Word of the global QuadBlogging initiative was posted in IDK’s Facebook group, for interested parents and educators. Since late 2010, many schools in Ireland have kept blogs, and are seeing obvious educational benefits for the students (and teachers!) who participate in creating the blog-posts.
A past IDK piece, “Using Blog Tools For Story-Telling And Picture Diaries“, explains how blogs can be used to teach literacy to young deaf children.
Scoilnet.ie also lists the benefits of having a blog for your school:
- Blog-writing encourages students’ higher order skills such as reflection and analysis of the information that is received.
- Students’ group-reading, writing and collaboration skills are developed.
- Publishing blog-posts and blog-comments engenders peer learning, assessment and creates ownership (highly motivational for students)
- Blogging technology is easy to use for teachers, students and resource teachers (and for parents to access, as needed).
- Video, audio and other media and file types are supported for a very dynamic learning experience that suits varied learning styles.
- Learning extends outside of the classroom environment and beyond national boundaries, if international blog-projects are participated in.
- Children of all ages can start learning to read with simple blogs. Posts with labeled photos and simple stories are ideal for learning to read.
Primary schools like Scoil Eoin in Cork, have their own blog. They use it to share school-information and the option to select a class to get their news, such as first communion events or stories of visitors to the school.
Portmarnock Community School in Dublin was one of the first schools to use blogs for class history projects. Every student has their own (monitored) blog with YouTube videos, text and images, in the wordpress blog-system.
In Dublin, St Colmcille’s Community School also uses a range of blogs as learning resources. The Leaving Cert chemistry course is an example, with videos and powerpoint slides of class notes for students to download.
Bottom line: students and schools have options, even with recent education cuts. Once school students know how to blog, they can make their mark in the internet world and take this digital learning into their future workplaces.
Schools/teachers that blog: http://www.scoilnet.ie/hp_schoolsthatblog.shtm
(compiled by Miriam Walsh)
Further Reading
- Making Classroom And Literacy Tools Accessible
- Captions In The Classroom Boost Literacy Skills
- Digital Media Content Accessibility For Schools
- The Necessity of Teaching ICT Skills In Schools
