Blogs are growing at an exponential rate and forums are also very popular. These are a very important way of engaging your students in taking part in a task "anytime / anywhere" and so allow learning in and out of school. For more information about Blogs and Forums and how to set them up see the Web 2.0 pages of the MMI website.

There are range of ways that you could consider running a forum or a blog in your school. First you need to check if your Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) has a blog or forum tool - most do but if not there are other ways to set one up (see the links at the bottom of this page for some places to start).

For the teacher: Your blog could be on a topic which you are studying and in which you want the students to join in in a stream of consciousness, or you could join one of the thousands of blogs for education which cover just about every topic you can image - for some of these see - 100 top education blogs. Setting up a forum for your GCE / GCSE students allows them access to materials and support "anytime / anywhere" as well as having FAQ and other sections where they can get support from you, but also from each other. You might also want to join a forum. The most active RE forum is at the TES.

For the student: Working collaboratively can be very productive and using the blog / forum set up by your teacher can help with peer learning.

Activity Description

A small teddy bear was given to the class as artifact. The bear was to travel to each of the children's houses in turn to 'interview' someone in the household with a faith position. The children had developed a set of questions for bear to ask in the houses using some mind-mapping software called Freemind. Once the questions were developed these were transferred to TB's blog.

The children then took TB home and introduced him to the person of faith in their household. They could make notes, take pictures, capture audio or video as part of the video. They were then expected to complete the entry on the blog and to comment on at least one other entry on the blog.

ICT resource used

• A blog set up on Blogger.com
• Freemind mind mapping software
• A video projector or e-board
• Audio, video and image capture devices*

Learning Objectives

• To consider the meaning of a range of forms of religious expression and understand why these are important to the believer
• T o use and interpret information about religious from a range of sources

Commentary on the ICT use

The use of the blog means that the pupils have "anywhere, anyplace, anytime" access to the blog. The students also are able to capture data in a variety of formats and styles.

• Blogs at Wikipedia - link
• Forums at Wikipedia - link
• Web 2.0 pages on MMI website - link
• Blogger: Creating a blog in 3 easy steps - link
• Tutor 4 U S blog - link