Blogging and Podcastiong
Create content that accomplishes given goals
Understand computer networks including the internet; how they can provide multiple services, such as the world wide web; and the opportunities they offer for communication and collaboration.
Select, use and combine a variety of software (including internet services) on a range of digital devices to design and create a range of programs, systems and content that accomplish given goals.
Use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly; recognise acceptable/unacceptable behaviour
What is blogging and why use it in school?
Blogging provides pupils with a real audience and purpose to their work. It can also connect home and school, communicating learning with parents. As schools are creating more and more digital work, it is difficult to display this work on wall displays due to much of the work being videos, ebooks, audio etc. Therefore a school or class blog can effectively be a digital display board. A blog can be created using different platforms, it just depends on the features, such as whether you want to have a school/class blog and only the teachers post to it or if the pupils can post work also. Blogging can also work really well for re-enforcing e-safety messages as pupils have a real example of their digital footprint, so providing clear blog rules is important.
If you are looking for ideas on the type of content teachers and pupils can write blog posts about then please visit this school blog example.
Below we have outlined different options that we use in school, that work on all devices.
Just 2 Easy
Many schools subscribe to Just 2 Easy and as part of the J2e tools, you have the J2e5 online publishing tool which can feed straight into J2Webby (blogging). Basically, this allows schools to create a blog page that pupils and teachers can post to. The video above demonstrates how to post to a blog in using J2e and moderate work.
EduBlogs
If you do not subscribe to J2e and just want the blogging features then we would recommend EduBlogs, which is free to use or there are premium features for only £30. It is based on WordPress and allows teachers to set up a class or school blog then provide other teachers and pupils will access. All posts and comments can be moderated through the teacher dashboard. There is a user guide to it here.
Many schools use SeeSaw and we have referred to it in many of our activity packs. As part of the journals that teachers can create for pupil work and engagement, there is also an option to turn a journal into a blog. This is covered on the SeeSaw website here.
Twitter
A simple way to share pupil work is by using a class or school Twitter account that parents can follow. Here is a good example of a school twitter account. Twitter accounts are more for whole class/school tasks/projects/work. You do lose the individual nature of pupils blogging. You also need to be careful if parents requested their children not to appear on social media.
When creating a blog using J2e, EduBlog or SeeSaw, the url will be something linked with that company such as www.schoolname.j2webby.com, which can be difficult to share with parents. A good idea is to purchase a simpler domain from a company such GoDaddy (often only a couple of pounds), such as www.schoolnameblog.co.uk and then use the tools in GoDaddy to forward this domain to your blog domain. There is information about this here.
Alternatively, you could speak to the person who makes your school website about creating a sub-domain that forwards to your school/class blog using your school website. Such as www.schoolname.co.uk/year4blog. This integrates your blog well with your school website.
Podcasting
What are podcasts and why use it in education?
Like blogging, podcasting provides a purpose and real audience for pupil work but audio only, meaning it focuses a task on sound, which can be a challenge for pupils. Pupils or teachers record an audio file and then publish it online for others to listen to. Again, as with blogging, it is important that pupils do not record personal information and a strong link with e-safety messages can be made.
The focus of podcasts is with sound so there are obviously links with literacy and music lessons but the content of the podcasts could be linked to many subjects. Pupils could record interviews (historical figures, sport), reports, reviews (films, books), instruction writing and school/class radio station broadcasts.
How to make a podcast?
Firstly and obviously, pupils will need access to a computer or device with a microphone, either a separate microphone connected to a computer or the built in microphone of a laptop or tablet.
Both J2e and Seesaw mentioned in the blogging section above have a built-in sound recorders in their tools so pupils can record an audio file straight into there and publish the blog post. If you are using EduBlogs (above) then pupils could record their audio on a computer using the built in Sound Recorder in Windows 10 or software such as Audacity, (there are tutorials for Audacity here). Pupils can then save these sounds files and upload it to an EduBlogs post.
If pupils have access to iPads then they could also use GarageBand (tutorials in our Music activity pack) to make some audio with sound effects behind.
Finally, if you want a simple way for pupils to record audio using any device online (less than 5 minutes) and publish it online then SpeakPipe will work for this.
1. Pupils or teachers visit https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder
2. Click/tap ‘Record Audio’ (less than 5 minutes).
3. Click stop and then ‘Save on Server.’
4. There an option to type your name but this is optional.
5. A web-link to the audio is then created and can be copied and pasted into a blog post/website/twitter post etc.
Important: The audio stays on the SpeakPipe server for 3 months.
Another option to Speakpipe is Vocaroo, which does the same thing.