This is one of the finest descriptions of a class blog I have ever come across:

Welcome to 1JR’s class blog. We are a class of ground breaking inventors, unstoppable creators and powerful thinkers. We learn cooperatively together but most importantly with a shared dream of success and impact. We are shaping the future and grabbing every opportunity life throws our way. Join us as we work hard to reap the rewards…after all, to appreciate the beauty of a snow flake, you’ve got to stand out in the cold.

These 5 and 6 year olds must have a great time!

Class 1JR at Rosendale Primary School

I spent today working with staff at Christ Church Primary School in Brixton, South London – and we were predominantly talking about the use of classroom blogging to support learning.

• Blue 3 Blog | This is yours to present to the worldhttp://bit.ly/yJsIGL - Leeds, UK
• Mrs Elrick’s class blog http://bit.ly/zUf3gt - Taiipei, Taiwan
• Year Two http://bit.ly/zn7IgJ - Toulouse, France
• Mrs Soltau-Heller 2011-2012 http://bit.ly/wVrEi4 - Canada
• Mrs Soltau-Heller’s Class http://bit.ly/zkjS5c - Canada
• PLC Year 2 – PLC Sydney Year 2 Class Blog http://bit.ly/wiqgoD - Sydeny, Australia
• Class 5′s Blog | Come and see what we’ve been up to!http://bit.ly/y95e8r - Hampshire, UK
• 2KM and 2KJ @ Leopold Primary School http://bit.ly/zUtheT - Victoria, Australia
• 2M Gems http://bit.ly/zBXS92 - Queensland, Australia
• Learning Together http://bit.ly/A9rKER - Melbourne, Australia
• Kensington Avenue Primary School http://bit.ly/wgCtq8 - London, UK
• Ferry Lane Year 6 blog http://bit.ly/x6Cvlp - London, UK
• Mrs. Poulin’s Blog – Kindergarten is one of the places I call home.http://bit.ly/ypLy0L - Massachusetts, US
• kinderkids-kindergarten blog | A reflection on our kindergarten classroom. http://bit.ly/Amtssb - US
• Caton Pre-School Playgroup http://bit.ly/yvZy8e - Lancaster, UK
• Creative Blogs | Community http://bit.ly/woIzhm - UK
• Class Blogs – LiveBinder http://bit.ly/y7uigY

Make sure you spend some time exploring the different blogs and look for links to other school blogs they have displayed and I hope you perhaps find a class to link to and share some stories with.

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Please share your class blog in the comments below

One of the nice features of the Create-a-Graph site from the NCES is the ability to email the completed chart. In the past I have used this when working with Google Apps for Edu – the children handed their work in to me by sending it to my school email. We had my inbox open on the board so the children could see their submissions.

We have been using Posterous as our class blog platform since September. It is a fantastic site for school or class blogging due to it’s simplicity. I made the link with Create-a-Graph because Posterous is built around being able to email content to a specific address which will then post to the blog.

In a nutshell I have worked out a way for my children to post their charts and graphs from Create-a-Graph directly to the class blog.

Here is how to do it.

**Requirements - the following instructions are only for a Posterous blog, but the idea will work if you have a Blogger site. You can find the email you need in your Blogger “Settings” under “Email & Mobile”. If you have a post via email option for your blogging platform in theory this should also work**

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1. Send a graph from Create-a-Graph to your own email. Now locate the sender’s email address – it should be something like kidszone@ed.gov

2. By default a Posterous blog only allows agreed contributors to post – you need to make kidszone@ed.gov a contributor to your blog, basically saying content from that source is OK.

3. Go to the Settings of your Posterous account and click on Contributors, add a new contributor and paste the email address we have for Create-a-Graph: kidszone@ed.gov

4. Now you are ready to post from Create-a-Graph (worth testing this before the kids get a go) – the email you need is the one for contributors as the additional email you have added is not recognised as the primary one for the site. The email address you will need will be at the bottom of the Contributors page (see screenshot above)

5. Add this email into the Create-a-Graph “email this graph” box (leave it as html) and hit send.

6. Your graph should be posted – the nice thing about Posterous is that it will automatically resize the image to suit your blog, which saves a lot of fiddling around with multiple posts. Here is an example blog post we did this week from someone in my class, we were looking at the climate of Australia.

