Do You Have a Class or School Blog?

When I first started blogging in 2006 I was teaching a Year 6 class. As part of my own learning process I ran a class blog too and started others across the school. We used Learnerblogs, which sadly is no more, but had some great experiences giving the class a real audience and purpose to their writing.

After Christmas I am going to get back to it with my current class and make a concerted effort to make blogging part of the curriculum we deliver and not a bolt on.

With lots of different platforms for class blogs and so many great examples I want to learn from you and hear your experiences. I hope your contributions will prove useful to everyone thinking of starting blogging at their school and provide an opportunity to find out about other class blogs around the world.

Please leave a comment:

Showcasing your class or school blog (don’t forget a link).
Explaining why you chose the platform you did (Blogger, Edublogs etc).
And what the most positive impact is (or anything else you want to say about it really!).

Similar Ideas

Blogging

This entry was posted by tombarrett on December 19, 2009 at 9:43 am, and is filed under Blogging, My class. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

http://twitter.com/pam_thompson pam_thompson

Hi Tom. I stared blogging with my class last year. This year I moved schools & decided to start up a new blog with this class. They have responded really well. I use edublogs & have taken out a subscription to get rid of the advertising and have more space for pics, movies etc. When students get their individual blogs they are already familiar with the setup of edublogs through using our class blog so therefore are very comfortable using it.

We use it for a variety of reasons – to share work with families, to give students a wider audience, to encourage them to reflect on events etc. We usually check the blog each morning and the kids love seeing new dots on the clustrmap. They are fascinated that people all over the world are interested in what they do. I also have an open blogging session at least one lunchtime a week so that students can add to their own blogs, check comments etc. There are a couple of other classes who have started blogs this year, but I'm not sure if they will continue in the new school year.

Our class blog is http://thompson67.edublogs.org
Julie

I started a blog about 4 years ago with my Prep class (5 year olds) – they would write a sentence in our 'reminder' book (authentic reason for writing) during the week as things came up and at the end of the week, and with their help, I would write the final post. We would also add pictures of class happenings. This enabled parents and extended family to share in what was happening in our class.
Now having moved to Yr 5 & 6 (11 & 12 yr olds) we started a 'senior school blog' where we mainly posted reminders for events, links to projects and homework as well as reports and photos of class events.

Unfortunately, the socio-economic area of our school means that not many homes have computers and even less have internet access, so the blogs basically shrivelled up and died
Pingback: How Do You Make School or Class Blogging Stick? | edte.ch
http://helenabutterfield.net/ Helena Butterfield

Hi Tom,
I started my blog about 3 years ago when I worked part-time to keep intouch with my Yr11 GCSE classes. I called it something ridiculous and changed it's name to Langwitch about 6 months later, as that's what it's about. Since then, I've used it in various ways-to share links with pupils, showcase their work, give news and encourage pupils to interact via it…anything to get them using, looking at and listening to French / German. This term Langwitch has had a bit of a re-birth with a new design and me being a lot more pro-active in promoting it with my classes and they really have responded well. It's fantastic to hear Year 7s telling me what they'd looked at on the blog at home…it can only help their language learning at the end of the day.
I use Typepad for my class blog. I know that it costs for an account but I like the fact that I can upload files easily and there's no advertising to worry about. The URL is http://langwitch.org
Helena (@langwitch)
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=201573 misterbremer

I use classblogmeister.com as my platform. http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id…
I deliver assignments, thoughts, musings and other things on my blog. My students are art students who post their photos in their own individual blogs as an online portfolio. You could click on the my classes links on the right to see student blogs–there are a variety of abilities in artwork and in writing, but most students have shown improvement through the semester.
I started using the blogmeister because it was one of the only unblocked and approved blog sites in my district. However, I like it because students can create their own content, but it all filters through me before it goes live on the blog. That way, all the content is monitored.
http://twitter.com/janellewilson Janelle Wilson

I have a class blog at http://www.mrswilsonscience.com. I use it to communicate what we do in class each day to parents, absent students, and as reminders to those who were in class. Students often leave comments to the blog, but that is the end of the interactivity (students don't write posts). I do hope to give them a platform to use at some point, maybe even during second semester.

I use wordpress as my CMS because of all of the plugins, ease of use, and ability to customize.

Students enjoy using it, and I find kids leaving my comments and talking about studying even at weekends, so that makes me happy
http://twitter.com/icklekid Claire Jones

Hi!
I started a class blog last year here: http://2cj.creativeblogs.net a wordpress blog because that was what I had had some experience of when I I was younger! @HGJohn then offered to host the blog when I was frustrated with non self-hosted limitations! This year I have got the whole school blogging here: http://southwarkprimary.net and my class is here: http://2cj.southwarkprimary.net

The reason I was passionate to take blogging to the whole school was for many different reasons but here is them in note form
1) The kids loved it! They loved having a word wide audience to share what they have been doing. How much more exciting is it to produce a video for the world than just for our class!
2) The parents loved it- being able to see and be a part of what they had been doing!
3) I loved it! I loved the excitement of children posting and leaving comments! I loved the record of what we have been doing over a day, week, month, term or year!

I would highly recommend anyone to have a go! It is easy, fun and powerful!
http://rippleeffect.edublogs.org/ Jaki Braidwood

I use Edublogs for our class blog and individual student blogs. I went with this platform because I could attach up to 30 student blogs being an Edublogs supporter and remove the ads from all of them. We joined the 2009 Blogging Challenge as well which is sponsored by Edublogs and facilitated by Sue Wyatt. The great support provided by Sue Waters during the challenge is quite a bonus.

Blogging has added tremendously to the feeling of community within my classroom. Kids connect on greater levels in more meaningful ways. I have learned so much from them through their blogging as have their peers.

Over a period of time, students earned their own blogs as well. Once an authentic audience was introduced, in three months alone their writing improved more than it ever would with paper and pen. They are willing to revise and edit several times over in an effort to take a piece of writing to published form. Their voice and style has naturally transformed from formula writing to writing for a “real” purpose.

Other tremendous benefits include the global connections and opportunities for investigating global perspectives. Blogging has provided a window into other classrooms around the world.

It has been an amazingly positive experience and the funny thing is I haven't heard one complaint from a student when I mention blogging. How cool is that?
johnsutton

I wonder why your children don't visit and use the blog, could it be that they can't interact with it? Why call it a blog, why not call it a website?
http://ithinksummerland.blogspot.com/ Claire Cheeseman

This is the first year that I feel our classroom blog has been a great success. we started by viewing other class blogs and seeing what they are and discussing commenting and what a blog does.
have been really pleased with ch'n 'wanting' to post on the blog and activiely commenting, although would like to see more parents comment on blog. loving that it is a diary of events from the year rather than just a publishing of work, although that is good too. ch'n really enjoyed the wider community aspect of the blog and that viewers came from all over the world. most exciting to get a comment from a teacher in USA on one of yearbook keynote posts too
love that more reluctant writers were keen to post about things they were interested in too
rock on to a bigger and better blog next year
http://ithinksummerland.blogspot.com/
robertdrummond

We have a whole school blog, hosted by edublogs. http://blogs.wled.org.uk/uphallps/ is the link to it. We decided as a school not to allow anyone to place comments onto the blog apart from the teachers themselves (i.e. not pupils not parents). We also do not have photos containing children from the school on it which means you have to be creative with the use of images on the blog. I'm currently in Primary 7A and here is a link to my classes page http://blogs.wled.org.uk/uphallps-p7/ Unfortunately many of the children in my class do not look at the blog nor our page within it.
I have also just begun a blog at http://robertdrummond.wordpress.com/ I love the ease of use of creating a blog and adding to it, although I am aware that I have a long way to go in it's design and features, I am having fun putting things onto it.
http://marielinder.wordpress.com/ Marie Linder

Still doesn't seem to work. Better use the ol' copy and paste trick…
http://montessoriskolan6-9.wikispaces.com/
http://montessoriskolan.wordpress.com/
http://marielinder.wordpress.com/ Marie Linder

I messed up the html. The links:
Virtual Exhibition
Montessoriskolans blogg
johnsutton

I've been blogging with lots of schools for about 5 years now and currently have about 20 primary schools with WordPress MU sites. I also use Typepad and Blogger, but find WordPress the most flexible. You are right to be a little wary of self host unless you have competent geeks on the staff. I guess I would say that, but I don't think any web service passes the sustainability test if it relies on a single individual. I'm proud to host many fantastic class blogs including @jacksloan's superb infant class at http://yeartwo.chorltonparkblogs.net , @raff31's school http://greenparkschool.org.uk and @icklekid's http://2cj.southwarkprimary.net . I am always willing to help any teacher wanting to get into blogging by providing them with a free class blog and advice.
http://msdayatphillips.blogspot.com/ Barbara Day

I use my class blog as an opportunity for the kids to write in response to a topic or question posted. It's a chance for them to see their writing on line, and for them to share it with their familites. This was my first venture into using technology in my classroom, so it's not nearly as sophisticated as the things others are doing.
tbarrett

Could you explain more on how you use Posterous and the process you have in class to publish?
http://yearsixale.blogspot.com/ Alejandra

I am a Language Arts teacher in grade 6 in Buenos Aires Argentina. I use a class blog with my students to enhance students' learning process as they post comments and reflections. In this way, they are developing communication skills beyond the classroom walls. This blog helps them reflect upon their opinions, feelings and interests. The blog also enabled those students who were apprehensive or timid in class to communicate in a better way and motivate them to write more.
I use Blogger as it is straightforward and easy to use. My blog is Creative Readers Writers and Thinkers (http://yearsixale.blogspot.com)
Thank you!
Alejandra
http://marielinder.wordpress.com/ Marie Linder

I have created a virtual exhibition of my students work this autumn using Wikispaces: [Montessoriskolan's Virtual Exhibition of Student's Work] . I have also created a blog using WordPress to exhibit their end of term projects. With hindsight I would have used a wiki for this instead of a blog, as one is then able to have more control over the publishing process. [Montessoriskolans blogg]

All in Swedish I'm afraid, but then there is always google translator…
http://johnjohnston.info/blog johnjohnston

Well I was leaving the school a hand knitted site, tied together with some fairly dodgy scripts and code;-)
Before I left I installed a easy use photo gallery as I had always experimented with different ways of producing these which were not easy for anyone else. I love pivot as a blogging system but though wordpress would be easier to maintain. I still help out on the back end (delighted to do so) but cut the number of blogs down to two. Some of he teachers were keen to keep the blog going but it faltered for a while, now picked up and looks a lot more organised than I ever was. No one wanted to keep up the podcast, but recently I was delighted when a couple of my original podcasters went back on work experience and made a podcast, I think they may have kick-started it again.
Leaving school and the, to me, precious website was quite hard, I am glad to have l kept in touch. I suspect self hosted mean a little extra support work for me but also acts as an encouragement to keep the site going.
http://mrmackenzie.co.uk/ Sinclair

Tom,
my classroom blog was intended to be used as a means of continuing learning conversations outside the classroom environment but it quickly turned into a resource centre for them instead. I use self-hosted WordPress – it's very flexible and the mix of blogging with static pages help me to target content for different year groups.
What has really taken off on the blog in the last year is the use of video created with just the SMARTBoard video recorder. I have been using the Podpress plugin to help with this although Feedburner is also capable of creating the enclosures for media files. I use Feedburner to create iTunes-ready feeds for 4 different categories of the blog. This is a serious bonus for secondary school blogging as it means you don't need to run a different site for each class, the WP categories will do the work for you.
Storage space is obviously an issue if you are going to put video on a blog. I have been using Vimeo and Wikispaces to serve up my content but have now bought a more “spacious” hosting account elsewhere and will be migrating the site over the Christmas holidays.
I'm sure that a Posterous site would do much of this as well, it seems such a good platform for handling media. I can't recommend Blogger or Edublogs though. I have have poor experiences with both providers.
http://kimmelfarmelem.blogspot.com/ Sam Walker

