After setting up the blog I went throught the following process:

  1. Fill in the About page to outline the plan for the blog.
  2. Create a Guidelines page.
  3. Create a number of initial categories according genre or media. These can be added to as the blog evolves.
  4. Add a number of initial posts, containing ideas or stimulus for writing. I used text, image, sounds and video. Include attribution where appropriate.
  5. Create new users with the ‘contributor’ or ‘author’ privileges*
  6. Show the students how to navigate and post to the blog.

I would set a homework task to kick-start the blog and then encourage pupils to post ideas during literacy sessions or whenever the inspiration takes them. Try to use their ideas as a part of your lessons and they’ll soon be motivated to add stuff off their own back.

* A basic wordpress install will allow a contributor to add a post but not upload pictures or other files. The post will be moderated before publication by the teacher. An author of the site can post and upload pictures etc but is not moderated before publication.

I have tweaked my install to make sure that authors are able to write posts and upload media but also need to be moderated by a teacher. This is more suitable to the classroom environment at least in the first stages of a project. Contact me if you want any more information on these user settings and tweaks.