I have gone on a blog searching spree and I have found so many great blogs that are similar to what I would love to do one day. Many of these creators use their blogs to show what they are doing in the classroom and showing student work. They share ideas on best teaching practices and ideas that have worked well in their own classrooms. The communicate back and forth with other teachers in the comment section to offer suggestions and sharing alternate ideas. This is something I would love to get into one day. I know this type of commitment takes a lot of time to prepare the photos and resources to put on my page so I think this is something I could do when I am finished with my master's course.

In my own classroom, I think blogs would be a little difficult to use with Kindergartners. I have already attempted this and it was much too time consuming considering my students start out not knowing all their letters and sounds. If I taught an upper grade level such as 2nd, I could definitely use blogs in my classroom. I could post problems or a topic and allow the students to discuss and share ideas on how to solve it or share information they found on the topic. This would be a great way to incorporate technology into a literacy block. Students would love this type of assignment because they are already so used to texting and communicating on the computer. This would also help get them prepared for work they will have to do in their future education.

Some great blogs I have found for professional sharing are: Chalk Talk
Kindergarten Crayons

A great site I found that you can use in your classroom and is safe for students is Kidblog

What are the pros and cons of blogging? I have personally used a type of blog to collaborate with a first grade classroom a few times. The first grade students would post about a common topic that both classes were discussing and then my students (I) would respond to their posts as a group. we would talk back and forth about the same topic. My students loved to hear what the first grade students were saying.

Pros: Great way to communicate back and forth with other classrooms when you are unable to talk face to face. It also allows students to use their 21st century skills to communicate rather then pencil and paper all the time. It is accessible at any time and any place.

Cons: Difficult to keep up with when there is so many other things to do and to be taught. If one person or group does not keep up with the blog, it becomes pointless.

I do believe that blogs have many educational benefits and ways they can be used in the classroom that I will touch on in my next entry. Blogs can also be used to collaborate with other professionals. They can be used to share ideas and resources and give feedback to each other. All of these uses help an educator become a more effective teacher. I also use blogs to check out other ways teachers are teaching similar topics so I can find the best methods and resources to teach my children. Until next time!

For an organized list of the pros and cons of blogging, click here
To learn about the pros and cons of using blogs for learning, click here
Blogging as a source of social networking for young children... check it out here

New to this

This is my first experience setting up my very own blog. I have edited my school's blog before but it was nothing that had to be updated on a regular basis. I tried to customize my blog a little bit to make it unique and not so "template" looking. Setting it the blog was rather easy and I had no problem navigating around to find out how to edit the various parts of the blog. When it comes time to set up the RSS, I think that might be a little more tricky but I'm eager to learn how to do different things with the blog and to possibly use the blog to connect to other teacher's blogs as well. I am excited to learn how blogging can help enhance my classroom and personal online experiences.