Web 2.0 Learning Tools: Kidblog

An example of Kidblog being used for education (Found Online)

There is an almost excessive amount of learning technology programs available to educators today, with varying degrees of usefulness. When I found Kidblog though I was immediately inspired with lesson ideas! Kidblog is a blogging site, but it's designed for classroom usage. Because of this it relies on several important points:

1) Safe: Teachers can review all activity on their Kidblog communities and visitors need a code to access any material. In this way teachers can limit access to parents, students, and themselves while teaching kids important digital communication skills, but they don't have to worry about students having unsafe interactions with strangers.

2) Simple: I loved how streamlined the program is. It only took me a short time to go through the page and figure out how both a teacher and students would approach a blog. That's not only important developmentally for younger students, but would save a lot of instructional time for the teacher.

3) Authentic: This feels like a real blog because it is. Too often I see kid-appropriate tech that is so far removed from the actual tech that it's almost worthless to teach with. I love that students can interact with each other and share; it's structured as a great stepping stone to fully-live blogging.

4) Transformative: Kidblog bills itself as being "built by teachers, for teachers" so you know they had the different writing standards in mind when it was developed. Not only is this a way to teach and assess student writing that is more fun than traditional paper and pencil, but it allows for drafts and published versions as well. Teachers can see the saved drafts students create and give feedback so that revisions can occur, a major component of writing!


I can see this being used not only to teach writing, but also as a presentation tool for students. It also has cross-curricular potential. I can see students writing up abstracts or reviews in science, fiction in English, or sharing their thoughts on any assignment for a meta-cognitive assessment. Best of all, it's FREE! Of course, teachers would need to have either computers or iPads for students, but even with a handful of those this could be utilized in a rotating center type approach quite well. In terms of SAMR this would primarily be a Modification wherein more traditional writing skills are being enhanced and expanded by utilizing a blog format.

Below is a 10 minute overview and tutorial showing how easy Kidblog is: