This document describes a blogging project done by a Junior Certificate history class in Portmarnock Community School in Ireland. It discusses that the 30 students in the class each created their own blog on WordPress about a historical figure they studied. Over the course of the project, the students learned how to create blog posts, respond to each other's posts, design their blogs using themes and features like images and embedded videos. The goals of the project were for the students to develop digital skills and complete high-quality, responsible online work about topics from their history curriculum.

1. 2OG BLOGS
Donal O’ Mahony, Portmarnock Community School, Ireland.

2.  north County Dublin
 co-educational
 825 students 12 – 18/19 years of age
 61 full-time teachers
 ...Junior Certificate Examination
 ...Leaving Certificate Examination

3. 10G/20G/ 30G – A JUNIOR CERTIFICATE GROUP

4. THE STUDENTS DIGITAL HISTORY...
 As 10G, they used three online applications at a
basic level
 Moodle
 Blabberize – talking photos
 Google sites
 They were all familiar with the WYSIWYG editor

5. Essential to many
digital and social media
applications
What You See Is
What You Get

6.  In their Second Year I wanted to move to an
application
 that was easy to teach,
 that had useful digital media features
 that would support the history-syllabus

7. WORDPRESS SERVED BY EDUBLOGS
 WordPress is a blogging application using the
WYSYGYG editor
 I was very familiar with it from my own blogging
 Edublogs is an Australian company that configures
WordPress for teachers
 a small fee: fifty advert-free blogs, bulk creation of blogs,
one hundred themes, extra-features e.g. creating
personalised headers.

8. THE BLOGGING PROJECT
 Taught over one period per week 12.05 –
12.40 on Thursdays
 In an ICT room with thirty functioning PC’s
 Reliable broadband
 The students generally had good internet
access at home
 I had briefed their parents by letter,
presentation and got written permissions

9.  At first a class blog – I created the posts they
responded – figuring out what a blog is!

10. THEIR OWN BLOGS
 Choose a person in history.....Within the
Junior Certificate History syllabus there are
key people in history whom students study.
 Some of these are generic e.g. the life of a
woman in Celtic Ireland, while some are
specific, for example, a named Renaissance
artist.

11.  Create a number of postings
 Respond to each others posts
 Design using the WordPress themes
 Use text Create Hyperlinks
 Use images WYSIWYG editor
 Embed video (explanation of very basic html)

12.  Good quality internet search
 Good quality content
 Responsible online behaviour
 Plagiarism
 Netiquette
 Presentation skills
 Responsibilities of ownership

13. 30 INDIVIDUAL BLOGS

14.  20G Blogs
 Anne Frank
 John Hume

15. THEIR THOUGHTS...

18. AS THEIR TEACHER
 Time
 Risk
 Constantly learning and relearning
 Transformation of practice

19. www.elearningisland.ie
www.portmarnockcommunityschool.ie