Pre-Post: Productive Use of Blogs in a Classroom

There are many productive uses of blogs in the classroom that I can think of, but I'll talk about the one I have most recently seen. The 4th grade classes in my school are working on a migration unit. The teachers have invited community members to participate by telling the 4th grade classroom their family migration story. Some of these presentation are being made in person to the class, but others are being posted to a blog. This gives students access to the same kind of information, in different formats and also lets community members who don't have time to come to the classroom participate as well. Presenters write up their families migration story and post it on the class blog, or their own blog sites. Here is one such blog. (Thanks again to Mr. Stutz for letting me refer to his blog).

I am looking forward to seeing what other productive uses people come up with. I think like any other tool, blogs are a great resource that needs to be taught. We can't expect everyone to know what they are about or how to accurately use them as a resource if we don't teach them. Instead of talking about all the negatives or drawbacks to technology, we should be talking about how to embrace and use them in a positive manner.