Blogging in the Classroom

I love technology, I hate technology!!!!  Such a dichotomy!  There is so much technology out there, and our students can't imagine a world without it.  We can lament over the days of imagination, or we can embrace technology, and use it to our benefit.

But, that's the trick, isn't it.  How to use technology in the classroom so that it enhances our curriculum, rather than just using technology for the sake of being techy.

One of my favorite educational technology mediums is blogging.  It is so versatile, easy to monitor, and an effective educational tool. There is nothing to collect, I simply check my students' work online!  That's one of my favorite parts!!!  I give my students a due date, then generally check their work the following day.

I have used so many of the blog websites, Blogger, Edublog, WordPress, but my current favorite is Weebly.  This is a free website that is extremely user friendly and allows you to do so much!  You can easily set up your own free blog at weebly.com.  Weebly allows me to do so many things - I haven't even tried them all yet!  I can add images and text, I can create slideshows and photo galleries, I can embed video or YouTube links, those are all pretty standard, right?  I can also put an assignment form on the site for my students to complete. I can create a survey or an RSVP form.  But my favorite part is that I can create a variety of blogs or forums for my students to participate in.

At the present time, I am reading a novel with my class.  My students are divided into groups of 6, and each group has their own blog on my website.  Each week I post a discussion question and a research topic.  The students must respond to the discussion question fully, but then they must read the responses of their five peers and respond to at least two of them.  This becomes an online discussion, and the students really get into it!  They respectfully agree and disagree with each other, they add items to consider and ask questions of each other.  The students also must research the topic of the week and post one new fact for the group with their source.  Sometimes the students will put links for videos to share with the group.  My students LOVE this!  They love the online discussions, and rarely do they only post comments for two of their peers.  They don't even think of this as school work, that's how much they enjoy it!

What a joy to have students working, thinking, and discussing a good book for the fun and interest of it!!!  Does teaching get any better than this?