The title’s a bit of a misnomer. There’s really only one learner in the group who you might call a ‘kid’.
This is a new step for me. I’ve tried blogging with groups of students before, but never really got far with it. I wrote a post and (with a fair bit of cajolling) my students left a comment. To be honest, perhaps the tasks weren’t great (‘leave a comment about your holiday plans’ and the like) and with hindsight I didn’t really expect too much from it. Heck, I had a little trouble getting my head around the logistics of it (blog, post, comment, what?) so little wonder my students didn’t engage fully. This was compounded by the helpful IT network system we have where I teach, a useful thing that blocks anything to do with social media! (Very useful if you planned a whole session around a blog post).
But that was back in the day…
This is a new start.
So, I’ve set up a(nother) blog, this time for my students. I’ve gone for WordPress to do this – it seems a little less distracting than what I have here. Simplicity is what I’m after, after all I don’t want to confuse my students. Here’s the link ESOL IT and a screen capture of the first post, an introduction to blogging:
Hopefully nice and simple
I’ve posted three videos here: one I made to introduce our blog and explain how to leave a comment; a Common Craft ‘Blogs in plain English’; and another entitled ‘What is a blog?’ that I chose mainly because the voiceover is relatively clear.
I’ll post later to share how my students are getting on.
As for making my own video, I’m pretty proud of this 
I used Jing - a neat tool for screencasting, in other words recording what’s on your computer screen. (Thanks to @dfogarty via his Tao Te(a)Ching blog) and have found it a very intuitive piece of software. (I figure if I can get my head round it in less than a day it must be good!). Kudos I must also send the way of Russell Stannard and his Teacher Training Videos (here is a link to his video on Jing).
So this time I am quietly optimistic of a more engaged response from my students, and am definitely better prepared to help them on their way into the wonderful, confusing (but now not too boring, I hope) world of ICT and social media.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
This post is now part of a series ‘Blogging with the kids’. Follow it on my Series page.
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After trying to convince learners to blog for absolute ages I finally discovered the problem: privacy.
Complete privacy.
I moved over to a NING and set it up so that my five groups and their words are hidden from public eye (well, except when I present but no photos of them will be taken) and got them blogging.
I give very seemingly vague instructions related to conversations we’ve been having and then, as much as possible try to involve their interests and let them direct the blog posts themselves but under a kind of framework.
Things like: choose a famous company that recently went though a public crisis and tell the story.
Use photos and link to articles you discovered while researching.
Or… do you know what the future holds?
Read current predictions for the year 2010-2019 in the press (in your own language if you wish) and then write, in English, a blog post which gives us your opinions regarding the changes we can look forward to seeing.
That sort of thing…
I’ve around 30 students – not all who blog regularly but as a mass, they’ve written 190+ blog posts !!!
Dead chuffed, I am.
Hope these tips help you!
Karenne
Hi Karenne,
Thanks very much for the tips!! I guess at the moment I’m mostly hoping to use my blog as a place to host tutorial videos. Having said that, I would really love to see the students engaging with all these wonderful new opportunities we have through blogs, nings, wikis and the like.
In particular, thanks for the know-how on Nings. I’ve started reading about them recently, but hadn’t realised that privacy was something included in that. I shall have to do more research! Thanks for challenging me – perhaps a ning will be the way to go if I want them to post and they’re maybe a bit apprehensive about their words going on the internet.
Mike
It’s exciting to be blogging with students. I hope the students get more involved this time. I think the activities are important and I am interested in how you will choose them. I haven’t yet created a blog for my students but will in February, but this will be through a ning site. I was thinking of surveying them for activities the would like to see in a blog. I would list the activities and let them choose maybe through a poll. I like your video one which I have seen has student responses. Will your students also write posts?
Hi Shelly,
Thank you for reading! I’m quietly confident of my class blogging going a little better this time. My reasons for doing it with this particular class is that I’m teaching ICT (in the loosest possible sense) and have become so bored in producing worksheets to practise different things on the computer, I dread to think how the students see it. It’s my intention to post videos to demonstrate how to do various things on the computer, starting by leaving a comment on my post but hopefully going on to things like creating posters in Publisher or giving presentations using PowerPoint. I have to thank Diarmuid Fogarty via Tao Te(a)Ching for the tip/idea of using a blog as a sort of video repository.
Honestly, I hadn’t thought too much about the students posting themselves. But why not? To start doing something like that with them here I might possibly get them to word-process their work first and then transfer it to the blog site. I’d probably do the transfer myself to start with, but then let more confident students do it themselves (here I’d have to let them into the wordpress account I have – so I may eventually migrate to another medium).
I’d be interested to hear about how you’re using Nings, as that might be where I head in the longer term. In terms of activities in a ning or blog, I think Karenne has some tips above – them reacting to a statement or picture, working on some kind of project (presentation on their country, for example).
Cheers!!
Mike