Blogs as Teaching Tools

Blogs can be a wonderful opportunity to help students become more comfortable using computer technology as well as give them a chance to practice their academic skills. Teachers can use blogs as journals for their students. Blog journals allow the students to post their work and read their classmates' work. The students have the opportunity to have their classmates respond to their work and are afforded the opportunity to respond to their classmates work. Since students know others may read their work they are more likely to do their best.

Class discussions can also be conducted on a classroom blog. The teacher can post a question and have the students respond. Often the students become more engaged in the topic, because they respond to the teacher's question and then respond to another classmate's response as well. Each class seems to have a few shy students who do not feel comfortable talking in class. Blogging offers them a less intimidating way to be a part of class discussions and express their opinion.

Teachers can use blogs as a class web page of sorts. He/she can post class pictures of arts and crafts, projects they have completed and pictures of the students engaged in their work. A class blog page can offer parents a glimpse into their child's day and reassure them that their child is in good hands and is learning. Parents can leave comments for the teacher, and the teacher can respond. Even this small amount of interaction can strengthen the parent teacher relationship. If a teacher chooses to create a classroom blog, she should insure only the parents of the children can access the page by requiring a password for viewing.