What is iSchool Blogs

iSchool Blogs is designed specially for schools and educators. It provide various ways to effectively use blogs in teaching and learning at all levels. iSchool Blogs provides all SMJK Schools, teachers, students, and co-curriculum activities the ability to create their own blog

We think that by providing blogs to educators, especially teachers then later students, to build an interactive community where teachers can share and communicate with other teachers within the SMJK communities, and help create an online teaching platform and interactive relationship with their students, and students within the communities.

iSchool Blogs provides e-portfolios, collaborative classwork, online journaling, discussion or problem-based learning.

iSchool Blogs is based on the WordPress blogging engine, with additional administrative functions provided by the iSchool Portal, where schools can easily create the various categories of blogs, with each managed by their own appointed Administrators, Editors or Authors.

The iSchool Blogs for SMJK Schools is authenticated through the Google Apps account, where every SMJK users who has a valid Google Apps account can log-in to participate and comment.

There are 25 Basic Style of Blogging… according to the soundslids below… and you can decide when to use each one of them.

Why is SMJK providing this service to its communities?

We think this technology is important for communication in today’s world, and an add-on to the Google Apps for Educations that we had implemented earlier, and we want to promote the use of blogs by everyone in SMJK communities. The SMJK iSchool Blogs service is starting small, but you can request for a blog from your own School Portal Administrator, and use your current Google Apps Accounts to sign on, and become part of the blog directory and have your blog listed under the “SMJK Blog Directory”. In additional, schools can also create blogs for all their Co-curriculum activities.

British Council also suggested the following use of Blogs for Teaching

How many types of Blogs are there for the iSchool Blogs?

We had categorised 4 types of blogs, namely:

  • School Blogs
  • Teacher’s Blog
  • Student’s Blog
  • Co-curriculums’ Blogs

We leave it for individual schools to decide whether you want to create these blogs for your users.

How do my School Participate in this?

In our earlier projects in February 2007, Google Apps for SMJK, and SMJK Portal 2.0, we had dispatched a special couriered invitation package to all the 78 schools, attention to the individual School Principal. The couriered package contained detail instructions on the operations of the Google Apps project, as well as the upgrading of the SMJK Web Portal.

For schools that had started using both the Google Apps for Education and SMJK Portal 2.0, your appointed School Portal Administrator can now log-in to the School Portal and start creating your blogs accounts for users in your school.
ischoolblog-admin-panel.jpg
ischoolblog-createblogfield.jpg
You can create the type of Blogs according to requirements.

For Schools that had yet to sign up for the Google Apps for Educations or SMJK Portal 2.0, please contact the SMJK Council – council@smjk.edu.my or SMJK Support – support@smjk.edu.my.

How Do I get one?

The iSchool Blogs module is open to all SMJK schools that are participating in the SMJK Web Portal project, you will need to have a Google Apps account to be able to log-in. If you do not have one, request one from your School Portal Administrator in your school. Your School Portal Administrator will create one of the above mentioned category of blogs for you, after which, you will receive a email notification through your Google Apps Gmail account, and your new blog URL, looking something like http://user-id.blogs.smjk.edu.my, where user-id is your default Google Account ID.


What do I do after I had been given a Blog site?

After receiving the new blog account, please use the URL given in the email to log-in to your blog account, using your Google Apps Account, upon successful log-in, you will be directed to the WordPress Dashboard.

You can go through a few simple steps to start your blog, first change the Look-and-Feel of your blogs by selecting a Theme at the ”Presentation” panel, then click “Write” -> “Posts” to start your first posting. For more detail on how to use the various features of the WordPress blogging tool, please visit – http://ischool.tv/documentation/ischool-blogs/ (you will need to have an SMJK Google Apps account to log-in to view the iSchool Blogs Online Manual).

For the School Portal Administrator

For the existing School Portal Administrator who had been managing the individual School Portal site, a new role had been assigned for you to be able to use the iSchool Blogs module, to create and maintain the blogs in your school.

ischool-createblog.jpgYou can log-in to the SMJK Web Portal, www.smjk.edu.my and select the “iSchool Blogs” function on the left hand menu panel to create the various categories of blogs in your school.

For more detail on how to create and manage the iSchool Blogs for your school, please visit http://ischool.tv/documentation/ischool-blogs/ (you will need to have an SMJK Google Apps account to log-in to view the iSchool Blogs Online Manual)