Edublogs is another blogging website, and it is specifically for teachers and students, and, as it's catch cry says, it is blogging 'made easy'. It's services are free, and it also has bloggers from around the world. Currently, they have 376, 419 blogs posted on their site!
Some key features (as quoted from it's website) include;
Effortlessly create and manage students blogs
Packed with useful features and customisable themes
Ready made for podcasting, videos, photos and more
Step by step support with helpful video tutorials
This website would be fantastic for students from stage 1 onwards. Even if they are purely viewing the blogs in the earlier years, it is a great resource to show students.
Student 2.0 Collaborative blogs, also known as Group Blogs, publish posts written by multiple users. Student 2.0 is an excellent example of a group blog authored by students. The blog posts come from all around the world and this is fantastic experience for students to witness and/or experience other cultures in this different medium.
On the website, their opening quote reads:
We are students: the ones who come to school every day, raise our hands with safe questions, and keep our heads down. Except, now we have a voice—a strong voice—to share our ideas through a global network.
This YouTube video introduces the blog's young authors.
This blog website is an excellent example to show students. It exhibits the amazing potential and the power of collaborative blogs. Personally, I would use this blog in Stage 3 (Years five and six), as the authors of the blogs appear to be older, and some are in college.
Moodle is one of the online educational tools which I am most impressed with. It can be used for many different things, including blogs. One of my subjects at uni employs the use of moodle. It can be used for many different reasons. On the uni's moodle site you can find literary resources, lecture and turoial resources, assignment discussion threads, and much more. Recently, my friend opened a discussion thread on moodle so that fellow students can discuss funny happenings during our prac experience. Throughout prac, there were almost 60 posts! This was a great mini 'blog' for us to use. If we were feeling a little down or stressed, we could have a flick through some of the things that were happening in our fellow students classes and find relief!
Moodle has many great features, and the teacher can facilitate and monitor what goes on on their own site.
I think that Moodle could be used for all grades (with significant differentiation, obviously), and I'm looking forward to trying it out in my classrooms in the future!
