Some teachers last night were asking me what free blogging sites are out there. Most people are very sceptical about blogs and the bloggers who blog them. In fact I guarantee that there will be many people who believe that you have to be a geek to do it! I am certainly not a geek although some people may think so. I started blogging about 2 years ago or so and I am really enjoying it. For me it is a great way to verbalise my own learning and to share ideas in education.
Blogs can be a bit like a diary or a way of sharing ideas, therefore especially for students it can be a record of their thinking and learning. It is an electronic learning journal/log whatever you want to call it put simply a vehicle for you to reflect on your learning, it is a form of metacognition. Why it is particularly good is that is very simple to do and can be for anyone and everyone. The best thing about a blog like this unlike good old fashioned paper is that very simply you can link other ‘resources’ with ease such as videos, podcasts, other blogs, weblinks, pictures whatever you see fit to be relevant and useful. Why let your student’s blog? Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJRFYnNP0c8
In no particular order 5 blogging type sites that are out there and more importantly very easy to use and mostly are totally free. I don’t want to give any opinion about each one as I want to give a completely unbiased view of these, each one has its own strengths and areas to improve and several will be down to just personal taste on the way it looks etc.
All you need to know is that if you have thought about blogging but didn’t know where to start then just have a quick look at the websites and see which one takes your fancy.
Edublogs
“Edublogs hosts hundreds of thousands of blogs for teachers, students, researchers, professors, librarians, administrators and anyone and everyone else involved in education. Edublogs are completely free, and come with 20MB of free upload space (easily extended to 5 GB as a Supporter) and a heap of great features.” http://edublogs.org/
Word Press
“Wordpress is a state of the art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.” http://wordpress.org/
Wikispaces
“Wikis are great tools for engaging children in learning and sharing resources with other teachers and schools. You can have your own protected area where you can collaborate safely.”
http://www.wikispaces.com/
Blogger
“It is easy to share your thoughts, post text, photos etc from the web or mobile phone. You have flexibility to personalise your blog with themes and gadgets!” https://www.blogger.com/start
Edmodo
This one is slightly different as it is more a microblogging site similar to twitter rather than a complete blog. http://www.edmodo.com/home/ For more information on how to use edmodo and what students
think about it please visit Jose Picardo’s http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=1285