Teachers - Welcome!

Thanks for coming - please try to see past any language issues that bother you and try to identify any positive potential such a tool might have. I know my students and I enjoy using blogs and it helps us in many ways.
Researchers and educators around the world are embracing blogging as a means to break down barriers between school and home, between teachers, students and parents, as well as to help guide, reinforce, scaffold, inspire, bribe, and so forth.

SO, What do we need to start blogging?
1. a computer
2. the internet
3. an email address
4. interest
5. and for your students, permission from home and some guidance regarding cybersafety and netiquette.

What do you not need?
1. highly developed skills of any type - although typing skills are the main one, possibly.

What is a hindrance to using it effectively at school?
1. disinterest
2. an unreliable internet connection
3. exploding computers
4. cyber safety issues

By the end of this session, hopefully you will have thought about how blogging COULD be a POSITIVE enhancement to your learning environment. I would like us to explore possible uses - I could experiment with your ideas if you don't want to - and we can set someone up with a blog to show how easy it is. We can discuss the necessary steps to setting your students up with blogs in ICT.

Remember - it is available to ALL people in this school and it can be a really neat thing for some of your students. You don't actually have to have any particular magical powers other than imagination and your garden variety teaching skills.

Please feel free to ask for help creating your own blog or setting one up for your class. It won't work for everyone, but it has worked for me and most of my class.

HAve fuN!