The Pedagogy of Blogs

I can't believe I'm writing a blog. Yes, for those who know me, this is a certain sign of the Apocalypse; however, as a future teacher it will be useful for me to at least be capable of managing a blog. So, here we go.

As part of an assignment for my INST 4015 class, we were asked to search through different educational blogs and then choose three that proved particularly helpful/inspirational. Because I'm a dutiful soul who's slightly paranoid about my grade, I searched through each blog that was listed on Blackboard. I liked a lot of what I saw, even if every single one of those blogs was created by an elementary school teacher. What's up with that? Despite the fact that those blogs are geared toward children and early adolescents, I got a lot of ideas for how I could use a blog in my own high school classroom.

I have to start with "The Almighty Bloggers" at classblogmeister.com, simply because these kids are from New Zealand and got to learn how to sail and kayak. Seriously? How cool is that? Living vicariously through these kids would be reason enough to follow their blog, but I actually found that I liked how the teacher used the blog to share with the parents and the students what's been happening in class. This is a great way to not only keep parents informed, but it's also a really easy way to keep the kiddies who are absent (because of a deadly illness, I'm sure) up to speed. How easy would it be to simply post on the blog what had been done in class? No more having to send a parent or a friend to pick up missed assignments; they'd all be online.

The other two blogs I decided to focus on were Mrs. H's "Top Dog Blog" and Mrs. Mueller's "Our Wonderful Blog". Mrs. H seems to use her blog to not only supply information for parents and students, but also to create a place for her students to respond and interact; in other words, the blog becomes an assignment. This could actually be a really cool idea for a high school class, because it's impossible to fit everything into one fifty minute class period. I want my students to be able to share and read each other's work, but we don't always have time to do so in class. As for Mrs. Mueller, while she also used her blog to post homework assignments and such, she also used it as a place to share resources with her students. She had a Book Recommendation list, as well as an entire unit on poetry. As an English teacher, I have to say it: how cool is that?