New Technology and Outdoor Learning (6 of 8): Using Blogs

This is the sixth of eight posts where I discuss some of the things that I talked about at the 2010 Learning and Teaching Scotland Outdoor Learning Regional Events.

Blogs are a simple form of website and they are a really good way to be able to document an outdoor learning experience or school trip online. They can be used in very simple ways for sharing information with parents, hosting photographs and providing a place for people to leave comments while the children are away on their outdoor experience.

The Musselburgh Grammar School Trips website is a great example of how the web can be used to support outdoor learning.  Not only are many of the outdoor learning experiences that young people take part in at Musselburgh documented there but it is also a place where parents and students can download letters, consent forms and find out information on the sort of things that they will be up to when taking part in school trips.

One trip that has been established for a long time at Musselburgh is the School French Trip. The latest version of the site has been in existence since 2006 but there have been a number of previous versions. 

Some of the things that the site does include:

1) News - Information from the field while the group is away.


2) Podcasts – audio recording of what the group get up to every day and personal reflections from each of the partisipants.



3) Photographs - Pictures from the trips over the years. Along with the audio recordings these make a lovely digital archive of the experience.



4) Information Zone – links to web cams of the area, tourist information points and trip itinerary.



5) Comments – a place that other children and parents can leave comments while the group is away. The comments are read out o the bus to the children every morning.



On another blogging note:

• The Outdoor Learning Team at Learning and Teaching Scotland also has a blog where you can find all of the latest Learning and Teaching Scotland Outdoor Learning News.

• Another great Outdoor Learning Blog worth a look at is the one from the East Lothian Outdoor Learning Team.

• Juliet Robertson (Creative Star) writes the "I'm a teacher, get me OUTSIDE here! : The emergency exit to outdoor learning..." blog

• Bill Stephen wites "Bill's Outdoor (and Indoor) Learning" Blog
  

Comments

[John McLear]

Some examples of blogs being used on trips (all taken from the aggregated feed of primary school blogs @

http://mclear.co.uk/2009/10/17/one-aggregated-rss-feed-of-all-the-primary-school-blogs/

http://xfruits.com/johnyma22/?id=80412&clic=564955320&url=http%3A%2F%2Farnotstmary.net%2F2010%2F06%2F16%2Fnews-from-barcelona%2F

http://xfruits.com/johnyma22/?id=80412&clic=565700252&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oxgangs.edin.sch.uk%2F2010%2F06%2F16%2Fp2-scavenger-hunt%2F

http://xfruits.com/johnyma22/?id=80412&clic=564341250&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmoblog.net%2Fview%2F931875%2Fa-great-day-engaging-with-the-environment

http://xfruits.com/johnyma22/?id=80412&clic=564341256&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmoblog.net%2Fview%2F931700%2Fyear-1-visit-the-deep

http://xfruits.com/johnyma22/?id=80412&clic=564955245&url=http%3A%2F%2Fedubuzz.org%2Fblogs%2Fpencaitland%2F2010%2F06%2F13%2Fp12-and-p7-go-treasure-hunting%2F

[John McLear]

Whoops forgot to mention primary schools can use primary blogger which is a free hosted wordpress service specifically designed for primary schools :)

http://primaryblogger.co.uk

[Ollie Bray]

Thanks for all these examples John - they are great!

Fancy working on a school trip Android App?