1. Ways to Use Blogs in the
Classroom
By Amary Rivera
amaryrivera@gmail.com

2. Weekly Writing Prompts
 Post a Prompt
Post a weekly writing prompt on the blog and have your
students respond to it by a certain day.
 Ask students to comment on one of their classmates ideas
drawing a name from a hat or rotating to be sure that all
students receive a comment from someone.
 Foster process writing peer-editing by asking each student to
make a suggestion for improvement to content and mechanics
(editing) of the other student’s submission.

3. Weekly Calendar of Events and
Assignments
 The week in Review
 Appoint a weekly blog team to write the week’s blog
entry describing the events of the week and the
assignments.
 By posting the weekly events students who are
absent will know what assignments to complete and
what they have missed.

4. Respond to Stories
 Respond to reading
 Check for comprehension by asking students to
respond to the week’s readings by summarizing and
reflecting on how it applies to their own real life
experiences.
 Post questions for students to discuss and ask them
to respond to classmates.

5. Fact Finding Activities
 Find the facts
 Post a statement with no supporting facts. Ask
students to find facts to support or refute the opinion
using links to reliable web sites and their own
persuasive explanations.
 Use this activity to expand scientific knowledge and
thinking.

6. Critique a Website
 Critique a web site
 Post a link to a web site related to a topic your are
studying and invite students to give their personal
evaluation:
 Is the site biased?
 Does it seem well-researched?
 Is it a reliable source?
 What would you add to the website?
 Are the images appropriate?
 What would you change?

7. Current Events
 Comment on current events
 Post a link to a current events story and ask students
to comment on its implications in your local
community or their own lives.
 Ask students to research the news story and post
one new fact or update throughout the week.

8. Personal Experience Reports
 Report on a vacation or long weekend
 Encourage children to share a story about their
weekend or vacation from someone else’s point of
view and comment on a classmate’s story.

9. Field Trip Reports
 Report on a field trip or virtual field trip
 Students report about attending a field tip or special
event and all photos to the blog. Students can also
poll classmates to fond the most popular part of the
trip.
 Students can pretend they interviewed a person they
met through a virtual field trip and can post photos
found online related to the field trip.

10. Community Tour
 Write a neighborhood or community tour with
pictures
 As a culmination of a unit on your community or local
history create a neighborhood or community tour
blog. Each student (or pair) can take and upload a
picture and tell about it.

11. Hot Topics
 Bounce around a hot topic
 Discuss topics such as :
 Should rolling bookbags be allowed in class?
 Should students wear uniforms?
 Should gum chewing be allowed in class?
 Should there be school around school?

12. Wonderings Blog
 Question blog
 Invite students to submit a question about course
content, related ideas, or “I have always wondered” in
advance of starting a new unit.
 As the course progresses and students are able to
answer their wonderings they will revisit and update
the blog.

13. Organization Skills
 Organization tips
 Invite students and their parents to share tips for how
they stay organized, not just for school, but for life.
 Ask students to try one of the organization skills they
learned about and report back.

14. Collaborative Storytelling
 Continuing Stories
 Start a blog story (set up the setting, characters, and
initial situation in an opening paragraph) and let each
student who visits comment by adding a sentence or
two.
 Students can edit the story for grammar and to add
more details or clarifying words.

15. Share new videos and links
 Share materials, news, downloads, links
and more
 Ask students to share a news story, video, or
link once a week and write a small summary
of it.
 Ask students to respond to at least one new
item weekly.