Blogging

Weblogs, more commonly known as blogs, are web journals created by individuals to voice opinions, share ideas, or journal experiences.  Several different companies provide blogging services that include different design options, privacy settings and widgets (additional gadgets you can add to your blog to provide links, track visitors and make lists, among other things).  One of the most user friendly blogging host sites is Blogger, which is what I am using for this blog, as well as my classroom blog.  There are also more education focused publishing sites such as Kidblogs and Edublogs.  I chose Blogger because it was quick to set up and edit, and did not require each of my students to have their own passwords.

Why Blog?
There are as many different reasons for blogging as there are people who blog.  The first step is to decide on your purpose for blogging.  Do you want to communicate with parents?  Would you prefer to share reflections on your teaching practices and look for advice from other teachers?  Are you looking to provide opportunities to connect with other classrooms?  Is having students share their learning, or have a presence online your reason for blogging?  Your blog can reflect one or several of these focuses and do so in either simple text or with the addition of photos, weblinks, videos and podcasts.

When I started my own exploration into the world of blogging this past summer, what first struck me was how many teachers were already blogging with their classes and had been for many years already.  Kathy Cassidy is a grade one teacher who has been blogging both professionally and with her class for over 10 years.  From reading blogs like hers I realized that I wanted my own class blog to be a hub of my students' online experience in our classroom.

Over the past 5 months it has become apparent that my blog is multipurpose.  The reason I wanted to start the blog at the beginning was that my school connected website was difficult to edit and even more difficult for students to access. I was looking for a tool that would allow my students to feel like the space we created online was theirs too.  Our blog extends beyond the classroom as well.  I know students who will explore the learning activities after school or on the weekends. Our blog is now where my students go to find links that I want them to explore and it is the first place they look when we get to our computer lab.  It is the place we post pictures of our activities, write about what's happened in the classroom, and have galleries for our art work.

A place where we could share our learning with others soon became a second purpose of our blog.  With the addition of some widgets that allowed me to post due dates for forms and book orders parents could check the blog for these dates.  Google calendar is easily attached so that important dates are always available and up to date.  It also offers families a window into what is happening in our classroom.  Some parents also approached me during student led conferences and let me know that we they checked the blog often and could get a sense of what was happening in class even when their child said "nothing" in response to what they were doing during the school day.  Grandparents, aunts and uncles, and family friends from coast to coast have been able to see what were are doing, not to mention other teachers and classrooms around the world.

One of the hidden benefits that I hadn't truly considered when starting a classroom blog was the conversations that might occur about writing through our weekly blog posts.  Every Friday, at least, we sit down and create a class blog post.  Student's have the opportunity to share something about the week while I act as scribe with a wireless keyboard and mouse (two of the best inventions out there I have to say).  What started off as simple say and write has now become an instant conversation about mechanics of writing, sentence flow and adding details.  Frequently, before I am even finished writing a dictated sentence, one or more students will have their hand up to point out a word I have spelled incorrectly or debate whether or not the sentence makes sense.  I could have these conversations while writing on paper but the fact that the students know that this is going to be available for others to read seems to making the editing process more immediate.

If you are considering blogging with your own classroom, I highly recommend checking with your school division's technology department before making your class blog public, as many of them have very specific rules about sharing information online.  Mine states that students in photographs and videos cannot be identified by name to protect student's privacy, a guideline I strongly agree with.  Once you have some safety guidelines set and have had a conversation with your classroom, then you are ready to get blogging.