Building a Kid PLN

I have always encouraged my 12 year old daughter to blog. In the past she has gone through periods of wanting to write a blog post and periods of not wanting anything to do with blogging. But this year, she has embraced blogging as her personal place to share. I have tried to inspire some of her topics and motivate her, but my influence can only go so far. She looks for comments and cluster map hits. Just like adult bloggers, her audience is important to her.

I explained to her that if you read and comment on other blogs, those blog writers may, in turn, come visit your blog and comment. We set out to find blogs written by kids, for her to read. The few we found weren't up to date, so I put a message out on twitter. Those of us that had some links to share decided it would be nice to have a place to find active kids' blogs to share....so, the Kid Blogs wiki was born!

My daughter's Personal Learning Network (PLN) has begun. I showed my her how to use a Google Reader. It's easy enough for even elementary students. Please utilize this space and spread the word! Kids that are actively blogging need an audience to encourage them. Let's help give it to them!