Practical Blogging Ideas (2)
- 1. Blogging Ideas Margaret Vass ICT Curriculum Support Officer Falkirk Council Education Services
- 2. Building An Audience Falkirk Council Education Services The best way to build up an audience on your class blog, is to encourage the children to visit other class blogs They should be encouraged to read the blog posts and any comments that have been left Discuss what makes a good comment. One idea from Kim P is to cut and paste some comments on to a page, and give each comment ‘2 stars and a wish’ A place to start might be http:// carronshore.edublogs.org There are also some links there to other blogs that they read. Put a ‘geovisitor’ button on your sidebar, so that children can begin to get a sense of audience for their writing
- 3. Practical Activities – Idea No.1 Falkirk Council Education Services Invest in some Mp3 Players with a built in microphone and possibly a cheap digital camera. These are very user friendly and also very portable! The children could be asked to write their own Autobiography. Lessons on open-ended questions could be devised. The children could then interview their parents / guardians about their early years using the Mp3’s. Photographs could be taken of any memorabilia. The results could be imported into photostory 3 or Window’s Moviemaker before being uploaded to somewhere like Photobucket. From there, it’s easy to embed their efforts into the class blog .
- 4. Practical Activities – Idea No.2 Falkirk Council Education Services Follow the same procedure as in Idea 1, but have the children investigate ‘Life in the Past’ and compare it to Life today Older members of families could be interviewed to find out about things like transport, school life, eating habits, etc. when they were the same age as the children who are carrying out the interview If digital cameras, or memorabilia is not available, then the children could ask the adults to sketch some pictures from memory (or the children could draw a pictures from a description) All this could be shared via the whiteboard for class discussion before being uploaded to the class blog Report writing might be a natural progression from here
- 5. Practical Activities – Idea No.3 The class could write a collaborative report on ‘How Good is Our School’ They could begin by brainstorming suitable questions about school life in general. For example, views could be sought on school building, pupil behaviour, wall displays, lunches Groups of children could interview different sets of people : management, class teachers, classroom assistants, school janitor, senior pupils, junior pupils, parent helpers Each group could write a report on what they’ve found, and from there a ‘bigger picture’ class report could be written. The various groups could write up posts on the class blog (with photographic evidence) of what the findings were. Falkirk Council Education Services
- 6. Involving Parents Falkirk Council Education Services In order to cater for different Learning Styles, groups of children could become ‘Experts’ in their area The ‘Tech Team’ could look after equipment such as batteries for Mp3’s and cameras The ‘Audacity Team’ might be the group who are responsible for exporting audio files in Mp3 format and saving to a suitable folder The ‘Illustrators’ could be the children who are artistic and could draw pictures for posts The ‘Camera Crew’ could have the job of taking pictures – remembering when to use the flash facility when appropriate (it might be a good idea to buy a cheap tripod to make them feel like professional photographers!) Others can be experts in the use of certain web 2.0 tools – such as Vokis Parents could be invited to school so that the children can show off their knowledge by giving short powerpoint presentations followed by a ‘hands on’ workshop
- 7. Practical Activities – Ideas Nos.4 + 5 If there is a school ‘Buddy System’ in place, the older children could make Vokis to introduce themselves to the younger children The younger children could be invited to view these and photographs could be taken of their reactions Older children could interview the younger ones to record the vocal reactions Both the audio and visual reactions can be uploaded to Windows Moviemaker Older children can become ‘Authors’ by writing and illustrating books suitable for a young audience Arrangements can then be made for them to read the stories to the younger children. Photographs can be taken of the event The older children can interview the younger ones to ask their opinions of the stories All this can be recorded on the class blog.