Student bloggers

Who doesn't want to get their students to find meaningful reasons to write?
Who doesn't want to give their students the freedom to write about the things they're really passionate about?

I've just started a group for blogging at lunch time.  At the Ulearn conference I went to there was a table set up that gave people a place to blog.  It was called, "The Blogger's Cafe."  I thought, 'What a great idea for students!'

We've met only twice but have about 12 kids coming and learning from each other.  I'm hoping that it keeps building momentum but, to be honest, if there are just a few who discover a life long passion to blog then...mission accomplished.

This is a post from Edna Sackson's blog, 'Whatedsaid' and it has some tips I totally agree with!

Here are some parts of the post that I totally agree with...

1.  Freedom of choice!
2.  Model great writing / blogging
3.  Allow students to personalise their blogs.
4.  Give them some motivation or skills to learn - I'm going to show a simple way to take some photos and make a basic panorama.
5.  Embed multimedia tools - We've just used theherofactory in class and uploaded the photo.  Youtube videos are great to embed.  Make sure you tick the 'don't show related videos' button in the embed settings - that tip's for free.

I'm thinking about having a blogger's award for the most viewed / interesting blog.  Fun times.

Postscript (Is that what this is?):  Since posting this I got this message from @whatedsaid.
Thanks for the  mention :) Glad you liked our post.  The bloggers' cafe is a great idea.  Have you seen Henrietta's post about that? http://www.classroomchronicles.net/2010/09/08/the-bloggers-cafe/

This post is about a teacher who started the exact same thing in her school.  Funny, there are hardly any original ideas out there.  Thanks, @whatedsaid.  Man, I like Twitter.



(Above image - Creative Commons - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramblingrovers/1310385981/)