Random ramblings about blogging in the classroom

This blogging business is quite interesting. I am by nature not a person who writes journals. I have written journals before, journals in an industrial setting… journals with protocols, standard operating procedures, recipes (of the non-edible kind), and details about really boring stuff that were only pertinent to a nerd such as myself. Humm… Blogging eh?
Well let us look at this new form of communication with fresh eyes, the eyes not of a tiger but one more keen! The eyes of a teacher!

Blogging is definitely not hard to setup; a user friendly platform such as Blogger.com certainly makes it easy and fast. Once setup this utility allows teachers and ever technologically savvy students and parents to communicate with one another. Beyond the obvious uses of blogs, as journals with open to limited-source feedback and as private online diaries, good blogs can be used as a publication tool, an information tool, and a research tool. For example if I had a class of say 30 to 40 students, I assigned them a project regarding the functions of the heart… later on I find out that some of the students are struggling with the project, I can put up links, papers, pictures, notes, and even random thoughts onto my blog and have the students read it instead of flooding their email boxes with megabytes of information. But here is the real advantage of blogging… the students can now give me feedback immediately, other students will see this feedback then suddenly students are helping each other and I can help everyone at the same time.
Getting students to blog would also be an advantage. Not only is writing a journal something that might be useful to them later in life, maybe for something as simple as nostalgia or something really neat like a biography, but it would allow me as a teacher to gain some insight into what the students are thinking about, whether or not they are struggling through content, or social problems, or family problems, or if they are just having a great time. It is all useful information for me as a teacher especially if I wanted to monitor their writing skills. The student blogs would also be of use to other students, sharing of ideas or just sharing experiences it’s mostly good….
Now here is where blogs get dicey; blogs are none-the-less expressions of what our opinions are. They are potentially a source of sensitive information. Both teachers and students would have to be well informed of school board policies, internet safety, and galvanize their sense of tact in our expressions under the guise of anonymity. Teachers especially would have to beware of informed consent by parents, professional conduct, etc. But students, in preparation for the world of online communications, would have to be taught a vast amount of information.

Well all-in-all I think blogs are a powerful tool to be used with caution, but really lets look at the worst that can happen, assuming a teacher still adheres to the guidelines of professional conduct, if no one ever reads the teacher’s blog… well it still has a placebo effect on the only reader – the teacher… every little bit counts.

Q