Blogging for young children can be meaningful and fun, and provide them with opportunities to engage in a writing practice that is part of the digital future. This was the experience of the nursery children at Sharrow School, Sheffield, as they tracked the adventures of two bears.
Most of you will be familiar with the idea of blogging, given how much has been written on the subject by the popular press. You might even have a blog yourself (many professionals do). For those not in the know, a blog is an online diary or record in which entries (or posts) appear in date order, with the most recent post appearing first.
Authors can give the posts 'tags', keywords and phrases, which enables others to search them. There is a commenting facility and readers of the blog need to click on to the comments to read them. It is possible for editors of blogs to block comments entirely, or to only allow comments to be posted that they have approved.
The Sharrow School blog came about during a rebuild of the school in 2005-06. The architects who designed the school were forward-looking and created a blog in which they informed the community about the progress of the rebuild. To capture the children's imagination, they featured two teddy bears who were used to report the news and were named Brix and Morta.
BRIX AND MORTA
Once the building was complete, the architects maintained the blog. However, we felt it was time that Brix and Morta got to work on inspiring the nursery children to engage in blogging. So we set up a blog entitled The adventures of Brix and Morta at http://brixandmorta.blogspot.com/.
Brix and Morta were placed in a backpack, along with a digital camera and a letter to families. The backpack was then sent home with children for a week at a time. The letter asked families to help children to take photographs of Brix and Morta having adventures with them.
At the end of the week, children then brought the backpack back to school. They sat with an adult as the photographs were uploaded to the blog. The children then talked about each photograph, and what they said was scribed by an adult and typed into the blog post.
Each child uploaded about five photographs and related stories to the blog before it was someone else's turn. The blog thus became a record of Brix and Morta's adventures with a number of families.
The value of a blog is that it gives children the opportunity to share their experiences and learning with the wider community and is accessible to all on the web. This meant that parents and other family members were able to read the blog and, in some cases, even comment on it.
First to contribute to the blog was four-year-old Zakariya. His parents had lived in Sheffield for many years and had family members living in Bangladesh. They were keen to be involved in the project and enjoyed having the teddies and camera at home for a week. On the teddies' return, Zakariya had lots of adventures to report.
This first blog post garnered three responses, the final one from Zakariya's grandmother who lived in Scunthorpe.
Zakariya's fifth and final post highlighted Brix and Morta's medical skills.
This time, among the comments, was an observation from Zakariya's uncle in Bangladesh.
BENEFITS
This is an example of how blogging can be an excellent means of enabling families to keep in touch with children's interests. Family members from anywhere in the world can read the blog and comment if they wish. In addition, families can write in any language, although the English alphabet is used on sites such as Blogger.
Zakariya's mum reported that he had really enjoyed the project and it had stimulated much talk at home. As well as finding out about blogging, the project gave children opportunities to develop skills in using digital cameras. It also enhanced their oral skills as they retold stories to adult scribes for the blog posts.
The blogging project was a great success and could be used in all kinds of ways to promote family literacy. Such projects are important because they introduce children to the literacy practices of a digital age. They also offer children an audience and a real purpose for writing.
CREATING A BLOG
If you are thinking of developing a similar project, here are some guidelines:
- Use a site such as edublogs (http://edublogs.org/) or Blogger (https://www.blogger.com/start).
- Give the site a memorable password so that it can be accessed by several staff.
- Train all staff in how to post to the blog and upload photographs.
- Try and upload a photograph with every post as it enlivens the site.
- If you are concerned about getting unsolicited comments, ensure that you have editorial rights to review all of them.
- Provide a simple 'how to comment' set of instructions for parents and family members.
- Ask parents not to give out personal information if they comment on the blog, for example, the child's full name or address.
- Do not post photographs of children on the blog unless you have permission from parents.
- Read the blog with children in the nursery regularly, including the comments.
Topics
Blogs can focus on any topic and be used for a wide variety of purposes. Here are some ideas:
- Diary of a day in the nursery from a child's perspective.
- Replace your nursery newsletter with a blog.
- Blog about a particular topic, for example, musical instruments.
- Scan children's drawings and paintings into a blog.
- If you are in a setting linked to a primary school, ask older children to read and comment on the blog.
Advice
Finally, if you get stuck, there are several websites that offer advice about Web 2.0 sites for educators. You could join a forum and ask the members for guidance. We have listed a helpful website above.
Above all, have fun while you blog, and once you start,who knows where it might end up - you might even decide you want to start a blog or two yourself.
Asma Parveen is a teacher at Sharrow Primary School, Sheffield. She managed the blog project in the nursery.
Jackie Marsh is a professor of education at the University of Sheffield, where she works on the MA and EdD programmes in Early Childhood Education (http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/education). She worked on the blog project with the school.