School Blogging June 17, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning , trackbackWeblogs are starting to make an appearance in the classroom already, in a limited way. I’ve set up a travel log for one teacher which will be followed and commented on by class 4 children this afternoon, and earlier in the week I used a blog with year 3 children as an introduction to e-communication. That was just a quick method for setting up a many-to-many forum really, not a true blog, but the ideas are creeping in, and the teachers are beginning to appreciate the potential of the new internet.
Here are my notes, copied straight out of my Peanut Butter Wiki.
This afternoon’s year 3 lessons will be particularly interesting to me - I’ve set up a discussion blog for them, as an introduction to the email unit.
So it’ll be the first time that a blog has been incorporated into the formal teaching here - a taste of things to come. I’ll try to observe well and take notes.
What happened:
For the first lesson, the children came in and went straight to the computers. They had already been shown how to navigate to the blog and post a comment using the whiteboard in their classroom. They started off well and didn’t need much technical help. My notes say:
T1 pointed out no need to write “my name is”
some children wanted to jump up and and look at each others computers - they were told off.
They asked how to spell words a lot.
We explained how to have a conversation by mentioning somebody’s name and asking a question.
behaviour and attention (focus) was very good - all on task.
Use of refresh button explained, to read the new comments.
A comment appeared from t2 not in the room, so I went to see if they were using the whiteboard in the classroom - they were following the comments there.
By the end of the lesson there were 114 comments. I asked 1 child ‘how does this compare with Word Processing” answer “wicked”.
—-
I decided to set up a new entry for the second class to comment on, so they can start afresh or join in the prevous class discussion.
2nd class arrived and sat on carpet.
t2 talked about communications, about email, about the advantage of being able to connect to anybody in the world. Then a demo.
Children needed more support to get started
one complained about the writing in the input box “it’s too small”
The 2 teachers interacted from between the two rooms and had fun.
behaviour in this lesson was a bit chaotic, excitement , moving about the room but T2 is ok with that.
by the end of the lesson there were 79 comments posted and 16 additions to the other classes thread.
—what else do I remember?
Thinking ‘this would be good for afterschool literacy club”
asking children what they thought of it - answers - ‘good!”
No behaviour/discipline problems, while the teachers are enjoying themselves.
No problems with the blog host coping with rapid fire commenting, or with people generally understanding the system. No problems with unsuitable language etc either so far, just a slight niggle with having to switch away from registered users comments to ‘other’ in order to simply type in a name and post.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
Interesting. I started looking at blogs in school earlier this month. Very enthusiastic students !!
By all accounts, enthusiastic ‘on task’ students can almost be taken for granted with school blogging. What’s interesting me is the ‘buzz’ this is creating with teachers who were still carrying around the idea of the internet as nothing more than a big library or shopping mall. You have to be very patient and show them how to post a comment, explain that it’s not like private email and so on but once the penny drops you can almost see them imagining the possibilities and they start to radiate a sense of fun. Then, once they become familiar with the tools, some will want to set up their own blogs and discover the joys of public reflective writing.