In a follow up to my previous post about examples of school and class blogs and the motivations behind using different platforms, I want to find out more from you all.
I have had experience of using blogging as I previously mentioned, but admittedly it didn’t stick. I moved year groups and never carried it on as part of my everyday practice. Other classes that had great experiences for a year also never returned to it, the blogs languished and became redundant.
There has been an amazing response in the previous post (over 40 great examples of class blogs with equally valuable advice and suggestions) and a good deal of reference to the whole school approach or to year on year development. As well as the motivations behind it all – can you help again?
Please leave a comment with your thoughts about:
- How you make blogging part of your classroom’s everyday routine?
- What is the key to whole school take-up? Leadership? Good training?
- How you measure if your school or class blog is a success? Do you need to?
- How you make class blogging stick in an already busy environment?
If the goal is to communicate daily activities for parents/absent students, have students take turns typing in the info, including important questions/answers from the class. One student per day, for a grade, which gives them a newfound purpose for listening in class.
If the goal is to increase student writing on student blogs, get into the labs, let them choose a topic they are interested in and want to learn more about as well as teach others about, and insert http://www.ClusterMaps.com into their individual blogs so they feel the presence of a global audience.
If the goal is to communicate daily activities for parents/absent students, have students take turns typing in the info, including important questions/answers from the class. One student per day, for a grade, which gives them a newfound purpose for listening in class.
If the goal is to increase student writing on student blogs, get into the labs, let them choose a topic they are interested in and want to learn more about as well as teach others about, and insert http://www.ClusterMaps.com into their individual blogs so they feel the presence of a global audience.
Hmm that sounds interesting Tom
Tom,
To make my class blog (http://yearsixale.blogspot.com) stick is a question of being enthused with the idea of having a blog with my students. I need to keep it going and transmit this entusiasm to them by showing them some of the comments that other stduents have wriiten, by relating it to the curricula in an appealing way and using visual aids and by making some of the posts compulsory. I include a post on a daily basis but whenever I'm not able to do so, my students claim the fact that I haven't included any new post. This shows their enthusiasm and eagerness to keep on blogging. I always tell them who my “keen bloggers” are and they love it!
They also love the idea of having other students or teachers from abroad leaving comments in our class blog as they realize that they have another audience different from their own school friends.
Thank you
Alejandra from Buenos Aires
After a while in the wilderness (the teacher and the blog) I have really pushed for the use of blogs in the school. However, an in-service day and lots of offers of support has only resulted in 4 teachers and classes really taking ownership of the blog. All web links and documents are shared through Glow these days. My own class blog is used simply to share and publish lessons, trips, photos, artwork, videos etc. A different team table each week has responsibility for organising and writing the blog post. The class blog is a success so far because they really value it and get excited when it is their turn to contribute. It is also an excellent way of sharing learning and the fun of the classroom with the parents and other staff. But you must be committed to it. One of the P7 teachers organises her class to email contributions for the blog through Glow, which is a brilliant idea. I am still desperately trying to get the other teachers in the school and the management especially just to comment on the blog. I use blogger and set it up so that all they needed to do was to send an email from their email account and that would automatically publish as the blog post. The staff use email everyday and I thought they would be less inhibited publishing to the blog that way. But so far (not) so good! Also, Glow mail does a funny thing of reformatting text which makes it look very ugly when it arrives on the blog. Nevermind, I will keep pushing it in the new year. I think it is fantastic for teaching younger kids the responsibilities of publishing to the web, celebrating class achievements and learning and of course the not always so simple act of writing with/for a purpose. http://www.p6den.blogspot.com/
I have to admit to having had that initial reaction about blogging. As such, we didn't get going on this sort of work until we began podcasting. Blogging is more about putting an idea out there and accepting ownership for it. Wikis have definite strengths for co-construction and collaboration, but blogging could be used more as a personal revision guide – linked with a wiki for discussion/comment elements? – I'm with Tom on this- recording audio and putting on i-pods for revision is enormously powerful! Good luck with it.
I think that if the decision to start a blog is not clear enough than
it isn't something to pursue. It is more likely to run into
sustainability issues. You are right to question the use of a wiki
over a blog for your situation.
