I was thinking this morning about an idea I had and I think I’ve found a way to make it even better. I think.

I have had quite a few people ask me for help this year with being an ICT coordinator and wanting to see what I was doing or wanting some ideas of where to get started. The main reason for this is that I spent two years training teachers across Hampshire to use a learning platform and I also used to drop in lots of other tools too. I have since gone back into school and have spent the past year improving ICT in lots of different areas. In my experience, ICT is one of those subjects that tends to go to either the geeky teacher or the young keen one (they’re young, they know about this computer stuff). Although there should probably be a team of people doing it, we know that this is often not the case and people can be left on their own to run a massive subject. But it’s more than a subject, it’s also (rightly or wrongly) making sure all of the hardware is working, working out why the projector in the hall has stopped working and being asked how to use the photocopier!

So I had this idea of writing a few blog posts to help new ICT coordinators get started. There might be something out there online already but I haven’t seen it. But then I had a better idea, why not combine some of the best ICT coordinators I know and get a crowd-sourced guide instead? Imagine having an article written about ICT assessment with lots of examples to get teachers started?

So what do I need? Well I’ve started a Primary Pad here: http://primarypad.com/ictguide for you to add your ideas or feel free to comment below or email/tweet me. If you could help share some ideas of things you do, link to your resources or write something to introduce an area, let me know.
Hosting £5-20 a year

Please note: There are other ways such as Blogger, Typepad etc but at the time of writing Blogger is blocked so I have focused on WordPress. I would suggest looking at primaryblogger.co.uk as it would help the majority of people get blogging in minutes.

Settings:

You MUST make sure that you check the box that says ‘requires admin approval before comments go live’, this can be found under the Settings>Discussion menu. This means that any comments from the outside world get vetted by you before going public. Just in case you get some dodgy visitors and comments.

Setup a map or globe from www.clustrmaps.com or http://www.revolvermaps.com/ so that you can see who has visited your blog.

Now what?

Now you can start blogging. Blog when you feel like it. Blog when you want to show things off. Blogging makes a great plenary tool at the end of a lesson to show what you have done or what you have learnt. You can also use blogging to ask questions for the readers and visitors. Use it to show off the ‘silly little things’ that happen in your school on a daily basis, parents will love this. This half-term we have had photos of aliens we have sewn together, leaves made out of numbers, instruction writing and games made in 2DIY.

One key thing is to get the children involved. We often login for them as the teacher and then let them write the text. This way they are becoming a part of the process, then you can check it and press ‘Publish’ before it goes live.

More advanced:

Why not combine it with a tool such as Animoto or Photopeach and make your photos a bit more exciting? You can embed most things into a blog so you could have a Google map or a Voki or a PrimaryPad.

Some examples:

http://www.stjohnsblogs.co.uk – St John the Baptist Primary, Hampshire (My school)

http://blackfield6ao.wordpress.com/ – Blackfield Primary, Hampshire

http://fordingbridgejunior.blogspot.com/ – Fordingbridge Junior, Hampshire

http://tobythepuppy.wordpress.com/ – Fordingbridge Junior, Hampshire

http://hmsastute.wordpress.com/ – Titchfield Primary, Hampshire

http://heathfieldcps.net/ – Heathfield School, Bolton

E-Safety to consider:

• Make sure you have permissions to include the children’s names/photographs on your blog
• Ensure that an adult is in control of what gets posted and when – both when writing blog posts and commenting on a blog
• Talk to the children about the blog, what it is used for and ways of using it appropriately

One last top tip – Once you setup a blog, send my classes a comment and we’ll visit your blog and say hello. It’s always useful to share the experience with other schools.

For a more in-depth guide to setting up a blog including which plugins to use, please visit my blog: www.ianaddison.net and search for wordpress.

Ian Addison

ICT Coordinator,

St John the Baptist Primary School