Supporting writing

I had some interesting discussions today with a group of teachers thinking about Gifted and Talented provision in the context of childrens’ writing. Blogging provides a perfect tool for promoting writing- if you give a child a blog they have control over the environment, control over their writing and can work to develop an audience for what they have to say. There seems to be no disadvantages- except maybe that schools must be careful that they have appropriate safeguards in place- but then that is not really a disdvantage it is just what we do. I have some personal experience of developing this at http://shepeaustow.net. The cost for a suitable package was £300- for this they got their own hosted domain and the initial setup of a Wordpress multiuser blog. The school also had some support in initial training to use the system. Have a look at the current state of play.