One of my “BIG 3 Goals” this year is to integrate blogging as part of the instructional routine at my new school. I was lucky enough to have been offered a job to help open a brand new school after spending over a year building a new mindset and trying to build connected classrooms at my former school.
Opening a new school completely equipped with Activ Boards and other technologies was a daunting task. Access is not an issue. Furthermore, I have a deep belief that blogging has power in every subject area and every grade level. While our class blogs are in their infancy, the staff embraced my vision for blogging and we now have 21 class blogs setup and slowly growing into powerful teaching and reflection tools. There are others who still want to start their blog so that number will grow. We only have around 25 regular classes this year.
My plan is to support and help our teachers at Kimmel Farm Elementary grow their blogs in the coming year and get a handle on just how powerful they can be to support not only writing, but also creative expression in any curricular area through digital media that STUDENTS and TEACHERS create. I'm so proud of the way they've embraced blogging. If you look at the blog list off our school's main blog http://kimmelfarmelem.blogspot.com you'll see they're made an investment in this tool. We used blogger because that's the product our district leaves unfiltered and recommends we implement. The biggest impact is that this is a way to showcase to parents and district leaders what we are doing, and more importantly the students are excited to comment and participate in the ongoing discussion. Later, we'll add blogging buddies – hopefully from around the globe.
tomgbarrett

More than ever before have I realised the power of self hosting
through changing my own blog, but I want to put something in place
which will easily stick. As I am leaving at Easter I would like the
process to be easy to continue with for anyone and of course something
I am not tied to. Maybe you could advise on this a bit more as you
have been in the same position.
http://johnjohnston.info/blog johnjohnston

Hi Tom,
I would be tempted to go for self hosted. At Sandaig we used pivot on a self hosted site. After I left I installed a couple of wordpress blogs, http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/otters which they are now using, easier to maintain than pivot.
Kids do not seem to have any problem using wordpress and more importantly teachers who had not blogs before find it easy.
I preferred pivot as it was easier than wordpress to completely customise but there are, as you know, a ton of ready made free themes for wp. The most positive effect of blogging for me has always bee a real audience giving a sense of responsibility and purpose. Your class will really benefit from what I'd guess was one of the biggest PKNs in the world.
I'd also be tempted by posterous especially if you are thinking about media; audio and video.
Currently I am testing an apple osx webserver which has the easiest to use audio/video podcasting built in but you need an OS X server for that.
tomgbarrett

Would you be able to explain a little more about the ways you use
Posterous? Such as the setup and organisation for a class and the
process you have in place to publish. Posterous is amazing, so simple,
but do you work with one email or multiple?
tomgbarrett

Thanks Oliver I am looking forward to it
http://chessaleeinlondon.wordpress.com/ nikita

Tom, I saw my comments appear twice, I wasn’t allowed to post the first one and was asked to “subscribed” which I declined, now it appears twice, if you could delete it for me, thanks!
http://chessaleeinlondon.wordpress.com/ nikita

Hi Tom
Blogger is much easier and user-friendlier than WordPress. I still have my old Blogger-blog and blog mainly now on my WP-blog as I’ve upgraded and can’t import the WP blog to Blogger. I still prefer to blog on Blogger. For Primary Kids Blogger will be easier, especially if they’re going to write too. Good luck and keep us posted about it!
ian Pratt

had a class blog for my year 8 science group, reviewed the key points of the lessons, added photos and video, for information, hoped parents could use it to see what the kids were doing. i loved doing it but it was not being used so i could not justify the time at an end of a busy year. have not continued this year but feel it was a real shame.
http://www.wildcatdrafting.com/ Jack Reece

I teach Architecture and Engineering drawing in grades 9-12 and I have used Joomla! CMS for a number of years for my class website. It has the assignments, worksheets, test, photos, etc.
I started using Blogger over a year ago as part of a class in my M.Ed. Instr. Tech. program. I like it because it is easy to use and links to everything Google. Our school system provides the teachers a blog on Typepad but it does not allow commenting. I piloted it for our school and found it did not meet my needs for a classroom web presence.
My Blog http://www.wildcatdrafting.blogspot.com focuses on the different technologies that we use in my classroom and how they relate to the design fields. It's not about the class and assignments per se, but more about our activities.
Last year I set up a wiki to provide a space for my student design teams to communicate with mentors about their projects. It worked OK, but required too much effort on my part to upload their drawings and images. This year I had the design teams create group blogs on Blogger. They had full responsibility for the design and layout of their blog. Some of them really tricked out their blog with widgets. Each team member had to make a post about their part of the project and then an end-of-semester reflection on the course as a whole. Personally, I feel the project was a success. However, getting people from outside the class to view and comment was difficult.
http://chessaleeinlondon.wordpress.com/ nikita

