I was home visiting family in Saskatchewan over Easter and my nephew declared that he wanted to start a blog.
All by himself, my ten year old nephew Kyle came up with the idea that he would post a new word everyday. It could be something about his day, something he thought was cool, or whatever came to mind, but for each post he had to have a picture as well.
He has an Ipod touch which is his main device for connecting to the internet, so I wanted to make his blogging a successful endeavour by using the tools he is the most familiar with, and the most accessible tools for him (when his big brother hasn’t ‘borrowed’ it or the battery isn’t dead!)
We downloaded two apps for him, both free.
The first was Instagram (iOs/Android) – for photos. It is a great simple little app to take pictures and add a quick filter to jazz them up a bit.
Then we needed the Posterous App (iOs/Android). We set up a quick blog on the posterous site on Grandma’s laptop! It only took about 10 minutes and we were in business.
I encouraged Kyle to take notes for ideas on his Ipod using the basic Notes app.
He was set up, self contained on his own device, and could do it all on his own – perfect.
Word of the Day is his site. Head over and give him some enouragement! He follows hit counts very closely and knows that it’s Auntie’s teacher friends that are visiting. He’s 10 and loves that teachers are reading is work and it is motivating him to write more. I’m hoping he will let more of his sense of humor come through in his writing, he is hilarious!
I see this as using a Personally Owned Device to inspire learning and writing. When our students are bringing their own tools into the classroom we need to utilize them to inspire them to create. You could use the WordPress app (iOs / Android) to have students contribute to a wordpress based blog. Similarly the Blogger App (iOs / Android) allows for blogging on the go from a multitude of devices.
Blog on!
