To start with what is Blogging
Blogs are widely popular in education, as evidenced by the 400 thousand educational blogs hosted by edublogs. Teachers have been using them to support teaching and learning since 2005. Through years of practice, a common understanding has formed around the benefits of the use of blogs in education.

Because blogs are connected, they can foster the development of a learning community. Authors can share opinions with each other and support each other with commentary and answers to questions. For example, the University of Calgary uses blogs to create learning communities.

Additionally, blogs give students ownership over their own learning and an authentic voice, allowing them to articulate their needs and inform their own learning. Blogs have been shown to contribute to identity-formation in students. (Bortree, D.S., 2005).

Further, blogging gives students a genuine and potentially worldwide audience for their work. Having such an audience can result in feedback and and greatly increase student motivation to do their best work. Students also have each other as their potential audience, enabling each of them to take on a leadership role at different times through the course of their learning.

Moreover, blogging helps students see their work in different subjects as interconnected and helps them organize their own learning. Working with the teacher and informed by blogs authored by experts in the field, students can conduct a collective enquiry into a particular topic or subject matter creating their own interpretation of the material.

Blogs teach a variety of skills in addition to the particular subject under discussion. Regular blogging fosters the development of writing and research skills. Blogging also supports digital literacy as the student learns to critically assess and evaluate various online resources.


How To Use Blogging In Learning

Begin simply. . Most uses of blogs in the classroom began with the instructor using blogs to post class information such as lists of readings and assignment deadlines. This fosters in the teacher a familiarity with the technology and with students a habit of regularly checking the online resource.

Lead by example. . Before requiring students to blog, instructors should lead by example, creating their own blogs and adding links to interesting resources and commentary on class topics. This not only produces a useful source of supplemental information for students, it creates a pattern and sets expectations for when students begin their own blogging.

Read. Students should begin their entry into blogging by reading other blogs. Teachers should use this practice not only to demonstrate how other people use blogs to support learning but also to foster critical thinking and reading skills. Teaching how to respond to blog posts is as important as creating blog posts.

Create a context. Like the author facing a blank sheet of paper, a blogger will be perplexed unless given something specific to write about. Have students blog about a current issue, about a specific peice of writing, or some question that comes up in the course.

Encourage interaction. Blogging should not be a solo activity. Encourage bloggers to read each other’s works and to comment on them. Encouraging students to set up an RSS reader with each other’s blogs will make reading and commenting a lot easier. Teachers, also, should subscribe to student blogs and offer comments, again setting an example of the expected practice.

Respect ownership. A student blog becomes important because it is a manifestation of his or her own work. However, to have this value, a student’s ownership of a blog must be genuine. While reasonable limits or codes of practice need to be respected, student bloggers should have the widest latitude possible for personal expression and opinion.

Address issues immediately. The most significant danger to students online is posed by other students. In particular, bullying (or ragging) is a significant problem. It is important to spot instances of bullying as soon as they occur and to take steps to prevent further incidents. Teachers should educate themselves as online bullying can be invisible and hard to address.


http://internet-safety-primary-education.wikispaces.com/blogging


Blogging resources


http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/otters/
http://www.crick.northants.sch.uk/pageabout.html
http://hopeblog.ethink.org.uk/
http://room112009.blogspot.com/
http://www.otleyallsaints.co.uk/allsaintsblog/wordpress/
http://usingblogs.primaryblogger.co.uk/wp-admin/themes.php?pagenum=4#themenav
http://pammaunders.edublogs.org/

Video images to support teaching

Stimulus -
Developing a sense of place

Through this Activity you will:

be introduced to a number of different ICT strategies that can be easily adapted and used when exploring a variety of places and geographical themes
begin to think about what makes 'place' a central concept for understanding geography.

ACTIVITY - Britain or not?

Do you find yourself responding to this image? Does it intrigue? Capture your imagination? Make you want to find out more?




Explore this PowerPoint Presentation provided as a stimulus for this activity.
CPDPI_BritainorNot

We could give this activity an imaginative context. Perhaps you have been exploring virtual journeys with the help of Google Earth and have visited a number of different locations. When you arrive at your destination, you are taken out for a walk along the coast by a friend who is a keen naturalist. You focus your binoculars along the cliff top. Look closely. What do you see? Are you in Britain or not?

Sense of Place

In the introduction to Chapter 2 of Teaching Geography in Primary Schools, Fran Martin encourages us to think more closely about what 'Place' means to us on a very personal level. She writes:

Place is a central concept in geography. How often do we stop to think about what places really mean to us? Does the concept have any meaning to us in our everyday lives?

In a very real, everyday sense, places play an important part in our lives. Each place we encounter will result in interactions with a variety of people and environments, and these interactions have an emotional as well as an intellectual component. The unique combination of the two will help us build up a sense of place that we then - consciously or not - apply to other places, whether experienced at first hand or indirectly; for example, through the news, films, books we read or brochures we pore over to select a holiday destination.

Our own, and children's, sense of place is therefore an important place to begin whenever we undertake a geographical study. The other important thing to recognise is that children's sense of place will not be limited to their own locality although this will, of course, be the place they know and understand in greatest depth.

Fran Martin (2006)



Our understanding of places is in part influenced by our experiences of the world.

Where is your favourite place (or places)?

Take a few moments to reflect on this question. When you have come up with an answer stop and think why these places have meaning and significance for you personally.

Try this activity with your class - what are their favourite places? This might be a good way to learn new things about them as people and the 'place' in which they live.



Reference

Martin, F. (2006), Chapter 2 'Knowledge & Understanding of Places' in Teaching Geography in Primary Schools, p.29, London: Chris Kington Publishing ISBN 1 8998 857 83 4

CPDPI_ICTResearchFrames