That is pretty much the top and bottom of it – for Blogger just use your unique email address in step 5. Over the period of time we have done this I have a few tips to share:

• Expect to have multiple posts, children click send numerous times as they are unsure it has been done – it takes a bit of tidying up. (I also take a few moments to add the children’s names as tags to the posts so that I am collating work on the class blog)
• Ask the children to add their name to the Graph Title in Create-a-Graph – this is under Data. The graph title will appear as the blog post title and will now include the child’s name for you to see who owns it easily.

• If you display the blog refreshing on the board you can check work quickly and children can have the reassurance their work has been submitted.
• Once submitted the children can still edit their graphs – if you see something you need them to change, delete the post and ask them to correct it and resend.

I hope you find that an interesting tip to perhaps try – good luck with it and let me know how you get on.

1. Share a photograph of your classroom. Explain about the different parts of it and how it is being used. Invite other teachers and classes to write a similar blog post explaining about their classroom. Encourage children from your class to leave comments about what they like about it or even suggestions for changes they would like to see.
2. Publish children’s work. Don’t just post work that is flawless but also invite comments and suggestions on work that can be improved.
3. Publish your shared writing. As you produce writing with the class in your lessons, post it to your blog and invite the class or blog visitors to improve something and to comment.
4. Share your classroom rules or charter. This can be done at the beginning of the year and is a good way to share your class agreement with the wider community.
5. Share a photograph of a classroom display.
6. Post a video of SMARTBoard or IWB session during a maths lesson. For example the written methods for multiplication are included, the children can use it as a revision aid – the parents get to see how the school wants it set out AND the children get to comment on their favoured method.
7. Posting images from a digital microscope for the children to comment on. “What is under our microscope?” – or even asking for people to guess what the image is and to comment on the suggestions.
8. Posting homework tasks every week – eg. maths problems, children to comment as their task.
9. Art gallery. Post pictures of all of the artwork created in a session, make a gallery or slideshow.
10. Post Concept Cartoons for science prior to a lesson or a week of work. Children are asked to comment on what they think will happen and then these can be used as a start to the first lesson or as an intitial assessment.

I have started a new Interesting Ways resource which includes these classroom blogging ideas –

Please feel free to add your ideas, however simple or complex, to help develop the resource.

Recently I have written a number of posts about class blogging and have begun using one again in our classroom. One of the things that I wrote about in my previous post is how useful it is to keep tabs on your visitor numbers and locations, and how children get very excited about this.

One big influence on this is a separate network that allows you to promote your class blog and drive traffic to it. I am aware that with a larger Twitter network you can drive a larger amount of clicks. I am going to put mine to good use and post on Twitter a class blog recommendation every single day.

I hope that this helps drives traffic to your class blogs, widens your audience and continues to spark curiosity about different visitor locations. But perhaps more importantly it might help you and your class make some meaningful connections with other classes around the world.

I have started the #classblogs hashtag to keep track of everything to do with … class blogs!

Here are the first 4 recommendations taken from various tweets and recent comments on blog posts.

• Mereside Primary  School -Year 6 –  Blackpool, England –  http://meresideblog.wordpress.com
• Class 4OQs Blog  - Year 4 -  Birmingham, England –  http://class40q.wordpress.com
• The Braman Bunch - Grade 5 – Michigan, USA –  http://mrbraman.edublogs.org
• IST Grade 2 – Grade 2 – Tanzania – http://istgrade2.wordpress.com

If you haven’t already please drop by and leave them a comment, remember if they have a visitor map even if you just take a look you will add a little dot. That dot may lead to a question from one of the class…

If you have a class blog and want me to help spread the word about what you are doing I am taking examples from the existing comments on my previous post, otherwise just let me know the details.

In a follow up to my previous post about examples of school and class blogs and the motivations behind using different platforms, I want to find out more from you all.

I have had experience of using blogging as I previously mentioned, but admittedly it didn’t stick. I moved year groups and never carried it on as part of my everyday practice. Other classes that had great experiences for a year also never returned to it, the blogs languished and became redundant.

There has been an amazing response in the previous post (over 40 great examples of class blogs with equally valuable advice and suggestions) and a good deal of reference to the whole school approach or to year on year development. As well as the motivations behind it all – can you help again?

