Blogs

Blogging in learning and teaching

Using blogs in education provides pupils with their own personal writing space where they can write what they like and as often as they like, whilst developing literacy and ICT skills. Schools can use them for individual, group or class publishing.

Blogs have proved to be a fun way of working and can encourage children to take more interest in their school work. Blogging is an effective way of getting children to communicate with one another and, with the ability to interact and enter comments against posts, pupils are working in a collaborative environment.

The links below will provide you with examples of how blogs have been used in education and links to schools blogs set up by pupils and teachers.  

Blog safety

Setting up a school blog is the same as setting up a public website. You should be careful not to write any personal information that could identify the user or the user's location.

Care should be taken over the comment of the posts and when using blogs in education there is always going to be a certain amount of trust involved. It is the same as using the internet - there should be an acceptable use policy on the use of blogs within the school both as an author and as a reader.

Useful links on safe use of weblogs:

• Responsibility in blogging - a list of simple, sensible rules for blogging in schools.
• Becta: How to use weblogs safely in schools

School weblogs