Defining the Blog Audience
Topic: Classroom Blogging
In line with what I wrote Saturday, I'm thinking that when teachers and students define the audience for their blog, it accomplishes a couple of important things. First, it's possible to chose an audience that's on-site, off-site, or both. In a classroom setting some accountability can then be incorporated for students so that they don't simply posting on their own blog, but also read and respond to the blog(s) they have been invited to participate in. Second, privacy and security is a concern for many administrators. By limiting audiences, some or all of these concerns can be addressed.

I heard Alan November speak at a conference in CA a year or so ago. At that time, he was interested in Web sites where people post their writing and get reactions from other readers. Not so much on grammar or spelling, but on the content of the piece. He also talked about teachers at different sites teaming up to swap and grade student essays. I think blogs could be used to accomplish both tasks. Especially in the case of the writing sites. The few I looked at included material that would never fly in a district. I realize that kids are exposed to this stuff on a regular basis, but I don't think that educators can recommend or use them in class.

The Nature of Blogs
Topic: Classroom Blogging
It's been interesting for me to follow my Web site reports since I started this blog. It's getting anywhere from 50 to 400 views per day, and yet comments from readers are very limited.

And so, while there's clearly an audience beyond my little cabin office, I have very little information about who it is or why they're looking. I wonder if this is typical. The studies I read earlier talk about the percentage of people who've created blogs, the percentage of people who've read blogs written by others,and even the frequency of posts by the original blogger, but I haven't seen anything about how often readers respond.

I'm thinking that if what's happening here is typical, then perhaps it's important to reconsider the argument that it's good for students to write for a larger audience. It may be gratifying for them to have many readers, but if no one responds, where's the value?

Teacher Blogs
Topic: Classroom Blogging
I had a note today from a principal who wants his teachers to move from telephone Homework Hotlines to an online means for posting assignments and messages to parents. A few weeks ago, I might have suggested a simple Web page, but now I'm thinking a blog would be a better alternative. I know that Tim's teachers are blogging notes home weekly and that Pamela Coates' teachers at Butlerville are using blogs instead of Web sites. It would be helpful to have some other examples, especially at the middle and high school levels.

Communicating with Students (and Staff)
Topic: Getting Started
I stumbled across another blog created by a principal. This one comes from J.H. House Elementary School in Conyers, Georgia where principal Joyce Hooper plans to post weekly entries that align with the school's character education program. The blog is accessible to staff and students to read and make comments. It's called Principal's Quest. Take a peek!

Another Tip from Tim Lauer
Topic: Getting Started
In addition to the school weblog and personal blog maintained by Tim, he is also blogging the staff bulletin. Teachers are able to read the entries, post questions, and discuss these items online. Tim reports that this blog has saved a great deal of staff meeting time that used to be spent on questions and comments about items in the bulletin. Sounds like a great idea!

Blogging Administrators
Topic: Getting Started
Last week Amy Garrett Dikkers suggested several blogs of interest to school administrators. I've visited them all and found that two are the work of school principals. The Butlerville Elementary School weblog was created by Pamela Coates and the Meriwether Lewis Elementary School is maintained by Tim Lauer. I've contacted both principals and each of them reports that the parents are quite pleased with the schools' weblog Web sites. Lauer also send home a print newsletter each week, to keep parents who don't have online access up-to-date, but says it's easy to do because the weblog creates an archive that becomes the foundation of the newsletter. His teachers also post Classroom Notes at least once each week and these entries are also sent home.
Coates' teachers have individual blogs linked to the school's weblog.

Lauer also maintains his own personal blog.

Does anyone out there know of additional examples of blogging administrators?

Thoughts about Blogs in Classrooms
Topic: Classroom Blogging
I've read several posts about classroom blogging on other blogs. There seems to be a great deal of discussion about whether or not students are blogging the 'right' way. Since classroom blogging is still in its infancy, I find this a curious comment. What is the 'right' way?

