Joe is launching his inaugural MT Web log and I have to say I’m liking the look. Bold. Creative. Fun. Isn’t that what this should all be about. You go, Joe.
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Brent Simmons, the creator of NetNewsWire (which I can’t use since it’s a Mac only app) talks about the need to make writing to the Web easier in an interview at WriteTheWeb (which looks to be going through a relaunch.) About the ease of use issue, he says:

I put up my first website in late 1994, and it’s almost ten years later, and I’m utterly surprised that we’re still working on getting people writing for the web. Part of it may just be education, letting people know that hey, it’s okay to write for the web, it’s fun, it’s not hard, you won’t get struck by lightning.

But maybe it still is too difficult… Check out the weblog preferences in NetNewsWire Pro. It asks for a bunch of settings. Ideally it should just ask you where your website is — that should be all it takes. We’re not there yet, but with things like RSD we’re getting closer.

And maybe it’s not just the settings that make it difficult. You have to get a website first, after all. And then you have to figure out how the browser or your weblog editor works.

Ideally writing for the web should be about as easy as writing something in TextEdit. Create it, write it, save it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Create it, write it, save it. Sounds like a plan. After spending the last few days setting up and tweaking student Web logs, I have to say two things: a) As I have gotten more and more used to Manila, it’s gotten easier for my kids to correctly get through the create it part. But, b) it’s still too hard. I spent a full 88-minute block on it. It should take 8 minutes. I know that Pat sees greener pastures just around the corner. I’ll be patient. I’m going to try to stick to the first part of the pull quote above, the it’s ok to write to the Web part. It is fun. It isn’t really that hard, and none of us has been struck by lightning…yet.
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My kids got all their Web logs set up yesterday, and this morning I aggregated them all into one space using the web-based news reader at server.com. I had to go that route because for now, at least, I need to be able to access that aggregation page from a number of different computers. If and when I get a laptop that I can plug into the network here and use at home, I’ll probably switch to Radio to do it. (If anyone has any ideas about a better way to do this, let me know!) I still haven’t gotten a clear answer as to whether this is possible in Manila, and whether or not that comment back feature could be included as well.

Good news is now I don’t have to click through 22 different sites to see what they are up to. Also, their sites are linked right from the post, so if I do want to comment on their work, it’s only one click away. And, it doesn’t seem to mind the character stuff that sometimes messes up the xml feed. Still not sure about how often the feeds are updated, whether or not links will come through (though I would assume so), whether or not pics will work, and other minor points like that. I have a feeling that this won’t be the ultimate solution, but for now I’m psyched to have taken another small step.

Kind of ironic that Pat is talking themes today because I need some help. My new and possibly last section of journalism starts Wednesday and I want to make sure I’m able to take my Web log use one step further. To do so, however, I need some answers regarding template creation.

If I create a student template, what exactly can I “save” in it? Can I predefine departments? Can I also precreate links to sort those departments in Prefs/advanced/navigation? If I use include macros, can I call a story from someplace other than in that template? (For instance, say I want each student’s Web log to have a list of relevant links that I update…is there a way that I can call the content from a story I have saved in THIS template? In other words, I want to be able to update the links on all their sites by just updating one post.) I think David said there was a way to do this…

Also, I’m thinking about how best to aggregate all of their Web logs into one place. I linked to this page a couple of days ago that talks about not only being able to aggregate but to post back as well. That’s a major time saver as well. Is that only a Radio feature or can I do it in Manila as well?

If I could do those things, create a template that has much of the relevant stuff already set up, and read and respond to all student Web logs from one place, I would a) have taken the next step, and b) simplified my life by a great deal.

Anyone help me here? Chat time???

Interesting piece by JD Lasica (who has a Manila Web log) via Dan Gillmor (Who switched his Web log from Manila to MT…hmm…) From a journalism teacher standpoint, and from a edublogger, RSS changes so much. The Christian Science Monitor puts it’s entire paper on RSS, and there are many more newspapers starting to follow their lead. And then, take a look at what RSS 2.0 can do. Jenny is getting a grant to dive into the implications for library use, and I just see this as a critical aspect of any classroom use down the road. On Wednesday when my new semester begins, I’m going to start aggregating all of my j students Manila Web logs instead of clicking through 25 of them. Is it weird that this excites me???
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Ok…Manila problem that for some reason I can’t figger out…any help would be appreciated. In the Web logs that I set up for this other teacher, his students want to go in and edit their original news posts, but they are not getting the “Edit” button option. Shouldn’t contributing editors be able to do so? The description says: “Contributing editors can write and edit stories and pictures and take part in the discussion group.” Or doesn’t that include news items? Only MEs can edit news items???

