Blogs 4 Schools

I have recently read an article in Junior education magazine about blogs in schools. It came up with some interesting points, below I have reflected on what I have read….

Potentially blogging in school could be a massive success…if it is approached in the right way and monitored. The audience for the children could be huge too. Other schools could be involved, children could produce blogs on recent books they have read, whether with their class or individually and could use the blog to recommend books to other children in other schools. Using one regularly could give children responsibility; perhaps on a weekly basis a different group could be in charge of the postings. It gives a point, a meaning, a reason to writing and practising computer skills and competency; it makes it real and relevant.

The ability to arrange and re-arrange the lay out of the page, or the blog itself allows the children to organise their thoughts, combined with the use of pictures, links, graphs etc. It can be a great motivational tool, for example the first 5 children to correctly complete the worksheet can do today’s blog. But most importantly it gives children a voice, and it is out there for those who are willing to listen (read!).

The children have to come up with snappy titles for each entry and a blog name. In setting up the blog you (as the teacher) can have complete control and can check and edit the children’s work. It can be a great way to make contact with other schools and together crack the World Wide Web. You can inform parents of the going’s on in the classroom…once set up and running the children can check it when home, parents at the office etc.

With power, comes great responsibility. This can allow you to talk to the children about Internet safety, about silly comments that may be damaging to others self-esteem and how this is not the place for those comments. However this can be controlled as all comments can be emailed to the teacher before they are posted.

As the children should not be identifying themselves they could create pseudonyms, perhaps pretend they are spies and so assume a role, the class could create blogging rules, keeping blogging safe and fun.

Two schools are mentioned in the article as having successfully set up a class/school blog, check out their blogs, see how it is really working in schools today: Hope CE Primary School and Sandaig Primary School Having looked at these blogs I am so impressed at the standard even a year 2 class is achieving. It puts ours to shame!

Ten ideas the article suggests for happy fun classroom blogging:

· Diary of a science experiment
· Artwork Gallery
· List of links, good websites and other blogs
· Work of the day/week/month
· Homework challenges
· On going class novel
· Poem anthology
· Plan of the week’s lessons
· Share any resources by parents, children and teachers
· Menu for the week