Hi Tom
Blogger is much easier and user-friendlier than WordPress. For Primary kids I would suggest Blogger – especially if they are going to add posts themselves too. I moved my blog to WP and I still prefer my old Blogger-blog. WP is a pain. Good luck with yours and keep us posting once you've started.
Fran Lo

Had a class blog last year at the end of last school year, set up to provide a threaded-discussion environment, with 8th grade English students. http://mrslo.edublogs.org/ Kids were very enthusiastic. Used an Edublog, but found the logistics overwhelming. Used the gmail workaround because students don't all have emails, but this was incredibly time-consuming – fine if you have 25 students, nuts if you have 100. Searched for alternatives, and now have students working on a moodle which is much more versatile (forum discussions, wiki, blogs, etc.) and logistics were much easier. It's not free, but ten bucks a month for hosting and support is very doable. Because it's a closed environment, I didn't have to create cryptic names. It's nice to focus on teaching, and not so much on trying to get the technology to work.
http://ififth.edublogs.org/ Karen Bosch

I began teaching fifth grade and started a class blog called iFifth – http://ififth.edublogs.org/ I use edublogs because it is the blog platform that IT will leave unblocked at school. Right now I do the posts, and the students leave comments. I use it to share our activities and interact with students
matthew mcdonald

I use posterous and it is quite simply the easiest blog site i have come across. http://www.mrmcdonald.posterous.com. Works very well and it is very clever.
http://janwebb21.edublogs.org/ Jan Webb

We have a uniservity learning platform and have occasionally used blogs – however, we've been using class podcasts for the just over 12 months now in the same way. 4 children are reporters at the beginning of the week, take notes on what we have been doing, an editor helps them check through towards the end of the week, sound technician from previous week shows a new sound technician how to use audacity to record and save as a wav file, then we upload to the class resources as RSS. We haven't done one in the last two weeks as we have been recording our Romans presentations to share with parents instead. After first few weeks of term, children take the full responsibility for it – apart from uploading, which we usually try to do togegther.

Basically same idea as blogging but an audio version – which means everyone can join in. http://clc2.uniservity.com/GroupHomepage.asp?Gr…

Looking forward to demos of maths methods using jing or Smart recorder or Easiteach recorder to share with parents using a video clip file next term – watch this space!

Don't really see much point in using another blog medium as we have it there on the learning platform…..
wizenedcrone

Only the smallest contribution because I only started blog last week. My specific immediate purpose is to help my Y11 French class prepare for their mock speaking exam. I presented it to the group and one boy said “Miss, this is brilliant. It means you can still be teaching us when you are at home!”. It's worth every moment I spend on it for that.
http://twitter.com/janelowe Jane Lowe

I have been blogging with my classes for two and a half years. Initially I started a blog so the students had an audience for their writing. It also gives the students the chance to let their families see their work throughout the year.
I chose Classblogmeister when I started because of Twitter connections and it has been working really well so I have continues to use it. Our school has several other classes that blog so it is also easy to move the students from one class to the next at the end of the year and let them still have all their posts from previous years.
You can find our blog at http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id…
Another reason we initially chose Classblogmeister was because the support network was strong, the set up and layout simple for both teachers and students to use. It also gave us the opportunity to have security at different levels for different classes. Some teachers have their class and student blogs password protected so only immediate family etc can read the blogs. On the other hand my class blog is there for the world to see and the connections we have made with teachers and classes around the world has led to some fantastic collaborative projects between classes and groups of classes.
I don't think the platform is all that important in itself – I think you just need to be comfortable with whatever platform you choose to use.
Apart from the fantastic connections we have made with classes around the world I have found that having an audience for their writing has meant that the students are keen to post on their blogs and love to receive and read comments. I have also spent time teaching students how to write effective comments.
My blog is also a diary of the class events which include photos and write-ups of class and school events.
oliverquinlan

My class blog is here: http://class40q.wordpress.com , and we have a blog for every class in our school which you can get to from http://www.robinhood.bham.sch.uk .

