Blog 2

This is my first time blogging but I know it has been around for quite some time.  Recently at the OTEN conference, a teacher was talking about using iPods to record students reading a report that they had created.  This made me think that you could add this to your class blog and the families would be able to watch their children.  The students would also be able to blog about their experience.  They could share questions, ideas and their thoughts.  Other students would be able to comment and reply.  Making this a great way for students to be engaged and be able to see what other students are thinking.  I love the idea of allowing the parents the access to our class blog.  They would know what we were working on as well as get to see what their child is writing in the moment. 

      The students could be working on a health program of being more active and eating a varied diet.  A blog could be a great way for students to post their process.  It could be in as much detail as what they ate that day and all their daily activities.  I think this could be fun for the students to be able to share and be able to get ideas from their classmates.  For example: what are some good activities they can do to move around when it is rainy out or simple foods to eat that are better than having a cookie for a snack.  I could also comment and encourage higher level thinking. 

     Other simplified ideas would be it could replace the student’s journals. This would eliminate paper and that would always be backed up on the computer so the students would not be able to use the excuse that they lost their response.  After reading groups, students could blog their ideas, questions, predictions and thoughts about the story.  As they go through the story they would be able to add new ideas and answer their questions.  If a teacher wanted to put a little time into setting up and how he/she wants blogging to work with the students it could be a great resource for the students to use.