Although, as other comments have pointed out, creating and publishing
a podcast is blogging. Perhaps a revision podcast for different
subjects, made by different groups of your class, uploaded to iTunes
and then it can be used on their iPods or phones. Just a thought.
This is all awesome reading re blogs Tom and all the commentators but as a teacher of ICT who wants to bring blogging in to top set students who have finished the ICT course and will be using their lesson time to use ICT resources for creating revision materials for their other courses, I cant see blogging taking off. I don't think they will see the point or there will be other resources that will do the job better eg a wiki. What do you think?
Definitely pupil ownership! (if you'll consider the podcasting we do as blogging – it performs the same function) It's amazing how suddenly 8/9 year olds start taking a leadership role and organising their peers to do it (not to mention chasing them up if they aren't pulling their weight!) Shared ideas, too – we often have a large piece of paper stuck on the wall at the back of the classroom for suggestions – those who put something on there then check up on the weekly podcast to make sure it has been included.
Definitely pupil ownership! (if you'll consider the podcasting we do as blogging – it performs the same function) It's amazing how suddenly 8/9 year olds start taking a leadership role and organising their peers to do it (not to mention chasing them up if they aren't pulling their weight!) Shared ideas, too – we often have a large piece of paper stuck on the wall at the back of the classroom for suggestions – those who put something on there then check up on the weekly podcast to make sure it has been included.
Like you, Tom, I set up my first class blog in 2006 and still remember the joy of that first post http://carronshore.blogspot.com/2006/09/welcome…
There was great enthusiasm from the children. Blogger was blocked by LA soon after, so we switched to edublogs (unfortunately the adverts and lack of space have stopped us from recommending edublogs to others here. Recently we've been using http://primaryblogger.co.uk/ for new class blogs).
After the initial enthusiasm from the children in my class, their motivation began to dwindle. They started to see the class blog as mine. Eventually I found a way of (safely?) giving the children their own online space. At first they had a page in the class wiki, and eventually they had their own individual blogs.
I spent some time researching the effect this had on the classroom environment and wrote it up as a case study for my masters degree. It’s online, if anyone is interested http://www.scribd.com/doc/13678604/Dissertation
I was given a year 9 'Web Publishing' class this year and was faced with the prospect of running the course which involved months of creating websites using Dreamweaver. So, I changed the title to Web 2.0 Publishing, created a set of linked class blogs through Edublogs Campus and used these as a platform for my 'digital natives' (??) to complete tasks, communicate with each other and express themselves. The goal was for them to understand the many possibilities and considerations this very real and instant type of web publishing held. My class of 15 year olds mostly had no idea what Web 2.0 was and what tools were available to them to incorporate into their blog. They started to appreciate it at different paces, by I would say by the end of 6 months, most were engaged with the process. The course involved topics such as creating avatars, citizen journalism, social bookmarking, learning about commenting and full admin access for each of them to personalise their blogs. We attempted to enter the Edublogs student challenge, but as I was away for five weeks, this was not followed through as I had expected. The blogs remain active now the class is finished, and I am hoping some will keep contributing or return to blogging in the future. The main competitor for students' blogging time of course is Facebook or MySpace…… Here is an example of one of my student blogs http://meganshs09.globalstudent.org.au/
To make blogging stick I have tried pretty much given own ownership to the students- it is our blog, not mine. Most mornings it goes up on the big screen and we read through the previous day's comments and feedback and decide what we are going to post about.
We add new content most days so it is always changing- why would you re-visit content that doesn't change at all?
Comments and the view counter and clustrmaps are very precious for us as it shows us that people are reading our posts and motivates to keep up the good work.
It is our window to the world and a we use it every day.
Tom, for what it's worth:
1. I made my Year 10's do their homework on Posterous-powered blogs last year (http://mrbelshaw.posterous.com)
2. The key to whole-school take-up is *interest* and *enthusiasm*.
3. 'Success' means different things to different people. Explain to students why they're doing it – can't just be for comments, etc. as they will get disheartened if not many. Must be for themselves too.
4. To make blogging 'stick' it has to become a habit. There have to be contact points, deadlines, carrots, and the occasional stick.