My blogging adventure started two years ago. Before then, I used to use technology for my professional development. (Here I’d like to refer to Gavin’s article, ‘Positively Beaming’ . In his article, there are questions that teachers should definitely ask themselves about the use of technology in the classroom.) The idea of blogging with students came to me after a period of feeling that something was missing in my lessons… At the beginning I didn’t have an idea about its possible effects on my lessons and my students’ learning experience. I just assumed that they would like it if I addressed their interests.

In this article, I would like to share with you a step-by-step guide of creating and maintaining a class blog. I generated all the ideas in the light of my experience with my fifth graders. I share some information that I’m going to share with you in the hand-out I give at the end of my blog sessions. The reason I want to include all this information in this article is that I don’t want my ideas jammed in a pdf file. I decided to divide the steps into a few entries, otherwise it will be a very very long article…

Before I start, I would like you to watch a video of my students’ thoughts about our class blog:

Once you start blogging, give yourself some time to improve your skills as a blogger. It is a “learning by doing” process. At the beginning, it may take longer than you expect to give a personality to your blog. You will soon realize that you are becoming an expert:)

DECIDE WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SHARE WITH YOUR STUDENTS ON THE BLOG…
You can:
*ask your students’ opinions. You can learn more about your students’ interests by talking to them or giving questionnaires.
*consult with your colleagues.
*take a look at various types of weblogs created by both educators and students. Here are some class blogs that you can visit and get ideas:
My Class Blog
A 6th grade English class blog from Turkey
Two schools that are blogging across the oceans!
Mr.Lane’s Effective Reading Blog
Mrs. Caldwell’s English Blog
Butlerville Elementary
A Sixth Grade Writing Workshop Weblog
Ms. Burdette’s English Class
Eight is GREAT 2008-2009
A blog for English students at Katikati College
A Classroom Book Blog
6th Grade Science and Social Studies
Mr. Lund’s Fifth Grade Class Blog
GWA Grade 5 Students
Mrs. Chichester’s Classroom Blog
Mr. Mundorf’s Class
A blog for Spanish students of English in the Secondary School

CHOOSE A BLOG PROVIDER…

When you are starting a blog, an important choice is which platform you are going to use to host your blog. At the beginning you can start with a free blogging platform as they are easy and free to use. It requires minimum IT knowledge to publish web content and there are little web maintenance job to be done. Here you can find some information about the two biggest host options, WordPress and Blogger. I would also like to recommend Edublogs which is powered by WordPress and hosts thousands of educational blogs.

Blogger had been around for a few years before it was bought out by Google in 2003. It was formerly known as Blogspot. It is a free blogging platform which has many features. It is easy and reliable. You have also the chance to use your own Domain Name for your blog.
WordPress.com is popular with businesses and personal users alike. WordPress boasts the ability to import journal entries from other blogs, meaning that moving over to WordPress is not too complicated a task. Some of the more recent features of WordPress such as increased storage space are only available for a fee, but the free service is more than adequate for most users.
You can find a comparison chart in this link: Blogger vs. WordPress
Edublogs.org hosts hundreds of thousands of education blogs. You can easily create and manage a class blog. It’s powered by WordPress and you can use many WordPress features, including the customizable themes. It’s easy to set up podcasting, videos, and photos. Because it’s powered by WordPress, you have complete control over which comments and posts get published. Any visitor can leave a comment, and you can moderate the comments before they go live on your site.

Well, this is the end of Part I. In the following entries, these sections will take place…

* YOU CAN GET STARTED IN A FEW MINUTES…
* INTRODUCE THE BLOG TO YOUR STUDENTS & MAINTAIN INTEREST…
* YOU HAVE CREATED A CLASS BLOG… HOW CAN YOU MAKE YOUR BLOG AN EFFECTIVE LEARNING TOOL?
* MODERATING STUDENTS’ COMMENTS, CORRECTING MISTAKES

HAVE A NICE WEEK!

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