School Blogs

School blogs are blogs written by teachers, students, administrators, parents - in fact anyone associated with a school. But before we go any further let's be clear about what a 'blog' actually is.

Nowadays, blogging platforms such as WordPress are capable of producing sophisticated websites incorporating many types of media. A blog may have started as a simple online diary but it is now really no different from a conventional website - except it is easier to use and makes interaction, through comments, much easier.

So when I use the term school blogs, I am really talking about personal websites that are connected to and hosted by a school.

 Blogs can be used for many things:

• teachers' blogs - to complement lessons and homework. For instance, students may view the teacher's blog where he has placed links to resources, videos, maps and his own perspective. They can then comment or respond to his questions by creating blog posts of their own
• students' blogs - students can produce work online. For example, instead of writing an essay they can produce a blog post that incorporates video
• school clubs - drama, dance and music clubs can have their own blogs to inform the school and community about performances, share reviews, give progress reports and possibly capture live performances on video. In fact any interest group - chess, photography or astronomy for instance - can have their own blog
• sports teams - blogs can include match reports, upcoming fixtures, player statistics, videos, training tips etc
• field trips - when students go away from home a blog can be a great way to keep in touch

There are many other ways that blogs can be used - if you know of how schools are using blogs, please share through the comments box below.

 I believe that school blogs can transform education. Here are 10 reasons why:

1. learning continues outside the classroom and is available 24/7. Students have access to teacher blogs that complemented lessons, in addition to the blog entries that they created as part of the studying (supported by teacher feedback in the form of comments)
2. learning is a much richer experience as the full resources of the internet can be utilised
3. students feel more involved - they are creating their learning rather than being force-fed
4. there is a greater sense of community as information about what is happening in the school become much more accessible
5. students have an opportunity to 'shine', whether as a dancer, footballer or astronomer
6. school blogs encourage students to develop their own perpectives
7. the school is opened up to the community. A greater insight can be provided into what the school does and its achievements
8. parents, grandparents and other family members become more involved
9. the reputation of the school is enhanced beyond its immediate neighborhood, bringing in many exciting opportunities for students
10. fundraising for new resources becomes much easier. Firstly, there are lots of easily accessible stories for PR and, secondly, because so many people are involved through the blogs, it is easy to begin viral marketing campaigns

Any more ideas - why not share them in the box below.

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

You may be thinking that it would be a technological nightmare to set up and maintain school blogs.

Not at all. The most popular blogging platform, WordPress, has a multi-user version, WPMU. This is a very stable program - in fact, if you sign up for a hosted blog at WordPress, you will be using WPMU.

WPMU will form the foundation. However, it can be difficult to set up and it has some glaring gaps for school blogs. The answer is to use a solution that supports hundreds of thousands of blogs, including Cornell University. It is an out-of-the-box solution that requires no technical knowledge to set up and provides plugins (the reason WordPress is so popular) to add the necessary functionality.

You can find out more about how to set up school blogs here.