Using it.
July 2, 2009 by Helena Kadmos
Okay - so now I’m starting to get a few ideas about how I might be able to apply what I’m learning about blogs to my teaching. I want to set up a class blog, so that discussions around what we are learning can be continued throughout the week - added to and developed by the kids. I’ve realized that I still know so little, like how to set up a blog that’s not connected to Murdoch. Does the blog have to have an ‘owner’. How does a group ‘own’ a blog? I think this could be a great literacy tool, as well as empower the group to develop discussions and contribute and feed off eachother’s ideas. The beauty is in being able to send individuals or pairs to the computer at a time. This will allow those kids who really love to share their ideas the chance to do so without necessarily occupying the whole class’ learning time (because there are always some kids who just can’t get enough ‘airspace’).
You might want to check out Edublogs , Helena. They use the same blogging platform that we use, WordpressMU. There are around 300 thousand blogs from teachers and students there.
Here is their list of 10 ways to use your edublog to teach .
They make there money by charging a small fee for things like “class sets” of blogs, where the teacher gets to administer the blogs for the kids and only kids in that network can see each others’ blogs.
I’m not endorsing or advertising it in any way, just thought you’d find the site interesting. There is also Wordpress.com and Blogger to create free blogs.
[...] is musing about whether blogs can be used with a school class, Using it . Keiren is sharing what she is doing with her time during the break, ke’s [...]
Sounds like a great idea. By owned, do you mean how a blog is moderated or overseen? Maybe with older children, part of the process could be coming up with the ground rules as a group?
Thanks all for your comments and suggestions. By ‘own’ it - I mean can only one person log in and administrate the site. i agree, however, that the group would formulate rules around using it.