Why blog?

Imagine creating a blog for your course(s). What would you do with your blog?

When deciding if, how and why (not necesssarily in that order) to blog with students, teachers might consider four main structures:

• Teacher posts--Blogs where a teacher posts announcements, links, and news items and no one, I mean no one, replies.
• Teacher posts - Students respond-- Blogs where teachers post as noted above, but students repond in the comments section after postings. Discussion occurs, but it is mostly in response to a verbal prompt from the teacher.
• Teacher and students post and all respond--Blogs where students post and teachers post and everyone responds to anyone at anytime.
• Students maintain own pages--Blogs where a class home page is a clearinghouse with links to "Member blogs" and students maintain their own pages. Students and teacher read and respond to all from the writer's blog. The downside here is the time and energy to maintain all the sites.

Here are some examples of blogs in education.

• Chris Burnett publishes 8th grade student work on her classroom blog: http://www.visitmyclass.com/blogs/burnett/
• Jim Rusconi's showcases how a blog can act as a place to present ideas for professional development and stimulate discussion: http://novemberlearning.com/blogs/JimRusconi/
• The Seton Hall blog is an online meeting place for the current group of Executive EdD students at Seton Hall University in New Jersey: http://novemberlearning.com/blogs/setonhall/
• “The Secret Life of Bees” blog. Even the author joined in this literature circle: http://weblogs.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/bees/
• The Galileo Li-Blog-ary features all the school library has to offer, plus offers specific notes to individual classes working on research topics: http://www.galileoweb.org/galileoLibrary/
• Ms Jackson posts science homework, assignments and tests on a weekly basis: http://www.glnd.k12.va.us/schools/ghs/teachers/cjackson/archives/week_2005_01_02.html
• This is a school blog from Lewis Elementary in Portland, Oregon: http://lewiselementary.org/
• Will Richardson's journalism class blog: http://central.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/journ2/
• See how a class from Colorado Springs teamed up with elementary students from Uzbekistan to create an International recipe exchange: http://www.connectuz.net/index.php?showtopic=81