I’ve been approached by our librarian to set up a Web log that allows students to post reviews of books they have read. Easy enough, as long as I think through the access/permissions issue carefully enough. What that leads me to think about is that Multi-Author Weblog Tool that allows for several Web logs to be fed to one. Sounds like that would be an easy way for a teacher and a class to view/aggregate all individual content in one place. But here’s the question…is that a Radio only app or can that be tweaked for Manila?

I’m kind of resisting this next round of research…Joe and Pam are off into MoveableType. Maybe I’ll just wait and see what they say. But it looks like some playing with Radio is going to have to take place. So I downloaded the trial, but I can’t get past the It Worked! page. Anyone want to hold my hand???

No wonder she’s got the scoop on everything going on out there. Now where in god’s name does she find the time to read all of that stuff! Yikes!
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I like this little app and will keep in installed for at least a little bit to play and think. I like the ease of it, and I already really like the community feel it adds here. Great for feedback, but as Pat says on his Tag Board, it’s probably not great for chat. Why is it my brain keeps gravitating to the potential of abuse? Too many years with adolescents, perhaps??? Still, for this purpose, easy, clean, nice.
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A site that looks like it has some interesting ideas on infusing Tablets into the classroom. Still waiting for mine…sniff.

And, via a link, a Tablet sales guy makes the pitch. Sounds good to me.
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Here we go…very cool concept using, guess what…Manila (check out the yearbook link). Note the high school site and the news site: “Who maintains this site? Volunteer editors. Each dynamic site is constructed and maintained by one or more editors. Look in the about area of each site to find the names of the editors.” AND “Why are we using a content management system? It requires far less technical knowledge to publish a good looking site. The value of our network will grow as more and more people use it. Publishing is a simple way to start the ball rolling.”

Definitely an addition to the rolls!

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Links to the Berkeley Intellectual Property Web log that is the fruit of a graduate journalism class at UCB and went live last week. Two notes…first, in the past few days I’ve been hitting more and more Web logs powered by Moveable Type. I must say I like the easy feel of the sites, and they offer some interesting features that Manila doesn’t. I’m not sure if MT would be a more suitable classroom answer, but it seems like it does most of what I use Manila from. Might be something to look into (just for fun!) Kind of goes back to that discussion we had long ago about a CMS just for the classroom. How much would the Manila creators be willing to implement some education specific ideas, I wonder? (BTW, the UCB class’s criteria for a CMS are here.)

The other comment has to do with the class. I think it’s pretty cool that the students were assigned “beats” to cover. To quote: “That was designed both to divide up responsibilities for coverage among ourselves, and also give the public a better sense of the scope of the Weblog. The beats were reflected in the Weblog itself, offering people the options of reading the general postings in the main section, or going quickly to a subtopic of intellectual property they were particularly interested in. The beat structure also provided us with a logical place to post the topical stories the students were writing.” Pretty close to what I was thinking, but articulated and carried through much more effectively, of course.

Their thinking about editing was equally interesting. “Weblogs, by their nature, invite postings that are informal and instantaneous. But their value to readers lies largely in comments that are well written and thoughtful. For journalists this tension is even more acute. Weblogs allow the opportunity to avoid some of the constraints of journalistic conventions and engage in a more personal dialog with readers. But other core journalistic values, like accuracy and clarity, must be retained. Many journalism Weblogs address this via different approaches to the question of whether and how postings should be subjected to the traditional journalistic editing process. In an attempt to balance these competing concerns, we decided that in almost all cases, postings would be reviewed by one other student or instructor in the class before being put on the Weblog. But in extreme cases where a posting is very time sensitive and of crucial importance to our readers, it could be posted to the Weblog without an editor’s review. However, that posting would be reviewed by someone in the class after the fact.”

Some very thought provoking stuff. I love the idea of Web log as beat compiler concept. Makes me think I should have set up my media kids Web logs the same way, although I’m sure it’s more manageable with eight students than with 24. But that really is the concept that I’m after…disparate, specific research shared in the same space and moderated by student editors. Very cool.
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This is one reason Manila/Frontier scares me:

Can’t figure out why my XML button can’t generate clean rss code, so I get some help from David who well-meaningly (is that word?) turns me on to a little tool called Tidy that is supposed to clean up the code and make it work ok. Takes about five e-mails back and forth before my slow on server issues brain figures out what to do with the files and my server guy puts them where they are supposed to be. Then? All of a sudden, I can’t edit posts. My students can’t even get to the edit box in their posts. Things seem to be breaking right and left, and since it’s the last week of class and my kids would be up it without a paddle if their Web logs went down, I decide to punt. Tell Ed the server guy to reload everything off the backup tapes from last night even though it means I’m gonna lose a couple hours of responses that I wrote to kids this morning. Thank goodness, it’s now fixed.

