it. I hope that will be sometime over the weekend but that will depend on when and how much I can get my husband to help me sort out a few things. You see, he is the real geek of the house, it’s not me at all!

Back to the challenge. I’ve got two blogs. This one, where I reflect about whatever I feel like (mainly my journey through educational technology stuff) and technoLOTE where I blog about integrating technology into the LOTE (Language Other Than English) classroom. This means I am doing the 31 day challenge twice. Hopefully I can manage that!

I have emailed new commenters on both blogs (Day 1). I haven’t done the First Time Reader Audit yet as I’m on holidays and at home on my own most the time so that will have to wait for a bit (Day 2). I’m already part of plenty of forums , I just have to be more active on them (Day 3). The forums I am a part of are:

for technoLOTE:

Classroom 2.0 - General forums and Digital Languages Group
Talkabout Primary MFL
EFL Classroom
The Global Education Collaborative
Voices of The World
I run the technoLOTE Google Group as well, which has been a fabulous way to keep in touch with teachers who have seen my site at conferences and want to know more. These teachers are generally really new to web 2.0 and all its goodness, and this is the group I am focusing technoLOTE on.for The Rise of Reflection:
Building a Better Blog - Blogging Newbies and Wordpress Users group

That’s quite a few! It’s one thing to be a member of them though and another to be an active participant. I’m not too bad, but there are improvements to be made.

I’m now working on interlinking archived posts at technoLOTE (Day 4). I don’t think I need to worry about that too much here on this blog yet as there aren’t that many posts, and I have already done it a few times. It will certainly be something I am wary of each time I write a new post from now on. My next task is to conduct an About Page audit and rewrite each one on each blog to make sure it says clearly who I am and what the blog is for. I’ll be asking for feedback on that!

Oh well, would you look at that. I’ve created myself a nice little ‘To Do’ list for the afternoon:

Sorry, can’t write anymore - things to do!

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Being Yourself for the Betterment of Your Blog

As part of my online identity crisis I have spent a bit of time lately (well, not over the past three days when the wiggly monster child was visiting) looking at my blogs, particularly technoLOTE and thinking about exactly what I want to use them for. I’ve also been in contact with Kate Olson who is a newbie blogger too. It’s great to have a partner in crime! I started chatting to Kate through Twitter and now we are going to work together on the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog challenge. I’ve been getting a lot of advice and help over the past week or so from Sue Waters. Her advice on being a more effective blogger has been great and she has been so supportive and willing to help. A huge thank you to Sue! I’ve also joined the Building a Better Blog ning network which I can already tell is an amazing resource of bloggers and blogging advice.

I’m really enjoying blogging and being part of the edublogging community. I love the potential blogging has in the classroom. Using blogs as a learning logs for students is one way I’m going to use it this year. Getting students to reflect on their learning (not just in my class) and them hopefully they will get comments and interaction from people all over the world who can help them out. That has been the most amazing thing for me. I ‘tweeted’ (sent a message in Twitter the other night asking for feedback on the blog theme I have at technoLOTE and then ended up in a gTalk conversation with @johnjohnston and later @kolson29 about blog themes and designs and both were more than willing to help. I was rapt about that and I hope I can bring some of the into my classroom for my students.

I’ve also been successful lately with getting more comments on my blog posts. I realised that, at techoLOTE anyway, I was probably writing a bit too formally, with too much instruction and not enough of myself. I wrote a couple of more personal posts and got some great comments back. I’ve learned that blogging is about putting yourself out there. There is no need to be an authority on things. People are more likely to comment, interact with and build conversation on and community around your blog if there is plenty of ‘you in it. So, that’s what I’m aiming more for now.

Anyway, Kate, Sarah and a few others have already started the 31 day challenge so I better get a wriggle on.

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