I've posted this because I think it is an excellent illustration of the way people are using ICT for learning. It is a message posted to the UK based, BECTA ICT Research Network which operates through a list server.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience or references as to how to set up moblogs for young learners. Is there any way that you can have e.g. a class run their own private moblogs that are not available to the public but at the same time have them be able to respond to one another's blogs?

Hi

Graham Attwell asked if I could assemble some information to help answer Mette's question about how to set up moblogs for young students.

One option in the medium-term would be to use an open-source weblog-publishing solution such as KNotes - which we here at KnowNet are about to release ( http://www.knownet.com/products/product-info/knotes ). An advantage of using KNotes in particular is that we built it specifically to integrate into easy-to-manage general-purpose community web sites based on Zope and Plone, and especially concentrated on making it customisable so that educators could experiment with innovative features. We do not yet have a moblogging plugin for email-to-weblog, but could easily do so. The disadvantage of KNotes - or any blog publishing software in itself, is that you need access to a server to install and run it on, and some server-admin expertise.

If you cannot run your own server, you'll need to create account(s) on a moblog-hosting service provider. There are many providers which publicise such a service, and probably many others who might host your students' moblogs for you but are not 'in the moblog business'. For instance, we ourselves intend to provide server space for interesting edu-blogging experiments next year. Most weblog-publishing solutions can be easily adapted to allow blog entries with photo etc attachments to be created from email messages, so there is really nothing all that special about the 'mob' in moblog if posting is going to be based on emails.

Assuming that you want access to a *free* and hosted service, I've assembled a set of shared bookmarks on the subject in my del.icio.us account. See the links below for the tags 'moblogging' and 'services/moblogging' at my del.icio.us/mike_malloch account. You can probable find many other links by browsing from the 'who else bookmarked this' links ( eg 'and 4 others') for each del.icio.us bookmark - these lead to lists of other people who bookmarked that link.

First let me note a few particularly important links:

1 :: the wikipedia entry for moblogging has some good links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moblog

2:: flickr, the extremely popular photo-sharing service, hosts free photo/web logs

http://www.flickr.com
Show off your favorite photos to the world. Blog the photos you take with a cameraphone. Securely and privately show photos to your friends and family across the country. Basic accounts are free and are ad-supported.

3 :: photoblogs.org has a useful collection of links

http://wiki.photoblogs.org/wiki/Photoblog_Hosting

4 ::websoup.org also has some good links

http://www.websoup.org/resources/links.php?cat=83

5 :: the tag ' moblogging' in my shared bookmarks

http://del.icio.us/Mike_Malloch/moblogging

6:: the tag ' services/moblogging' in my shared bookmarks - these are services. mostly free

http://del.icio.us/Mike_Malloch/services/moblogging

Finally, let me note that if you truly want the moblogs to be free of cost, you'll have to come up with a workflow for posting from the cameraphones without incurring phone charges. From a desktop email client, it should cost absolutely nothing to post to a weblog, but from a mobile phone there will usually be quite costly charges. If the phones are bluetooth-enabled, I would recommend that - instead of posting directly from their phones to the weblogs - the students first transfer their photos to a desktop computer by bluetooth and then post them from that computer using free, internet-based email. In fact, once their photos are on a desktop computer with an internet connection, they can be posted to any standards-compliant weblog without any special 'moblogging' software or service, using 'weblog editing API' clients such as ecto [ http://ecto.kung-foo.tv ]. For instance, I grab photos from my ericsson K750i over bluetooth to my apple powerbook, then upload them to flickr using one of several 'flickr API' tools for mac OS-X [ http://del.icio.us/Mike_Malloch/APIs/Flickr ], or attach them to posts I write using ecto.

If you can strike a deal with a mobile telephony service provider, or if you are willin to pay for phone charges, some of the services listed in my shared bookmarks use special software loaded into the telephones ( these are tagged as http://del.icio.us/Mike_Malloch/client-tech/mobile ). Some of them do not require special software on the mobile phone itself, and use the phone's ability to send email.

I hope these links are useful. If you decide that you're interested in KNotes, please let me know. Over the next 6 months or so, we hope to be able to free some time to get involved with some educators with hosted experiments using/adapting KNotes for educational weblogging / photoblogging / videoblogging / podcasting etc.

regards

Mike Malloch

Begin forwarded message:

> From: ictrn 
> Date: 30 August 2005 15:13:22 GMT+02:00
> To: research /at/ lists.becta.org.uk
> Subject: [ICT Research Network] moblogs
> Reply-To: Becta's ICT Research Network 
>
>
> Hello all!
>
> I was wondering if anyone had any experience or references as to  
> how to
> set up moblogs for young learners. Is there any way that you can have
> e.g. a class run their own private moblogs that are not available  
> to the
> public but at the same time have them be able to respond to one
> another's blogs?
>
> My wish is to set up an experiment where students aged ca. 16 are  
> given
> free reign to make their own blog using texting and pictures from  
> camera
> phones and thereby creating a kind of community around the blogs. My
> problem is that my funding is pretty much nonexistent  
> (surprise...). Any
> ideas on how this can be done on free software?
>
> Regards,
>
> Mette Berth
>
> PhD, Department of Communication
>
> Roskilde University, Denmark
>
> mett@ruc.dk
>

--------------

Mike Malloch, Software Architect, KnowNet Ltd

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bookmarks:
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