We use wordpress.com. I wasn't involved in the decision to use this, but it seems to be a good option for combining multiple blogs under one administrative umbrella, and allowing children in a class to have their own accounts to post to the same blog. It is also straightforward to embed media in the blogs. However, I'm not really sure of its benefits over other platforms as it is the only thing I have used to any degree.

So far our blog has been fantastic for giving children a real audience for the work, and has promoted discussion with students across our school and, with our recent edublog nomination, across the world. I am also working on developing it as a tool for the children to really develop their reflection on their learning, as documented here: http://oliverquinlan.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/b…

By the way, congratulations on your new job Tom!
http://digitalnativemrv.blogspot.com/ Sacha van Straten

Hi Tom,
At Berkhamsted we do a mix. I have a blog, so does the Principal. Our artist in residence has created one and other colleagues in MfL are starting to create blogs to use with our partner school in France. That'll be used by students.

In Media Studies all students use blogs as their evaluative tools and that's been a liberating experience. As one sixth former said to me last year, 'I've found my voice through blogging, and it's cool to see how each student finds something unique in themselves to share.'

It makes it easier for me to see how students have planned media projects, because they can include video, audio, production documents that we embed using issuu.com. All in all, it's revolutionised the way I assess and the way that students create.

At the moment we're playing with Google Sites and that gives us a powerful collaborative space, but the blog is something that the students can own as an individual learning space.

I'm planning to get my year 7 and 8 ICT students to start up blogs next year.

Regards,

Sacha
http://allanah.wikispaces.com/Possibilities Allanah King

I would always have a class blog for lots of reasons. Mainly as to share the things we do in the classroom and an avenue for communicating with parents and whanau (family). We also use it as a way for my 8 & 9 year olds to quickly access learning links to reinforce learning in the classroom. It is in its fifth year and is a significant body of work.

http://allanah.wikispaces.com/Possibilities

Above is a link to some of our blogging highlights.
http://retorta.net/ Mário Pires

My wife is a kindergarten teacher and she has started a blog 3 months ago on a self-hosted wordpress platform (i set it up for her):

http://anadominguez.org/blog

(twitter page in english)

We choose the self hosted because we like independence and it's easier for me to make changes to the wordpress platform (i am using it since 2003).
Her idea when creating the blog was to show to parents (and general public) the activities on the kindergarten class. In Portugal kindergarten teachers are not seen as real teachers, people think they only “entertain” children, and know nothing about their educational goals and strategies.
http://bit.ly/5PsduS Koen Elbers

In my school in The Netherlands, we work with free texts made by the children every week. One text is the Text of the Week. We use this text in our language lessons (grammar, lay out, illustrations, choice of words etc). This is all because of the principles of Célestin Freinet. We publish these texts on our website, so everyone can read them and is aware of what we do in our class/school/school community.
Not really a blog, but a way to show our work in combination with e.g. language objectives.
http://cunniman.wordpress.com/ cunniman

I started a couple of class blogs after the October break. The link below is for my S3 Information Systems class (13/14 year old pupils).

http://fhsint2is.wordpress.com/

You can read my thoughts on my class blogs here:

http://cunniman.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/class-…

In short, one pupil takes responsibility for the blog each night and writes a post describing the what they learnt in Information Systems that day. We then start the following lesson with a review of the blog post, making suggestions for improvement and identifying misconceptions. At the end of the year it should form a great revision tool for my pupils, written of course by themselves. I hope to have all my classes blogging in this way next year.

I used WordPress simply because I was familiar with it.
http://wyatt67.edublogs.org/ Miss W

G'day Tom.
I use Edublogs and have for the two years I have been blogging with my classes. I have also run a student blogging challenge three times over that period. This was to open my students to the world outside their small town here in Tasmania. We began with about 500 students the first time from 5 countries of the world including class and individual student blogs. The last challenge was 15 countries , nearly 100 classes and over 500 individual students registering. My students' world has widened.
atomikey

I set up a WordPress blog for our Grade 2 team hosted by WP. I am currently the only contributer. I am working with my team to have them slowly take over the posting by the end of the year. Currently I work with students to create content and then I post their words/pictures/projects. I do have grade 2 students use comments to write short personal reflections and give feedback to other students regarding their work. It is our main communication to parents and families. Parents are now starting to post comments as well now that students are going home and showing parents how. http://istgrade2.wordpress.com/
http://teachernz.edublogs.org/ Michael/@teachernz

My teacher role has changed recently and I'm feeling that our blog is a little neglected. http://glenview9.wordpress.com.

