school websites March 16, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : meta-blog , trackbackA lot of school websites are started up in a fit of enthusiasm by one member of staff donating hours and hours of their spare time to the project. The trouble is, that person can easily find they’ve created a bigger maintenance burden than they can handle. Or they leave. So looking around the web we can find plenty of primary school websites which proudly announce themseves to the world but on closer inspection are sadly out of date, and mine is no exception. 
So I’m wondering whether the blog format wouldn’t be a much better one to use as the main site, with the old site serving more as an archive. I have a meeting tomorrow where this idea will be aired amongst other things, so if it’s time has come then developments might start happening soon. Imagine a school site where many people contribute news, notifying dates, reporting events, discussing issues and genuinely communicating with the local community. The method must be to make it as easy as possible to publish, so that busy people will consider the reward worth the effort. There’s also the factor of having to take a risk with allowing feedback which may of course be critical. I’m going to take a look around now and see if any other primary schools have taken this approach yet. Apart from the whole school thing, it may also be appropriate for an individual class to experiment with publishing their own blog, that’s something which one or two teachers might want to pioneer, once they get the vision. Possible topic for an INSET perhaps.
Excerpt from schoolblogs below:
What are SchoolBlogs?
Weblogs are fully functional web-sites that are updated directly in the internet browser. Their emergence as a component in the two-way flow of information on the web has opened up exciting new avenues for the educational community. SchoolBlogs are weblogs for education.
Often dismissed as merely ‘vanity’ websites, critics slate their simplicity. Yet it is precisely these two factors that are the keys to their potential. Children are vain, just like adults. They desire and require an audience for their thoughts and achievements. Every teaching college in the world extols the virtues of providing students with an audience.
The simple intuitive nature of SchoolBlogs is precisely what is required to allow students to express themselves on their own terms. Children’s involvement with web-sites has to more than a posting of a few pieces of their work on a third person’s static web-site for a non-existent world to see. There is no ownership in that. SchoolBlogs can give children their own soapbox, their own voice. They become habitual writers. They are in control.
Related posts:
- School Blogs
- School Website Proposal
- many-2-many comment re wikipedia
- School Blogging
- School Of Everything
4 Comments
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is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
I showed the SchoolBlog site to our ITC co-ordinator & he is really interested! Turns out he blogs too. So he’s off to our NLC IT co-ordinators meeting this afternoon to see if anyone else is interested.
Linda
What an excellent idea for blogging! Maybe as part of a school web site. Have you seen http://www.schools.ik.com? I know teachers have been very impressed, and you can try the free service or go for an upgrade. Its easy to build a site.
A primary school
http://www.bielefeld-school.ik.org/
Here are a few examples of schools using blogs. Thought they might be useful markers for your thinking
http://www.bcpsweblogs.org - Berkhamsted Prep
http://www.hangletonweblogs.org - Hangleton Community Junior School
http://www.weblogs4schools.co.uk/stjohns - St John
Another idea - I saw this in my local paper! http://www.openmute.org provides sites with bells and whistles - free and upgrades. It looks very promising.