Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Why do we need to blog?
Blog
What? Why?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
What is a blog and why should we blog?
Outcomes
By the end of this e-torial, you will:
 Know what a blog is
 Understand the benefits and challenges of
blogging
 Have an action plan for effective
educational blogging!
Tools
This e-torial make use of the following
programmes or tools:
 A Browser ( Internet explorer/ Firefox…)
 Online blogging tools (Wordpress/ Blogger/
Typepad/ Edublogger/iblog…)

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
What is a blog?
„A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a
human guide who you get to know. There Problogger (a blogger)
are many guides to choose from, each has blogged about what a
develops an audience, and there‟s also blog is in his blogpost…
comraderie and politics between the “What is a blog” in
people who run weblogs, they point to reference to other
each other, in all kinds of structures, bloggers defining
graphs, loops, etc.‟ Source blogging…..
Wikipedia: A blog (short for web log) is a user-generated website where entries
are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. A typical
blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media
related to its topic. Blogs also provide readers with the option to leave comments,
which makes it possible to start a discussion around a blog post
So what is a Blog, Blogger, Blogpost, Blogging, blogoshere…..?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Why do people blog?
I use my blog to organise and
link workshop materials
See Maggie’s blog
I use my blog like a website as I
do not have to host it
anywhere and it is so easy to
update on the fly!
I use my blog to publish school
news, comment on educational
articles, policies and happenings
I use my blog to share and link my
lesson plans and resource materials.
I use my blog to reflect on my See Pam’s blog
teaching practice
See Tom’s Blog

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Why are blogs so popular?
 It is free
 It is quick and easy to update and
maintain
 It allows for feedback
 You do not have to be a “techie” to
create and maintain it!
 You can personalise it with funky easy-
to-apply themes…
 Which results in professional looking  It is searchable
sites  If you mentioned
 It builds community ANYTHING
 It builds brand (teachers/schools need a ANYWHERE
better profile…!) it will show up in
your blog search
I can even blog straight from  More reasons………
my cell phone!!!!
For a full report on the state of the blogosphere, see Technorati

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Why are blogs so popular? Interactivity
 It allows for easy
subscription using
RSS & e-mail
 You can “dolly it up”
and make it
interactive using
widgets (snippets of
code that brings
video, feeds, photos,
anything really…into
your blog
AUTOMATICALLY)
What is RSS and  Share it everywhere
widgets?
As part of a follow-on learning pathway you will learn how to
use RSS and widgets to make your blog more interactive!

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
To blog or not to blog……
Creating a blog without a clear
idea of why you want to do it,
is like writing a book without a
topic.
Ps we won’t read it!
Do blog … Don’t blog…
 With a purpose  If you are not prepared
 For fun to commit time…..
 To educate  If you are not an Everyone is
 To learn innovator doing it!
 To share  If you are a quitter So I should
 To collaborate  If you do not want to be too…..?
 To advocate in the 21st century!
 To inform
 For more reasons and discussion, click here

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Blogging action plan
In order for us to achieve our •What is your blog going to be about?
•School? Personal? Organisational?
outcome of creating and Purpose •Who is your audience? Learners? Parents
maintaining an effective blog, we
need to ….
•What posts have to be included?
 Decide what the purpose •Ideas Folder
(theme/niche) of our blog is Ideas •Look for opportunities.
going to be
 Brainstorm some ideas that •Where are you going to create it?
•Choose a theme
will support our purpose and Create •Insert feeds, widgets, interactivity
create an ideas folder
 Create our blog
 Maintain our blog •Update regularly
•Look after comments
 Post regularly Maintain
 Reply to feedback
 Collaborate with others in
our field
Find a blog-buddie to do this with you, so that you can support one another!

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Ideas 4 blogging 4 teachers
 Post daily homework tasks
 Reflect on the days teaching
 Post educational tutorials
 Embed videos and slideshows that
you want the class to watch and post
comment on. (peer review maybe?)
 Post newsletters and parent notes
 Post sport results and event
calendars
 Post a photo gallery
I ACTIVITY  Weekly class report
1. Read some of the teachers blogs  Comment on current educational
(click on the links to the right) and issues
make a note of how they used
their blog  Inspiration
2. Make a list of things that YOU can  Embed a school radio station
blog about
 …………?
Blogging is a great tool for critical thinking, enhancing writing skills and peer
assessment. Why not let your learners blog?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Ideas 4 blogging 4 Subject advisors
 Post weekly list of new teacher
resources from Thutong ;-)
 Reflect and comment on educational
policies and new curriculum
implementation issues
 Post lesson plans for teachers
 Post educational tutorials
I ACTIVITY  Embed videos and slideshows that
could assist teachers in their teaching
As a subject advisor you have to be a practice
policy implementer, subject
specialist, teacher supporter, lifelong  Post newsletters with news from the
learner, assessor, trainer, facilitator district
and administrator.
Bearing this in mind, make a list of  Post notices and summaries of
all the things that you would like to meetings
blog about in support of all your
roles.  Organise workshops and links
Be specific.  …………?
You have so many roles to full fill, how can blogging help you to cope? How can
your blog keep your teachers informed, resourced and motivated?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
School Blogging ideas
The school can post:
 Daily notices for learners and parents A school blog can
 Sport results as they happen showcase the spirit of
 School photo gallery learning in a school
 Events calendar
 Newsletters
 Comment on educational issues
 Advice for parents, learners
 Grade reports
 Class happenings (embed a video)
 School radio station (embed podcasts)
 …………..
It is easy to post
collaboratively to a school
blog and it is therefore
effortless to maintain
Picture source: Crestoncollege
Snap fundraising idea: Get your school blog sponsored!

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Personal Blogging ideas
 Reflect on daily/weekly happenings
 Blog about your interests, hobbies and I cut and paste “really”
passions (eg gardening, recipes, funny jokes or PowerPoints
sport…) that people send me via e-
 Use it as a newsletter for friends and mail into my blog
family
 Inspirational quotes
 Something that made you cry
 Post photo albums
 Something that made you laugh
 Post important information
(a must read!)
 Create a radio station
I must Read:  Whinge about the crime rate (or
10 good anything else accept your boss!)
reasons to  Talk about REAL issues!
blog  Create a blog page for all the links that
you want to get to quickly
 Post your CV……..
What about privacy in a personal blog?

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
The challenges you will face
 It can be time consuming
 Allocate a daily/weekly
timeslot depending on your
purpose.
 It takes time to built an audience
base (If you are going to do a
personal/learning/organisational
blog)
 You do not always get feedback
and comments
 Don‟t worry, lurkers also
count
 Blog for yourself and your
own learning pathway!
The majority of bloggers recognize the positive impact that blogging has on their
personal and professional lives Technorati Report

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Activity: Action plan
•What is your blog going to be about?
•School? Personal? Organisational?
Purpose •Who is your audience? Learners? Parents
I ACTIVITY
 Complete the first 2 steps of
•What posts have to be included?
•Ideas Folder your action plan
Ideas •Look for opportunities.
•Where are you going to create it? Download
•Choose a theme Action
Create •Insert feeds, widgets, interactivity
plan
Template
•Update regularly
•Look after comments
Maintain
The majority of bloggers recognize the positive impact that blogging has on their
personal and professional lives Technorati Report

Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Presentation information
This e-torial was developed by
maggiev for the Department of
Education for use by subject
advisors, teachers and learners
It forms part of a learning pathway
 Blog: What? Why?
 Creating a blog
 Making your blog look good
 Making your blog interactive
with widgets and RSS
All e-turials can be found on the
Thutong portal:
www.thutong.org.za