The blog (on blogger) started back in 2005, a successor to a class website (at a time when the school had no website). It was originally a place for ME to publish children's art/writing and to add info for parents about what we'd been learning in class, upcoming events etc., really a showcase for children's work. It's slowly evolved (now on wordpress) and I've relinquished a great deal of my control. Where possible (and it's still a problem with typing speed) children publish their own work, in class, via email or on our wiki. Sometimes the writing has been drafted/proofread/edited before posting, on other occasions it's almost like live blogging/writing. A student will complete a basic outline/first draft (usually a recount) and then the publishing of the post becomes the next stage in the writing. They edit and proofread as they go, and there's always the chance to go back later to “fix it up”.

Managing it in the classroom…? It's part of the literacy cycle really. Some children reading/writing with me – others completing independent supporting activities – others blogging, commenting on other blogs, responding to blog comments. I have three desktop computers that are used for blogging – each has a rota/roster above it with children's names and they simply move a peg along to keep track of whose turn it is. There's no pressure to contribute and there are still those who opt out (a problem I have to find a solution to). During other “freetime” during the day children will ask to complete their blogposts and, where possible, they do. There are safety and legal issues to consider when running a class blog- no use of names with images, no full names/contact details etc.

In class I have installed SRWare Iron (google it) and saved our blog dashboard as a favourite- complete with remembered password. The SRWare Iron desktop icon has been renamed as “class blog” and the children simply click on it to access. They have no password or access to edit or add to the blog outside of the classroom, though they can, and do, add writing to our wiki which I, or they, can then copy and paste into a new post. I find the blog a real motivator, counters and widgets show the numbers and locations of our visitors and each milestone (our next would be 50, 000 visitors) is marked by a class celebration.

Sadly, I'm moving to a new room next year and the blog is probably defunct. Unless…? Hmmm… our own domain?
heymilly

This sounds like a great idea. We sent home pieces of paper with the URL and explaining how to leave a comment. We also set up a little comment explaining how to leave a comment on the actual blog too. We had several parents reading the blog, but unfortunately not many commenting. I have high hopes to develop this more next year.. I would love to know what else you do that gets parents motivated to contribute to your blog.
heymilly

I originally started using Edublogs (Twenty2 – http://twenty2.edublogs.org) – I swapped this year to Blogger (Mega25 – http://room25eps.blogspot.com). I think Edublogs is an amazing setup, brilliant support and offers some really good options but for me it came down to the pricing i.e. Blogger being free. Our whole school decided that Blogger would be the platform that we would use, to keep some consistency between classes and students – year to year. I have found blogging to be an amazing opportunity for my students to connect with others and to gain a greater understanding of creating work for a real audience. It has given my students a huge confidence boost when they are receiving comments from around the world – much better than work remaining in closed books!! By the end of both years my students have been using the blog to post work created at school and at home – showing that their learning is continuing outside of school. This is a powerful message too. With using a clustrmap, it was great each week to recap on the blog and look at where in the World we were getting visitors from also! I will continue to blog with students and give them a portal for sharing their work and their individual ideas. I look forward to hearing about others experiences as well! Amanda
http://oakwoodlive.net/ Ian Taylor

Blogger is really straightforward – good integration with Picasa Web Albums for free picture hosting. Easy to upload video. Commenting system moderated. Individual year groups can have different IDs so you don't have to have several blogs for the school. Template easily customisable for “corporate” look.
http://sonningcommonprimary.co.uk/ Matt

This is my class blog: http://mrlovegrove.mlon.co.uk/. I've had it now for 3 years (2 years with my year 4 classes and 1 year with year 2 class). I chose to use a self-hosted installation of WordPress due to the flexibility this offered – I also wanted my own domain. Using self-hosted blogs/content management systems takes more time that signing up for a blog elsewhere, but it also you to do anything you want without being pinned down. Positive impacts: post websites/resources/games that I use in class on the blog for children to use at home (extends their learning), great for parents as they can see what we've been up to, allows a level of interaction between teachers and children in a public environment, teaches children about ways that they can use websites to interact.