Both Ed the server guy and I walk on tippy toes when it comes to Frontier. The gems issue from a few months back really scared us…so much so that he backs up the whole shebang every night now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great when it’s working, and it’s working 99% of the time, but it does make it difficult to try new things with it.

The kicker is that I just went in and edited the posts that were kicking out the rss feed and now it looks ok. And I even made it work with Amphetadesk, which I am playing around with in terms of setting up feeds from my kids Web logs. But does anyone know how to limit the number of posts Amphetadesk shows? Small steps.

The newspaper site is just about ready…thanks in great part to Seb. It’s been very cool actually working on a project collaboratively with someone. We’ve come to the finishing touches pretty quickly, and now I’m getting anxious to start using it.

I don’t want to duplicate what the school paper is doing, so I’m going to have them focus on making editorial decisions about outside stories to link in the Web log with some annotation. At some point, they will also be contributing original writing…at least one story each. I want to try to simulate as much as I can the workings of a real news room for at least a couple of weeks and see what happens.

Here’s the plan as it stands right now. I have 23 students, six sections. I’m thinking six groups of four (one will have three students). Each day, the group has to come up with four potential news items to post to their sections. They’ll post these individual ideas in their own weblogs and write about their decisions. Ideally, they will then work as a team to decide on only one which will actually get posted. They’ll briefly summarize their selection process each day in their personal weblogs. Once each group makes its selection, a rotating group of editors will decide which of those six stories will be given the “Top Story” status. I’ll sit in on those discussions…while trying to figure out how to assess all of this!

In the meantime, they will be working on their own personal, school-related stories which they will post at some point. We’ll also have some mini-lessons on digital photography, and at some point each person will post an original photo.

So here I go again, flying into a cloud, hoping to come out right side up…
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Just installed the metaData and Filer plug-ins that have recently been suggested. Filer looks like a nice substitute for gems (anything to get around that problem) and was suggested by Sebastian who is busy at work on my Newspaper site with a little help, it seems, from David. (When I told my students that I was working with someone from Germany on getting this going they were full of questions and interest. I love the Internet.) The metaData stuff looks way beyond me at this point, but it’s nice to have goals. (And Sam has signed on for the trip…anyone else interested in starting a Metadata newbies weblog?)

We’ll see.
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Has anyone seen or used this? Looks a bit over my head as usual.

Pat notes that Frontier 9 has been released, and it looks like there are some new options for Manila that I’m gonna need to learn. I have to say that so far my students seem to be taking to it pretty well. But here are just a few things for the Wish List:

An easier way to create links to departments. (You can see by my instructions here that there’s gotta be an easier way.)

A way to move posts around in a collaborative weblog. My Lit kids are adding the content, but they’re not necessarily doing it in the correct order. It occurs to me now that one solution may be to not have them post to the home page and instead leave their posts “pending” until those who were supposed to go before them have posted. Then I can send them to the page.

An easier way to link stories…I’m not having my journalism students use stories because the extra step they have to go through. I need to think more about this too.

Karen is thinking this stuff through too, which makes me feel a little better. She’s talking about doing weekly wrapups, a la Barbara. I think at some point, I will do that too with my journalism kids, maybe post links to Best Practices from within their own weblogs. One of the reasons I wanted to do this was to facilitate the “learning from one another” process…I just have to make sure they get to see the good stuff.
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Pretty good overview, but he doesn’t even consider Manila (though he might after the comments he’s getting.) Even better than the article is the post by Dan Mitchell of DeAnza College (linked here in Best Practices). An excerpt:

This particular class (a GE music course) make extensive use of collaborative learning methods, primarily by putting students into small work groups to complete projects which then became the basis of assignments completed by the entire classs.

Each group had its own Manila site which they used for discussing and preparing group assignments. They also used set up threads and stories to help coordinate their schedules for completing assignments.

When the groups finished their individual work one member from each group posted their assignment on another central class Manila site that was accessible to all students in the class. This posting consisted of a number of questions on topics that the individual groups had focused on. The class then used the same discussion threads to answer the questions. Then the original groups returned to comment on the answers posted by the class and, finally, I posted some wrap-up commentary on each thread.

This is going to help me clarify my own ideas for using Manila with my journalists. (Via Kairos.)
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Don’t know what happened, but when I tried to edit my post from yesterday, the WYSIWYG editor totally messed it up, and after I fixed it, it wouldn’t repost. (Notice the blank space under Tuesday below.)I have to say that I am liking Manila more and more as I get used to it, but that funky editor is going to be a MAJOR problem if I want to reduce the code that students and teachers have to use in my templates. Very frustrating.
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I’ve been working on a weblog template to use with teachers in the professional portfolio program. Anyone want to give me some feedback? More…
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A very complete look at the different packages out there and what they are good for.
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