How can blogging be used by students and teachers?

Next to social networking sites, blogs might be all the rage these days. Everyone has something to say, and blogging is a great way to thoughts out to the world.

Both teachers and students can benefit from a blog. In a simple way, teachers can keep a classroom blog in a way similar to a weekly newsletter. Teachers, or even students, can summarize the week's events, give notices to upcoming items, and share useful information. Parents no longer have to tack a paper newsletter to the family bulletin board to remember information, and no one has to worry if an emailed newsletter gets deleted. Blogs can be an easily accessible diary of a classroom.

Blogs can have other uses as well. Mirror blogs and Reading Response blogs can include content discussed in class and go deeper. The author of the blog post, like the teacher, can ask a question that readers (likely students) can respond to. For example, when reading about the life of Benjamin Franklin, a blog post can ask the reader to decide which of Franklin's accomplishments was most important and why. Teachers can share what they are thinking as well. As an added benefit, readers can see all of the comments left by other readers/responders. Connections can be made, new questions can be posed, and new thinking can be generated.

Blogs can combine the newsletter, mirror, reading response and be a spot for students to showcase their work. The great thing about blogs is that they can be anything the author wants them to be at any moment. There can be one author or several authors. In a lot of cases, anyone can comment and be a part of that learning community. It's an easy, effective way to integrate technology with reading and writing skills.

Writing skills can develop using blogs. Content is king in blogs! Readers can easily leave the blog and move onto something else in a second, so capturing the audience is key. Authors of blogs have to think of main idea titles, catching beginnings, and perhaps insert appropriate images to help enhance the content of the blog. Typically, blogs are not meant to be lengthy, so summarizing skills are enhanced. Writing within length limits really forces the author to get word choices exact and narrow in on the main idea. Lastly, writing a blog post sharpens organization in writing.

What makes blogging different from other types of writing is that it can change. With traditional writing, once it's published and printed, it's difficult to change without calling it a new edition. Blog content can change (and even disappear) with the click of an "edit" button. Furthermore, the ability to have readers comment on the blog post can entice the author to change (or add to) a blog post. Comments can make the blog interactive and build a community of participators just from one blog post. People can follow the blog and receive updates, and blog authors can provide links to other places or documents online. Blog writing and reading is interactive in a new way. With good blogs, it' can be compared to paper publishing as 2-D and blog publishing is like 3-D.