Welcome to the Bolton KS4 ICT InfoBlog

This is a place where information about all things KS4 ICT can be posted by anyone involved in the teaching of ICT in Bolton. Posts in this blog can be about resources, hardware, software, websites, courses, meetings, questions, answers, moans, groans, jokes and anything else related to teaching KS4 ICT. I have set up similar blogs for KS3 ICT and KS5 ICT which are available in the links section to the right, as well as links to a few usful websites.

If you're not sure what a blog is, it's a small website which is maintained by a single person or a group of people collaborating on a theme, such as 'ICT Education'. It's strength lies in the fact that anyone can publish their material on the web within minutes, and feedback can be received just as quickly from anyone in the world.

www.blogger.com is very easy to use for blog creation and content management - see their help section for a clear, short introduction to blogging. Also, checkout this video about blogging in education from Teachers' TV:



Click the 'Play' button to start the video and double click the screen to show it full size. Double click it again to return to this size.

Initially, I will be responsible for promoting this blog's use, maintaining its design and content and moderating the comments and posts if necessary. But this could become more of a group thing if it takes off. I hope it does.

I will be inviting Bolton schools to submit the names and e-mail addresses of all their ICT teachers who would like to be involved in this blog - they should all find it a very useful resource. Only invited members will be able to post message or comments, but anyone in the world will be able to read them, as all blogs are on the internet. I'm getting the e-mail addresses from Jim Gilmour's mailing list - if anyone is missing or has the wrong address, please let me know at jones_mp@yahoo.com.

I believe that blogging is about to take off in a big way in my school, both with staff and pupils (although there are many issues here, 'freedom of speech' and all that!). You can check out some of my initial blog ideas here, where I have set up a school blogwork (my term for a network of blogs). It's early days yet but it shows a lot of promise.

I hope to hear from you all soon, via the blog.
Let's do it!

Martyn Jones (The BlogMaster)
Head of IT
Westhoughton High School