I also made my school website using WordPress MU: http://sonningcommonprimary.co.uk/. Now every teacher in my school has become a blogger. Every year group has a sub-blog, as does our HT, the governors etc. This took a year or so for staff to feel comfortable with its use, but now people love it. So great for parents, as it gives them ways of seeing what their children are learning about. Children also use it to see photos of their trips/learning experiences and to leave comments.
http://bitsbobsandwaffles.blogspot.com/ Nicola Stables

I plan on using Blogger – for no other reason that my blog is with blogger and it seems very user friendly for Y3's. I shall set it up over the holiday and send a letter to parents when we go back asking for their help and permissions etc. I really want it to be their blog that they write on – not mine that just showcases their work. I would also love parents to contribute. I plan on having it as a private blog in that I add authors – all children and all parents in an ideal world. I'm going to initially do it alongside our big topic of WW2 – ie diaries for evacuees, Anne Frank etc…

Search Website
Tweets
tombarrett 21038 followers 25204 tweets
- Moving doorway http://t.co/pnEOY5uO 13 hours ago
- Patterns at Edgware road http://t.co/o7aNnryc 14 hours ago
- @mlparfitt No worries hope it helped have a good day15 hours ago
- Morning all - hope you had a good one - off to Wellington College to commence a project there15 hours ago
- @johndcotter Yeah love that Drive track too1 day ago
- Archives
- Calendar
- Recent Comments
- Tags
- Categories
April 2012 (1)

March 2012 (2)

February 2012 (1)

January 2012 (8)

December 2011 (3)

October 2011 (6)

September 2011 (2)

August 2011 (9)

July 2011 (12)

May 2011 (16)

April 2011 (1)

March 2011 (2)
« Nov
December 2009
Jan »
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31
K. J. How about the "Air Chalk" app I found? It lets me use the iPad and an projector as my blackboard. 1 day ago

betacdkeys betacdkeys... [...]BBC Dimensions: exploring the human scale of events and places in history | edte.ch[...]... 2 days ago

Google Docs resources « megustanpinguinos [...] 80+ Google Forms for the Classroom [...] 3 days ago

Apple & Educación » 50 recursos para iPad y educación [...] 20.) 20 great classroom iPad apps to add to your collection [...] 3 days ago

christophzimmermann [...] 20.) 20 great classroom iPad apps to add to your collection [...] 4 days ago
Show More
assessment Blogging classroom crowd-sourcing Curriculum data docs formative assessment Games Games Based Learning GBL Google googledocs Google Docs Google Earth Google Forms Google Maps GTAUK ideas Interesting Ways internet IWB Leadership learning Literacy Mapping maps Maths Maths Maps network Numeracy Photographs PLN podcast presentations Quikmaps school search Teachmeet TMBETT2010 Twitter Voicethread Wii Wiki writing
Android (2)

Animation (1)

Assessment (13)

australia (1)

Awards (1)

Blogging (65)

Conference (1)

Copyright (4)

Crowdsourcing (5)

Curriculum (29)

Data (4)

Design Thinking (3)

eBooks (1)

Featured (83)

Film (2)

Games Based Learning (18)

Google (51)

Google Docs (45)

Google Earth (49)

Health and Fitness (1)

Infographic (2)

INSET (11)

Interesting Ways (13)

iPads (4)

IWB (17)

Laptops (17)

Leadership (13)

Literacy (56)

Mapping (37)

Maths (32)

My class (103)

Myst (2)

networks (19)

Newsletter (3)

NoTosh (4)

Philips (3)

Productivity (1)

Purpos/ed (3)

QR (3)

research (1)

School Design (2)

Science (14)

Shared Search (2)

SMART Table (9)

SMARTboards (26)

Social Media (3)

Superheroes (4)

Surveys (1)

Teachmeet (21)

TED (2)

Twitter (34)

Uncategorized (55)

Voicethread (23)

Wii (12)

WISE (7)
Google +
Travels

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Do You Have a Class or School Blog?

Similar Ideas

Tweets

December 2009

Google +

Travels