Benefits of Blogging in Education

Blogging in education is a new concept to me as is blogging in general.  I have asked a few of the teachers that I work with if they blog and if they do would they use it for education.  Only one of these middle school teachers knew what a blog is but did not have one herself.  After completing my picture, introduction, yodio and a couple feedback posts on my blog I am better able to answer this question.  I think a blogspot could be a helpful way for students and parents to stay informed of what is going on in a classroom.  Assingments can be posted with explanations and additional information.  If students are unsure of something or would like to give an opinion about an assingment they are able to leave a comment on the classroom blogspot.  Another way it could be helpful is if the teacher puts links on their blogspot for students who need to do additional research or readings for an assingment.  For my class(es) I would definately post a sylablus, rules, expectations how many points each assingment is worth, total points to be earned etc.  I also think a classrrom blog would be a good way to allow students to collaborate their opions about a particular topic by commenting on the blog.  I could see how embedding audio or video could be important in a classroom blogspot as well.  First, any pics, audio or video to be watched in the classroom could be also viewed by any parents.  Secondly, on a field trip for instance, students could take pics or video of what they are seeing and post it to the blog.  Later these clips can be viewed with family and the experience visited again.  I think that there are many, many more ways that blogging is helpful in the classroom, but I will need a little more time as a teacher to discover them.