A survey by NCH reported by BBC online reveals that up to one third of 10 and 11 year olds use blogs and other social networking services, yet parents and schools in England are simply not engaging with these new technologies.
Worryingly, a tenth of 11 year olds claimed that their parents had no idea who they communicated with over the Internet; and 13% said they were never supervised while using the computer at home.
From an educational point of view, schools have always felt a responsibility to make children aware of issues outside school that could impact on their wellbeing. Indeed, lots of schools regard Internet safety and communications with handheld devices such as mobiles and pdas as a vital part of their ICT/PSHE curriculum. The problem with this approach is that it presents these technologies in an essentially negative light: "beware of the nasty dangers that lurk on the web" as opposed to "isn't the web brilliant, let's learn to use it responsibly".
Consequently, blogging has gained a bit of an undeserved reputation for being one of those areas of the web that schools should avoid. This is a great shame as blogging has got massive educational potential. Schools in Scotland have realised this and it has taken off in a big way (see Sandaig Primary School's blog as a great example of an educational blog site). The educational potential of blogging can be summed up by the two word beloved of publishers: audience and purpose. Write a poem on your Interactive Whiteboard and the class enjoy seeing their work on a computer. Post that shared write live on to the school's blogsite and the children will be aware that anyone the world over can read their work. In short, it adds a whole new level of responsibility into the mix. Writing is no longer seen as something that might be shared amongst the class, but could be shared by everybody, and because of that, second rate efforts will no longer do.
I have recently set up a blog site for Green Park Primary School in Maghull (Merseyside). Within a few weeks of getting started, Year 1 have recorded poetry using a digital voice recorder, written about days out, posted photographs and videos; children from Spain who visited the school posted blogs in Spanish and received comments from their parents; the school office is putting newsletters online. In short, it has transformed the way the school looks at its website from being the responsibility of an individual, to everybody's responsibility. If you get the chance, please visit the site and leave a comment or two.
Two things to note on my blog: since my own blog is powered by Typepad I can use two neat new features developed by del.icio.us for Typepad. The first is My del.icio.us Tagroll (on the left) which links you to categorised resources that I have created in del.icio.us, and the second is My del.icio.us Linkroll (on the right) which updates new links automatically as I add them to My del.icio.us. I am fairly sure that these will work with other blogs and will report back when I've tried them.
Finally, a new resource that I spotted can be found at: http://www.interactica.com/metro.htm . Anybody who knows me will be aware that I am a big fan of Poisson Rouge for Early Years kids of all ages. Well, I wasn't aware that they had produced for other sites, all accessible through the above link. I won't spoil the fun of discovery, but if you're an Early Years teacher, give yourself a bit of time to explore!
