Blogs

In getting ready for this blog post, I've been having difficulty imagining how I would make use of blogs in my classroom.  I've never been much of a user or reader of blogs in the past, and to be honest, what time I have spent with them has convinced me that most blogging is either narcissistic, a waste of time, or both.  I also think that the age of my students (4th and 5th grade) limits the role blogs could play in my classroom.  In playing around with this technology the last couple of weeks for my ed tech class, though, I think I understand how it could be helpful to me if used in the right way.  Here are a few possibilities I've come up with.

First (and foremost!) a classroom blog could be a useful way to keep the parents and students informed as to what's going on in the class.  Communication between the teachers and parents is very important to my school, and I already do this to some degree.  Each of the teachers has a web page through the school similar to a blog that we can update any time we like, and for the most part we use it once a week to explain what the parents and students can expect over the next week.  Finding the time to update more often than that has proven difficult, but I think it's a good idea.  A blog serving a similar function would make leaving comments or questions possible, and that would be helpful.  Responding to all the comments on the other hand. . .

A blog could also be used something like a wiki, where students go out and find as many pieces of information on a topic as possible and post it on the blog.  I can imagine giving an assignment that asks the students to go out on the internet for information on a historical figure (how about George Washington, since we're covering American history this year?), post it on the blog and then add a comment or two on what their classmates have added.

Having each of the students maintain and update their own blogs for their class, as we are for ours, would open up possibilities for completing assignments online.  This could simplify the grading and turn-in process which always takes more time from the class than it should.  I also like the fact that other students could add their comments in a way that they couldn't in a normal classroom setting.  

I'm going to have to become more familiar with blogs myself before I can understand all of the possibilities for using them in my own classroom, but the possibilities are out their, and they're certainly worth looking into.