Class Blog Series : Blogging Platforms, Part 1

For this first part of the class blogging series, I'm sharing about where your class blog can be.  This is the first decision to make, and depending on the needs of your center and the comfort level of the person who will be blogging and sharing, this is an important decision.  Today I'll be sharing two blogging platforms :  Blogger and Google Sites.

A few things to keep in mind when you are thinking of starting a class blog:

• Who is the audience?  Is it for parents and extended families?  Do you want teaching colleagues to use it as a resource as well?
• How do you share about learning at your center?  It is display boards?  Documentation panels?
• What is the school's educational philosophy, and what can you do to make sure that rings true on the blog?
• What sort of privacy settings will you need to have in place?  Are parents comfortable with the information being public, or will you need privacy settings?

There are many different blogging platforms out there, but I'm going to give a little information about different ones so that you can make an informed decision rather than signing up for everything.  You may still find yourself taking one or two for a spin, but I hope this information will give you a good starting place.

Blogger

This platform that I use here is called Blogger (despite the blogspot address).  Blogger is part of Google, meaning that if you have a Gmail address, you are 95% finished in signing up for blogger.  I have been using this platform for 4.5 years, and I'm very happy with the layout and the features of the system.  A lovely example of a class +  school blog on the Blogger platform is Tumbleweed Infant House - I suggest taking a look there to see if you like it!

Blogger Pros:  It is connected with Google, meaning it is a snap to add photos that are in a Picasa Web Album, videos from YouTube, and photos and videos from your Android phone, if that is something you use for documentation.  It is easy to have multiple writers on a blog, so if you are team teaching, or in a small school like in the example above, this might be a nice option.  The blogs are also highly customizable, if you like choosing your columns and fonts and colors and extras.

Blogger Cons:  There is no way to password protect the blog or the posts.  You make the blog private and invite people to see it, but if you want parents to be able to share the site with grandparents and aunts and uncles, for example, that gets a bit tricky.  

The Blogger Bottom Line:  It has everything you might be looking for, no matter who your audience...if you don't need privacy settings.  If that describe you, take it for a test drive!  If you're not sure your community would be comfortable with public posting of photos and videos, you probably shouldn't go with blogger - and you should have a conversation with stakeholders at your center about proceeding with a class blog before beginning the project.

Google Sites

Google Sites are overlooked as a blogging platform, but they should not be - they can be a blog and then some.  Google's blank slate templates allow for incredible flexibility when building your site, allowing for all of your class blogs for a school to be on one site, for example.  You can use google sites to create a whole school website quite easily - that you can update as often as you please.    For anyone who pays for a school website and has trouble updating it, this might be a great (free!) solution. I've made a little example site for a small school that will be a good way to understand some of the things Google Sites can do.

Google Sites Pros:  This is also connected to Google, so setting it up is simple.  Having a blog aspect to the site is just one part of it, or it can be the whole thing.  Although you cannot put a password on it, you can set it so that it can only be seen by "anyone with the link" (if you are a google docs user, you might be familiar with this).  This means that people need to save the link as a bookmark or click on it in an email to get to it, but it keeps it out of search engines and the like.  You can easily embed Google Docs and Picasa photos (and slideshows!) because of the Google platform  - the documents are a great feature if you make a flyer to share or have an article you think might be of interest to your community.  This is the most flexible of the options I'll be sharing.

Google Sites Cons:  So many options can be overwhelming, and making the site isn't just drag and drop.  It is not very complicated, but if you consider yourself a very beginner at blogging, it might take you a little bit to set up.  Google help is great - many questions are answered on their help site.  The "Anyone with the link" option is a very safe one in my mind, but those who are looking for password protection will not find it here.

The Google Sites Bottom Line:    If you have paid to have someone create a school website, and you are not satisfied with it, and you'd also like to blog, here is your ticket!  Chances are you have a relatively savvy parent or teacher in your community who can take care of things you find complicated.  Google sites is a website, a blog, a school calendar...everything a school needs in their web presence.  If words like "sidebar" terrify you, you might want to skip this or get some support.  If they make you feel adventurous, start a site and give it a whirl!

In the next installment I'll be covering two more blogging platforms of interest to people looking for password protection.  I welcome your questions and comments - I'd love to know what you think, and if there are more topics within classroom blogging that are of interest to you!

Class Blog Series : Tools for Sharing Learning

Blogging is a wonderful tool for documenting what is happening in the classroom - it allows you to share with parents, families, students, colleagues, and the larger world if you wish!

In the coming days and weeks, I'll be sharing some of the different sites and tools that you might use for a class blog, to better allow you to share documentation and the learning that is happening in the classroom, no matter what kind of setting you are in.  The tools I will share are free and simple, and you can make your classroom blog as simple or as fancy as you please!  We'll look at:

• Blog sites
• Video sites
• Embedding images and video 
• Embedding documents
• Sharing Audio
• Sharing Links to websites
• Sharing Children's drawings and writing
• Web 2.0 Tools to add on
• Engaging Students on the blog

I'm looking forward to sharing this knowledge with you!

What questions do you have about creating, managing, or sharing a class blog?  

stories for children, sometimes by children

Smories is a website full of children reading stories for other children.  I can see using this two ways in the classroom:  for children to dictate stories to submit, and also for children to listen to other children read.

via Urban Preschool

Bembo's Zoo

Bembo's Zoo is a mix of typography and animation, and it is simple enought for young children to navigate independently.

We use computers about once a week in the classroom, and I think we'll try this website out.  Has anyone seen the book version of Bembo's Zoo?

Link thanks to Jules from Turtlewings!

University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

This is a resource I can see myself using on my own and with the children in the classroom.  This is a database of beautiful images from books, designs, furniture, prints, and much more.  I have often thought about putting together books of "inspiring images" for the classroom to add to our book area, or to simply have out on a table.  With this resource, the children could be involved, in small groups, in helping to think of search terms based on our projects and inquiries, choose images, and create the book.

This also makes me think back to The Nature Lab from a few months back.  I like the Wisconsin collection, though, because you are able to look at the pieces online.

VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a tool that I am a big fan of. We have used it to retell two stories so far this year, but I have a little list of ideas for how we will use it in the second half of the year. Children's stories, documentation, video...

Here is the first VoiceThread that I created with the children - a retelling of "The Enormous Turnip" by Alexei Tolstoy. My classroom is a combination of native English speakers and English beginners, so it is interesting for me to listen to my reading of the story, and then the imitation of my tone and pitch when all of the children are retelling it. I used the children's self-portraits as their images rather than their pictures (it is a public site).



Is this a tool you could use in your classroom? How do you feel about using technology like this in the classroom?