We learn best by doing. Perhaps one of the easiest and best ways to begin your journey learning about blogging is to set up your own personal blog and just get started. You can do this for free! If you are completely new to the whole blogging concept but want to dive right in and create your first blog, this workshop is a great place to start. In this hands-on workshop Dr. Tyson will take participants step-by-step through setting up a free blog at Blogger.com. He will then introduce workshop attendees to many of the various features of blogging at Blogger.com. Since these features are typical to most blogging systems, the knowledge you learn from this experience will easily transfer to most systems when you decide it's time to "move up." At the end of the workshop, attendees will be provided with additional resources made available for those educators who, at some point in the future, decide they really enjoy the ease of this technology, see the value of using it, and are interested in setting up a blog for their classes.

While not required, the presentation, Putting Your Classroom "On the Grid," is an excellent session to have experienced prior to participating in this workshop as it provides scaffolding that will help participants in the workshop understand blogging in a more meaningful and comprehensive context.

While at Mabry Middle School, Dr. Tyson was one of the very first principals in the United States to leverage podcasting as a significant vehicle for school-wide communication and classroom learning. Learn podcasting from one of the school podcasting pioneers. This workshop is an excellent first introduction to actually making a podcast episode. Dr. Tyson takes participants step-by-step through making their first podcast episode. Depending on the hardware available for this workshop in your school setting, participants will either make an audio-only mp3 podcast episode (Windows) or an enhanced podcast episode (Macs). Depending on the time available, online podcast creation tools will also be explored.

While not required, the presentation, All Things Podcasting, is an excellent session to have experienced prior to participating in this workshop as it provides scaffolding that will help participants in the workshop understand the process in a more meaningful and comprehensive context. As this is an introductory workshop, creating an RSS feed is not covered.

Minimum time required for this session: 90 minutes
This workshop has software and hardware requirements.