Please leave a comment with your thoughts about:

• How you make blogging part of your classroom’s everyday routine?
• What is the key to whole school take-up? Leadership? Good training?
• How you measure if your school or class blog is a success? Do you need to?
• How you make class blogging stick in an already busy environment?

When I first started blogging in 2006 I was teaching a Year 6 class. As part of my own learning process I ran a class blog too and started others across the school. We used Learnerblogs, which sadly is no more, but had some great experiences giving the class a real audience and purpose to their writing.

After Christmas I am going to get back to it with my current class and make a concerted effort to make blogging part of the curriculum we deliver and not a bolt on.

With lots of different platforms for class blogs and so many great examples I want to learn from you and hear your experiences. I hope your contributions will prove useful to everyone thinking of starting blogging at their school and provide an opportunity to find out about other class blogs around the world.

Please leave a comment:

• Showcasing your class or school blog (don’t forget a link).
• Explaining why you chose the platform you did (Blogger, Edublogs etc).
• And what the most positive impact is (or anything else you want to say about it really!).

3 quick reasons why I blog and why I think it is an important element of my job. This is a short nano (2 minutes ish!) screencast, my second contribution to TeachMeet EdtechRoundup.

Tomorrow sees us begin our Autumn term here in Nottinghamshire, England – most of the English primary schools will be back by next week at least. I just wanted to explain the road ahead for me in terms of the ways I will be using technology in the classroom this year, my classroom cornerstones. These tools/ideas will be sticking around for the course of the year, either because they have become part of the fabric of how we support learning in the case of the first two, or they are areas I want to explore the potential in more depth, the latter two.

Group media collaboration tool: Voicethread - this has become such a great tool to use in supporting children with speaking and listening. Beyond the basic group collaboration, last year I saw children grow in confidence due to the protracted use of refined talk and voice recording in Voicethread. Children who would usually not utter a thing when in a whole class situation were more willing to contribute and speak in front of the class. There is a lot going on when a child decides to record a comment in a Voicethread, most importantly for me is the fact that they willingly and independently vet and refine what they say. We will be looking to consolidate the use of Voicethread in the classroom this year, especially in the use of peer feedback in the writing process.

Office 2.0: Google Apps/Docs – I carefully documented the steps we took last term to use Docs in the classroom and I have even had the opportunity to contribute to the Official Google Docs blog in a post about introducing online collaboration. We will continue to use Docs as a cornerstone technology in our classrooms this coming year. The classes we were with last year have moved onto Year 6 and I look forward to seeing their work with the tool continue and the teachers alongside them develop their knowledge and understanding of the technology. Last year we did not have the opportunity in the Autumn and Spring term to use Docs so we will have a whole bunch of new opportunities to utilise the tool to support learning in the best way. I am looking to use Google Forms more and to reach beyond the school in bigger international collaborative projects – please let me know if you have a similar age class using Docs.

Timeline tool: Mnemograph - Last year I stumbled upon this great timeline tool just as we were finishing our Ancient Egyptian unit. We will repeat this unit, beginning before Christmas and I am pleased to be working with Will and Michael from Mnemograph in some development of new features which will perhaps make it easier for a whole class to work with the tool. If you have not had an opportunity to see it in action I would strongly suggest you take a look – it is very useful for Ancient history as it is one of the few online timeline tools that allows you to go back that far. I am looking forward to unleashing my class on Mnemograph and putting it through it’s paces this year.

Class blog: ???? - I have yet to decide about the tool that we will use this year for our class blog. I know that it doesn’t matter a great deal and it is more about the content. 2 years ago we ran a class blog for the Year 6 class I was with and found we had problems remembering usernames and passwords and the whole process took too long. I have been exploring the use of Posterous - a blogging tool that just needs an email sending to a simple address and that is it. It deals really well with all of the media a classroom could possibly throw at it. Of course a Blogger account has a similar email address to send updates too – still undecided about the best way to go yet.

I think there is enough there to keep me out of trouble for the year to come (there is of course about 10 other things I didn’t mention) – what are you focusing on this year in your classroom? What will be new for you? What are you going to consolidate and explore in greater depth?