Following interest from more schools, we are holding another one day hands-on Blogging course on 23rd October for forward thinking schools in the North East!

Please browse the website for testimonials and other schools blogging successfully as a result of this course....

Spaces are starting to fill for the Blogging Course on May 23rd!

We hope you can make it; it will change your pupils' attitude to writing and audience!

I previously wrote about Blogging in the Foundation Stage.

In addition to those ideas, Key Stage 1 children are increasingly able to produce content on iPads, often using an iPad set up by the teacher.  Thus, the child creates the content, which is then uploaded by the teacher.

1.  Show Mes

This fantastic iPad app allows children to create short podcasts about a subject.  Here is a Year 1 who did a recording of something she had learnt in class.  Note, also the parental comments, which I have mentioned previously.  Audioboo can be used in a similar way, requiring a teacher controlled login.

2.  Puppet Pals

This app allows children to make cartoons.  It involves scripting, practising and performing.  Here is a snippet of a Year 1 puppet pal!

3.  Using the Weebly app

Another way of getting children to contribute to the blog is by giving them an iPad with the Weebly app loaded and getting them to type about what they have been learning.  Here a Year 2 child leaves a simple comment about what he has been learning.  

All of the ideas above develop the idea of children creating blog content, without children needing cumbersome logins.  Ultimately, the children get the thrill of an audience seeing and commenting their digital work, which is one of the key benefits of class blogs! 

Blogs in our school began in upper KS2 and many class blogs thrive with this age group.  The children are digital natives, have regular ICT sessions and enjoy the buzz that a global audience brings.

Nevertheless, since our school rolled out blogs to the whole school, the Foundation Stage blog has been the one to watch to judge how 'low you can go' with blogs.

In fact, in our school, the Foundation Stage have led the way in developing parental involvement, which I wrote about in my last post.  

From looking at our FS blog, here are some of the great uses of a Foundation Stage blog!

1.  Sharing Successes

Foundation Stage are brilliant at fostering links with parents.  This natural link between school and parents begins with handing the children over every morning, but can be fostered by sharing sessions where parents find out about the work of the Foundation Stage unit.  A class blog is the natural extension of this, because at this age parents are arguably most actively involved in their child's development.

2.  Parental involvement in the blog

Besides the reader stats for a blog, 1 measure of involvement is the number of comments.

As mentioned previously, our FS team set 'homework' for parents to look at the blogs with their children, encouraging comments where possible.
Here are some examples of parental involvement (Comments by parents, comments by children), which demonstrate the strengthening of home-school links.

3.  Encourages a whole school ethos

If staff and children from other year groups leave comments on FS blogs (as they do), this emphasises the positive whole school ethos and boost to self-esteem for both commenter and the children who receive the comments.  Here is just one example

4.  Adding useful weblinks

If you use websites which you want children to access at home and at school (eg Bugclub, Mathletics, Purple Mash), the icons and links to the sites can be added to a blog, allowing important websites to be shared in the same place, whilst also serving as a visual reminder to both children and adults of how to support learning away from school.

5.  Other Uses

If children have regular access to iPads, displaying their digital work also becomes a possibility!

If you see examples of other uses of Foundation Stage blogs, please share and I can amend this post!

I think the next blog post will focus on developing blogs in Key Stage 1.