Blogging

=Blogging=

What is a blog?

 * A BLOG is an online journal, comprised of postings in reverse chronological order
 * Blogs provide commentaries, opinions and/or information on a specific topic[[image:Boy_at_computer--orange.gif align="right"]]

Information Sharing
A blog is an easy way to share information about what is going on in your classroom each day.
 * [|A Picture a Day:] Some teachers take a picture every day and post that on the blog as a way to show how students are learning in the classroom.
 * [|Homework/Event Posting:] Other teachers use the blog as an online homework posting; as students write homework in their agendas, the teacher (or a student!) can be posting it online--it's that fast!

Student Activity

 * **One Blog for an Entire Class:** Many teachers have their students blog daily or weekly. In doing this, teachers may set up a Classroom Blog and invite (through email) all students to join the blog. This creates 1 blog webpage for the whole class; all students' blogs are on the same page. As well, this increases a teacher's control over the blog. The teacher has the power to delete any blogs he/she wishes. Further, the teacher can moderate the blogs which means that the teacher can read and approve the blogs before they are posted online. Need ideas of what your students can blog about? Give them "journal" ideas or have them review a book they recently read.
 * **A Blog for Each Student:** Another way to use blogging in your classroom is to have each student. This gives each student more ownership over the presentation of his/her writing.
 * **Examples of Student Blogging:** [|Mrs. Cassidy's Grade 1/2 Students] (check out the link to each student's blog on the RIGHT), [|Grade 8 Science Blog]
 * **Classroom ideas:** Start a Classroom blog, invite your students to join, and have them write review of their favorite books!
 * **Another idea:** Have each student in your class start a blog and use it as a Creative Writing Portfolio.

Where can I Host my Blog?
[|www.blogspot.com] [|www.blogmeister.com] [|www.edublogs.com]

What about security and student privacy?
All of the above blog hosts have security measures to limit the audience. Be sure that you think about privacy issues and use these tools to limit your audience.