This document discusses using blogs in the classroom and provides summaries of three articles on the topic. The articles describe how blogs can be used to communicate with parents and students, publish student work, and manage courses. They discuss two approaches to getting students to blog - through assignments or intrinsic motivation. Tips are provided for getting students engaged in blogging, such as posting homework questions or having students lead class discussions online. Overall, the document argues that blogging is an effective and inexpensive way for teachers to incorporate technology in the classroom.

1. Blogging in the Classroom By: Lindsay Powers 1

2. Table of Contents Tital Page Slide 1 Table of Contents Slide 2 “ Blogging and RSS — The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators” Summary 1 Slide 3 “ Blogging and RSS — The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators” Summary 2 Slide 4 Personal Reflection Slide 5 “ Classroom Blogging: two fundamental approaches” Summary 1 Slide 6 “ Classroom Blogging: two fundamental approaches” Summary 2 Slide 7 Personal Reflection Slide 8 “ Blogging in (and out of) the Classroom” Summary 1 Slide 9 “ Blogging in (and out of) the Classroom” Summary 2 Slide 10 Personal Reflections Slide 11 Conclusion Slide 12 Works Cited Slide 13 2

3. Blogging and RSS — The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators ● Before blogging was introduced into the classroom people all over the world used blogging everyday to upload videos, pictures, and text. Educators have been slower to adopt blogs in the classroom for several reasons, but as more people become familiar with blogs more teachers are finding that it is a much easier way to communicate with parents, students, and publish student work. Schools are finding that it has become a much cheaper way to communicate with others and even manage courses and student’s through a blog. 3 Home | Features | About | Buzz | Help | Discuss | Language | Developers | Gear

4. Blogging and RSS — The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators ● An example of a website an elementary school used to communicate with parents and keep them informed about the latest updates about the school : [http:// lewiselementary.org /] ● A blog that a school used to publish a book the class had collectively written was to show the parents what the students had completed. [http://weblogs.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/beesparents] ● Tools like these are very helpful for a school to use. Using a blog is free and a school can avoid the costs of sending out letters or flyers to keep in touch with parents. 4

5. Personal Reflection This site is great for a teacher to read before deciding to use blogging in the classroom. This site tells what kinds of blogs to you that are safe and it also gave examples of how to use the blogs and in what ways you van reach out to the community. The article also points out what a benefit it would be to the school financially. Using flyers or mailing out weekly letters to the parents can be costly for the school. Using a blog is completely free and parents can check it out whenever it is most convenient to them. 5

6. Classroom Blogging: two fundamental approaches This article was about taking two different approaches to blogging in the classroom. The first approach is to get students to blog is through extrinsic factors of quantitative evaluation and accountability. This mean that the teacher gives the students assignments to blog about and then keeps track of how often they post their work. 6

7. Classroom Blogging: two fundamental approaches The second approach involves drawing upon the factors of motivation intrinsic to each student. This means that the teachers motivates them to write about their interests, post photos and get involved in social networking. This is more qualitative blogging than quantitative, which is what the first approach recommended. The point of this type of blogging is to show the students that using computers in this way can be fun and expressive. 7

8. Personal Reflections I found this article was extremely helpful. It suggested how teachers introduce blogging and using computers in the classroom. The article mentioned taking two different approaches to this task. The first one being using homework assignments to make students use the blogging system and the second one using the student’s personal interests the motivate and encourage them to explore blogging and social networking. Either approach is very affective. The students will become familiar with blogging and how to use computers. They will soon start blogging with their peers on their own time. 8

9. Blogging in (and out of) the Classroom This article gave a lot of helpful tip to encourage the student to start blogging. It also gave different situations that real teachers used to introduce blogging into the classroom. The Link below tells how a teacher got her 4 th , 5 th, 8 th , and 9 th grade students to participate in cultural blogging. http://murcha.wordpress.com/2008/11/20/blogging-across-cultures/ ● This second teacher made a Biology blogging site to keep students informed about classes and activities. They called it This Biology class blog 9

10. Blogging in (and out of) the Classroom The second part of this article was giving seven tips to help students start blogging. The tips are: Post a homework question. Start a discussion. Invite outsiders to comment on student work. Have students post discussion questions for tomorrow’s class. Have students post their notes for the day. Have students create their own blogs for independent study. 10

11. Personal Reflections ● I found this article very helpful. Although some of the information was repeated from the previous two articles, I did find the seven tips to be helpful. This article would be great for a new teacher to read before deciding to start introducing blogging into the classroom. This article was very straight forward and it practically did everything but teach the lesson itself. It put together the tips and how to use them. The tips help to motivate the students to get involved. 11

12. Conclusion After reading the three articles about how to use blogging in the classroom I am convinced it is a smart and efficient way to teach students. Blogging gives the students a chance to express themselves. This can be a great self-esteem builder. Other students are able to comment on their work and give them positive feedback. It is also a good way for students to look at their work a little better. With blogging the teacher is not the only one looking at the assignment. Parents and other students will be able to look and comment on the pages. This might give the student a little extra motivation to do a better job or “clean up” the homework they have just completed. I am very confident that I will be using blogging with my students in my future classroom. 12

13. Works Cited Campbell, A. (2005). Classroom Blogging: two fundamental approaches. Retrieved June 22,2009, from http://dekita.org/articles/classroom-blogging-two-fundamental-approaches Blogging in (and out of) the classroom . (2009) Retrieved June 22,2009, from http://www.emergingedtech.com/2009/05/blogging-in-and-out-of-the-classroom/ Richardson, W. (2004). Blogging and RSS — The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators. Retrieved June 22,2009, from http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan04/richardson.shtml 13