Blogging in the Classroom

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Comment by Richard Opie on November 30, 2009 at 8:12am

Thanks Anne - getting them to add reports to blogs is valuable. I use blogs for students to review their work and to assist others with suggestions. In both cases I use the 3.2.1. matrix.

Comment by Anne Mirtschin on November 30, 2009 at 5:47am

Here is an interesting site with 101 tips that will make your blog sizzle. Great for teachers, possibly students

Comment by Richard Opie on November 11, 2009 at 10:58am

I have to agree with Marie-Josee, many of my students see it as a chore, because from their perspective it is a chore. While it allows us to see their reviewing their own work and the work of others (I use the 3.2.1. device) it is not how they see the internet. They simply have to add a comment to the appropriate posting. They have yet to learn of its importance as a work tool. I will continue next year. I hope to have a hook up with some youngsters from Mauritius - some of my students have already posted greetings and their views on Australia to a blog where they have co-authorship rights with me. I have got this far.

Comment by Marie-Josee Mill on November 7, 2009 at 12:32pm

hello, I introduced blogging to my students (year 7 - 10) this year (LOTE and Humantities) mainly as a means to developing their ability to reflect on their learning and share their interests. As expected some took to it as ducks to water and for others it was considered a chore. For me it has meant the ability to provide a variety of resources and discussions for my classes to engage in. Successful? Well it is still a work in progress- I am planning for next year!

Comment by Carole Bird on August 29, 2009 at 7:16pm

Any suggestions about starting Grade 5s off in blogging? I'm ready to do it, but it will be a first for us all and I foresee chaos. What dos & don't should I be aware of?

Comment by Richard Opie on August 20, 2009 at 11:25am

Thanks, Anne. Much appreciate the suggestion, particularly in keeping my inbox free. I have never had so many since I started this Innovation project. Richard

Comment by Anne Mirtschin on August 19, 2009 at 10:46pm

@Ben Sheppard I love reading about your determination to succeed. I am just like you. Despite all the obstacles that often arise, I am determined to make this all work as I have witnessed so many wonderful outcomes for my students. Do you teach in the country or a city school?
I really like the fact that if one door shuts there is usually an alternative and I find blogging a great platform to be interactive. We cross blogged with Korean students. We had to use google translator to translate their posts as we have no knowledge of Korean.
Do you host your own wordpress blogs? I would love to do this. Ajax McKerrall uses a lot of plugins for his self hosted wordpress blogs and has put some wonderful features in them. Keep posting about what you are doing, as this is such a rich resource for those who have not experimented. Did you see the Japanese members that we have on this ning? I wonder whether you could use them in some way as well.

Comment by Anne Mirtschin on August 19, 2009 at 10:41pm

@RichardOpie If the students are older I like to get them to register with their own email addresses as this gives them ownership and pride in their work and I also give them a level of trust. As soon as they get their blog, get them to add you as an administrator (just like you added them as a contributor). If they are responsible they get the emails to moderate the comments that come their way. That keeps a lot of clutter out of your email box! Make sure that they have to moderate comments. A lot of spam bots are on the go at the moment.

Comment by Ben Sheppard on August 19, 2009 at 9:41pm

Hi all

I'm not really supposed to be blogging. I doing research for DEECD's KnowledgeBank: Next Gen project looking at web-conferencing. But that has yielded so little in the way of outcomes so far, that I thought I'd introduce my class to blogging as a way of recording our progress (or lack thereof).

Our idea was to conference with a Japanese high school and see if human movement (in this case martial arts) could be modelled via Skype: a kind of el cheapo exchange program. Well that proved to be impossible but posting videos on a blog opened up the possibility of a different kind of exchange, one that was not so time-critical. Slow-motion web conferencing, if you will.

Kendo 2.0

This is the first time I've been admin on a Wordpress blog and it's certainly got a lot of features! (The Google analytics data is insane!) Because we are never in a computer room, I have only the one blog and the kids create content which I post via my laptop. We then have group viewings where we look at any new comments or the little reds dots multiplying on the Clustermap! I'm hoping over the rest of the semester that we'll add a lot more content, and maybe also get some video exchange happening with other people around the world (the video comments feature on Edublogs is very exciting).

I also teach kendo to kids outside school and have two blogs for my club, so I was familiar with the basics. This really helped me to get the Kendo 2.0 blog up and running quickly. FWIW my other blogs are:

Dojo News

Shugo Nanseikan

The first is a noticeboard/newsletter. The latter is more in-depth 'articles' I have written for my students on kendo theory. However, and this is the beauty of web 2.0 I suppose, the articles have all been translated into Spanish by a subscriber in Ecuador, so the articles now have a life of their own floating around the Spanish-speaking internet! b

Comment by Richard Opie on August 19, 2009 at 8:34pm

Dear Anne
From reading this if kids set up their own blog, in globalstudent, using their gmail acc. they can make me an administrator just as easily as I can make them a contributor on mine!! Is there any advantage one over the other??

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