Getting Back on Track by Splitting Things Up

How many blogs would a weblog blog if a weblog could blog blogs?This blog was intended to be, primarily, my professional showcase. A place where I could display examples of freelance work that I do and also explore some new ideas as they arose. Last week, though, I suddenly found myself extremely interested and excited about something totally unrelated to customizing WordPress installations or creating Microsoft Office templates. My son started blogging. This started me on a quest to see what others had to say about the idea of kids under 13 years of age having their own blogs. While I have heard from a handful of parents with young bloggers, my searchesm so far, have come up a little on the weak side. There are a few blog posts here and there. Many of them were written 3-4 years ago. The blogosphere has changed and grown in that time. Clearly this is an area that is not as saturated with blog content as some of the other subject areas that I’m interested in. Instead of being yet another blog reporting on every little move WordPress makes I could really have something valuable to contribute that isn’t being hammered to death.

So, I have a new plan. I want to write about kids and blogging. I think that this subject has enough potential that it should have it’s own space. I want to create a site rich, community focused, site with resources for parents that either already have a young blogger or are interested in learning about the benefits and challenges of having a child blogger. This site will, hopefully, feature lots of guest writers, and be packed full of tips and suggestions on all types of issues related to kids publishing their work in a public format. This site, initially, will be focused on the parents. I’d love to have things to offer the kids directly and I think the site could easily develop into a resource for both kids and parents. Parent involvement, however, is really what I want to emphasize in the beginning.

Look for some announcements and possibly a poll or two related to the creation of a new site dedicated to kids and blogging. I have a domain name in mind and I am planning to contact a designer to help with the theming of the new site. My instinct is to throw something together tonight and have it live by morning. I’m going to try, however, to slow down and give things a bit more thought and planning. I’m very open to feedback and would welcome any comments or suggestions on this subject.

Creative Commons License photo credit: dullhunk

Another quick poll: Monetizing a Kid's Blog

I’ve been thinking about whether or not it would be appropriate to put carefully selected advertising and affiliate links on a blog written by and for kids. Please share your opinions on this subject!

[poll id="3"]

Kids and Blogging: A Call for Parents to Respond!

PC is my best friendAt the end of one full week of blogging with my son I am seeing some things that work, some things that don’t, and a lot of things that will develop as time goes on. I started writing a Top 10 type blog post and then stopped myself. After all, I have a grand total of one week of experience observing how my son approaches blogging. So instead of claiming to have advice to offer others I would rather gather information from others that are doing this!

With that said, I would like to start gathering stories and experiences from other parents with young bloggers. Here are some things I’d be interested in hearing.

  1. At what age did your child begin blogging?
  2. Was starting a blog his/her idea or did you suggest it?
  3. How involved were you in the beginning
  4. How involved are you now.
  5. How often does your child post?
  6. What types of things does your child write about?
  7. Is the blog public or private?
  8. What blogging platform is the blog using?
  9. Do you have any advice regarding kids and blogging that would be useful for other parents that are considering it for their own children?
  10. If you are comfortable, leave the URL of your child’s blog. I would love to share it with my son.

Alternatively, if your child does not have a blog tell me about how you think blogging would (or would not) be a good thing for kids to be involved in.

You can leave a comment on this post or use the contact link at the top of the page. I hope to get a lot of responses! I think the information gathered here will be very useful as I plan to spend a lot of time writing about this subject over the next several months (and hopefully beyond!)

Creative Commons License photo credit: iwannt

Poll: Blogging with young kids

With my son recently starting his own blog I have been researching to see what others in the blogosphere might be saying in regard to blogging with children. I have not been finding much information more recent than about 2004. This makes the topic more intriguing than ever. It’s something that would be interesting to start some conversation about.

Here is a quick poll to get things started:

[poll id="2"]

Please visit the website if you are not able to view this poll

Please share more specific thoughts in the comments after voting!  I’m quite interested in hearing what people have to say on this matter.

You know your mother is a geek when…

she buys you a domain, sets up a blog, and hands you a camera at the age of 7. Yes, I created a blog for my
7 year old.

The blog is public but I won’t be linking to it from any of my own sites for the sake of his anonymity. He has been running around with the old digital camera all day taking short video clips and snapping pictures all day. The challenge will be to get him to sit and write.

So why am I doing this? It’s a bit of an experiment but primarily a good oportunity for a learning experience for him. I want him to begin to learn to look at the world around him a bit more carefully and with more varied perspective. I’ve found, as I begin to think about my own writing, that I stop and consider things just a bit more. I can see applications of a wide variety of educational compnents in having kids have thier own blogs. Some of the really obvious are technology, writing, and reading. It’s plausible to incorporate critical thinking, science, literature, history, geography, etc.

The experiment side of this is to see if it’s possible for a site with child driven content to attract traffic. He will pick the topics of the postings and I will provide only minimal editing and technology assistance. On the back end his site will utilize all of the same tools for SEO that my own sites have.

Creative Commons License photo credit: zeb hodge