Blogging

I think private and public blogs both have advantages and disadvantages. Private blogs are useful for keeping track of your thoughts and feelings that you don't want hundreds of people to read. It is a nice way to keep a diary of your life. Public blogs can be excellent for sharing information with others and having them contribute their ideas.

I am beginning to be more receptive to student blogs. At first I as hesitant to use it because I was nervous about students putting things on their blog that shouldn't be there. I was also nervous about keeping up with it and would the kids have enough to talk about in a blog. But the more that I learn about blogging, the more excited I am to implement it in my classroom.

Blogging could be integrated into the classroom in many ways. They could use a blog to reflect on lessons, entire units, their day, share research, etc. I think it will be very beneficial for students to be able to read each other's blogs and comment and give ideas to the original blogger.

I am very concerned about students putting things on the blog that are inappropriate. This can be prevented by moderating each student's work. I am also concerned about parent's thoughts on blogging. They may not be receptive to having their students thoughts out on the world wide web. I would need to be prepared with a defense and reasons why it is so beneficial.