Welcome to Blogging

Welcome to this sample site on how Blogging could be used to enhance learning and teaching in the classroom. 

I hope you enjoy your visit and start to think about how you might use Blogging to enhance learning and teaching in your classroom.

Some ideas To Get You Started

Blogging can be used to enhance learning and teaching, as a distance learning tool; to support critical and reflective thinking; to support home-school links; as a means of showcasing pupil work (portfolio) and as a way to encourage new ways of working.

1. History:  Empathy writing. Blogging from the Front line – WW1/2, Blogging from the Titanic – as the ship goes down
2. Geography:  Reports from field trips with accompanying photographs.
3. Science:  Tool for writing up experiments and acting as a revision site
4. English:  A tool to encourage creative writing at KS3 and GCSE e.g. poetry anthology; story-writing; online diary etc.  A method of making notes and publishing them online – exchange of ideas/poetry anthology
5. Journalism:  Getting published –a tool for supporting GCSE journalism by publishing and sharing stories/reports online
6. Home Economics:  healthy eating blog; recipes online; research and reporting online.
7. Music:  reports on the great composers; discussions about concerts; posts about musical influences and styles.
8. French:  improve written work in target language by posting responses to topics; completing projects; verb bank etc.
9. Technology:  information on technology trends; safety in workshop; notes on key topics; revision materials
10. RS:  discussion and debate about key moral and social issues; debating forum; notes and revision materials
11. Art:  reviews of the great artists; reviews of artistic styles; discussions about the nature of art and the different materials used in art
12. General:  a class/form information/bulletin board/ sports notices; reports from educational visits; match reports; school events etc.

How To Display Your Videos using Blogger and C2K Video on Demand Service

This video is linked directly to the Video on Demand server within C2K system

This allows videos to play back directly on your blog when using a C2K system.

How To:

1. Upload your video to C2K Video on Demand Service
2. When you video has uploaded, preview it to check it is working.  Then select and copy the embedded object code for your video from the Video on Demand service
3. Switch to Blogger
4. Create a new post
5. Click on Edit HTML (top right of the post section)
6. Paste the embedded video code the into your new blog post
7. Click on Compose
8. Add text as normal
9. Publish your post
10. The video will display on your blog

Multimedia Blogging on C2K System

You can use Blogger on C2K systems to create multimedia blogs.

This blog entry was created entirely on a C2K computer to prove that blogger is accessible and can be updated via C2K computers.

However, some (all?) of your video clips may not be viewable on a C2K system.

You can even upload video files from C2K

And it all works fine!

So, Blogger can be used on Legacy and C2K networks, from home and in school.

Happy blogging!

Video and Audio Blogging

Video Blogging

You can create a video blog using a normal video camera - the camera must be able to save files in either .avi or .wmv format.  A good choice of camera is the Logitech Pro 9000 camera, supplied by C2K to your school for Video Conferencing.  Once you record the blog using the software that came with the camera, you can then upload these files direct to your blog. 

Audio Blogging

You can create an audio blog in Windows Movie Maker by

1. Start Movie Maker
2. Record your blog using the Narrate Timeline option
3. Import a suitable picture and drag it out to match the full length of your audio recording
4. Save your blog as a video file using the following options
5. Select Save Movie File
6. Movie Location:  Select My Computer and click Next
7. Enter a suitable file name and click Next
8. Choose Other Settings and Select Video for Broadband (150kbs)
9. Click Next
10. The files is converted to a video and saved in MyVideos folder
11. You are now ready to create a blog post and upload your video podcast.