I think this is a great opportunity for educators and students to define what's right for them! I also think that it would be useful for folks to review the stages of use identified in the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow and use these stages to help them see where they are and how they want to progress in their use of blogs.

For those of you not familiar with the ACOT study, it was found that teachers progress through five stages of use with a new technology: entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention. Page 16 of the PDF linked above provides a brief description of each stage. I'd say that most of us are at entry or adoption right now- learning the basics of blogging ourselves and figuring out how blogs can be used to support traditional instruction. Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, I don't think it's possible to get to more creative uses without doing this first.

Misconceptions about Blogging
Topic: Getting Started
Prior to starting this blog and doing some research, these are some things I thought were true about blogging:

- I thought most bloggers were in their teens and 20s
- I was under the impression that most bloggers made entries at least daily
- I believed that bloggers used this venue to reach a large (read world wide) audience of readers
- I also thought that most blogs were sustained over a long period of time (at least a year)

Now that I've read a wide variety of blogs and sifted through a number of articles and reports, I see that most of what I thought is wrong. I was right about the blogging age group, but that's it! Most of the blogs I've read myself are updated sporatically, if at all. Most seem to have a very targeted audience (e.g., friends, a teacher). And many blogs were less than a year old, based upon archive dates.

I read the Pew Internet and American Life Project report which surveyed American adults and found that just 2% to 7% are have their own blogs and 11% read blogs created by someone else. Hmmm...any wonder administrators may not be embracing this communication form?

Then I read a report published by the Perseus Development Corporation . This document looked at use across all age groups, not just adults, and this was where I saw statistics that supported what I was seeing rather than my preconceptions. According to this report, 91.1% of all blogs are the work of young people aged 13-29. No surprise. But then I read that most blogs reviewed for the survey (66%) had been abandoned- no new entries for at least two months. That's a lot of languishing blogs! And, the average 'active' blogs are updated every two weeks, not daily. Females blog more often than males. Their intended audience is not usually the world at large. They're using the blog to keep their friends up to date. The average blog has a lifespan of 4 months before it's abandoned.

This has me thinking about what we might be trying to accomplish with blogs in schools. While I was feeling a little guilty earlier about suggesting that principals use blogs for mundane tasks such as agenda or bulletin reviews, maybe that's not such a bad idea. It would be a blog for a very specific audience. It would not require daily updates- okay, maybe a high school bulletin would, but then teachers could do their own updating, not the principal. It provides opportunities for users to interact about information they (we hope) care about.

There are also ramifications for how teachers use blogs with students, but I think I'll deal with that tomorrow.

Blog Security
Topic: Blogging Basics
Brian P. Czapla posted a comment asking about security issues and blogs. I've done some research about that. Some blog hosting sites do allow you to set security levels. For example, TypePad offers password protection. Subscription costs for this site run from $4.95/month to $14.95/month. I used Tripod to create this blog. This allowed me to set some limits about who can post and whether or not I wanted to approve every comment. While you can have a free account that includes a blog, it also includes advertising. For $4.95/month you can have an ad-free site and blog. The thing about these sites is that some districts block them.

There are also installed applications such as Movable Type, which used to be free to schools, but now has a one time cost ($39.95 for a classroom up to $999.95 for a site with more than 1000 students) or WordPress, which is free at this time. You can modify these programs to set up all sorts of security, but that means you need to have someone capable of doing that!

One approach I saw in an elementary blog (Mrs. Dudiak's Awesome Readers and Writers) was to have students post using nicknames or initials. Another approach was to have an adult post all entries, but that seems really clunky. Teachers can monitor all entries and comments by using RSS and reading what's being posted- could be time consuming though!

Making this a Community Blog
Topic: Blogging Basics
As I look through the options available to me as administrator of this blog, I see that it's possible for me to grant rights to allow others to post original entries rather than just comment on my postings. If you would like to have your rights bumped up to advanced level, please drop me an email at SJBrooks@aol.com and I'll take care of the rest.

I'd like for this to be a community blog, so I'm eager to add names!