Anne Davis of Georgia State University's Technology Center spells out all the ways you might want to use blogs in your classroom in her blog, entitled Ways to use weblogs in education. Please check her out if you care to read the entire list. For my money, I just want to see this amazing tool in the hands of students. So, while there are many reasons Anne gives for teachers starting their own professional blogs, here's a few highlights that I particularly agree with:
You might like to start a class blog to…
> journal entries or to express their thoughts and opinions about topics in class.
>post assignments based on literature readings and have students respond on their own weblogs, creating a kind of portfolio of their work.
>post prompts for writing.
>provide online readings for your students to read and react to.
>invite student comments or postings on issues in order to give them a writing voice.
>publish examples of good student writing done in class as a show case student art, poetry, and creative stories.
>create a literature circle or online book club.
>make use of the commenting feature to have students publish messages on topics being used to develop language skills.
>ask students to create their own individual course blogs, where they can post their own ideas, reactions and written work.
>create an ongoing portfolio of samples of their writing.
>write comments, opinions, or questions on daily news items or issues of interest.
>discuss activities they did in class and tell what they think about them (You, the teacher, can learn a lot this way!).
>write about class topics, using newly-learned vocabulary words and idioms.
>showcase their best writing pieces.
Ann also gives various reasons why teachers might want to start their own blog to reflect on their profession and personal practices. But, for me, I want to see this great tool in the hands of our students. So, I encourage teachers to take a look at this list and think about ways to use blogs in the classroom.
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