In our Board, we have had many literacy and writing successes with students involved in the blogging process as part of their course work. Teachers indicate that students:

• are more engaged
• are more likely to participate in the class activity
• demonstrate improvement in their writing skills
• are more likely to enter into dialogue about their reading materials

All of these success indicators point to involving more teachers and students in incorporating blogging as a literacy strategy. In order to achieve growth in this area, staff and students need to have sufficient access to technology to facilitate the blogging process and at the time you need it. 

Possibilities: Meeting this need becomes a key ingredient in the success formula. Along with some other staff at our Board, I have been looking at affordable ways to do this. One option would be to use an iPod touch (with classroom wireless access). There are currently 3 applications available for the iPod – WordPress, Blogwriter Lite and Blogwriter.

Software Application Cost: WordPress and Blogwriter Lite are free applications. Blogwriter is $1.99 CDN.

Other factors: Of course, training, assessment, support and sustainability are components of this picture too.

I am going to spend a little time reviewing and testing each application to see how feasible this approach might be. I will share what I learn in a future post. Off to start experimenting and learning about blogging with iPods.

~ Mark