May 03 2009
Highland Blogging Conference
…is perhaps a grand title for an informal after-school get together but I think it conveys the importance we placed on coming together as a group. Last month, a group of teachers from Highland schools were invited to Dingwall Academy to meet fellow teachers who either run blogs themselves, or have classroom or even whole-school blogs.
The group, initially all primary teachers, were contacted by email to see if there was sufficient interest in the idea of a meeting. Louise Jones suggested that Stephanie Disbury and I, both secondary teachers, should try to attend as there was currently no framework for us to participate in a similar group with a secondary focus.
We met in one of the computer suites in the recently-opened Academy. The idea was for us to spend some time looking at each other’s blogs and seeing what other practitioners were using their blogs for, both inside and outside the classroom environment. I was really surprised by the frequency of media use. Photographs and embedded video seemed to feature prominently in many of the sites we visited.
Louise brought us all up to date with the e-safety CPD roll-out across Highland and an interesting debate on the use of 3rd party sites followed, particularly around the issue of whether or not pupils should be using a personal account.
A theme that cropped up several times was that of internet filtering and the problem associated with hosting materials to be used in school on sites such as youtube, vimeo and flickr. I must thank Margaret Vass for coming to our rescue with suggestions for sites that would not be filtered in primary schools, Photobucket seems to have gone down well – it works in school and has shorter upload times.
Jim Henderson, our virtual learning coordinator, also joined us. He delighted several of us with his announcement of a new server, complete with WordPress MultiUser, to give a safe blogging platform for schools across the Highlands. This could not have come at a better time. I am planning a series of blogging sessions with staff at my own school during study leave and now have an appropriate hosting solution that will not require vigilance for inappropriate advertising in the sidebar.
Hopefully this will be the first in a series of meetings. It was great to see how others not only use their blogs but also to hear how they think their use of blogs will change over time.