You ask about the ‘purpose of blogging’ in our room. This is a tough one! I’ve agonised over how to use the individual blogs this session. Last session, it was new and exciting to both me and the kids. I began with having only the class blog, but wanted to give the class more control. I set up a wikispaces account and gave them all their own ‘space’ for them to ‘showcase’ their writing… this did sometimes lead to problems of one pupil logging off and the whole class losing their unsaved work!

Eventually, with the help of David Gilmour of East Lothian council, individual blogs were set up for the pupils in a way that I had control over how they were used. I was very grateful for the help … but, as we were using blogs set up by another authority, I was aware of our ‘responibility’. We began by having a ‘uniform’ like theme until I felt comfortable. Eventually, they were allowed to choose their own individual theme, but I was still very prescriptive about their use and the types of posts (poetry, project work, etc.) and comments of ‘two stars and a wish’ style were encouraged. Some of the best posts were made, however, just prior to the class going off to High School. They had gone for a 3 day visit and it was super reading their views about their experiences. I realised that, up until then, the blog content had been too ‘teacher led’.

Soooo with this session’s P7′s, I’ve decided to take more of a ‘back seat’. I no longer say how the blogs have to be used. Some pupils do say, ‘Can I write my book review on my blog?’, some choose to hand write – some use their blogs because they want to (Anna’s ‘Thought of the Day’ idea is great – and she obviously enjoys it!). One or two boys have simply been posting pictures of their favourite cars, etc.

It may work, it may not! I had an earlier comment from Ewan McIntosh about the need to ‘kick start’ an on-line community to keep it going. I wasn’t sure about this, but now agree. Just before the Christmas holidays, I came up with the idea of showcasing the ‘Blogs of the Week’ RSS feeds in the sidebar of the class blog. These will be chosen by the children. I suppose it’s another way of having the children look at what makes an interesting blog post ….thanks again for giving rise to the idea from the ‘commenting confidence’ post

Finally …. loved your suggestion quoted below and will definately use it … thanks!
“Maybe it will be useful/interesting to categorize or note the different types of posts and the different types of comments received. This could be part of the data collection/ documentation/qualitative part of your study?”

## types of posts – report backs, publishing narratives or poetry, imaginative writing, preliminary project work (info gathering), published project work, opinion reponses. All encourage different types of comments from short personal affirmations to longer questions.

Maybe it comes back to the whole purpose of blogging in your room – have you discussed this with the kids? What do you use your blogs for?

Also looking at comments there are a few different sorts of comments as well. I have found that when we worked on commenting as a writing focus the kids wrote better comments, asked better questions in their comments and received better answers as well.

Maybe it will be useful/interesting to categorize or note the different types of posts and the different types of comments received. This could be part of the data collection/ documentation/qualitative part of your study?