To Blog or Not to Blog in the Classroom?

After reading the two articles "Giving a Reluctant Student a Voice" and "Teddy Bears go Blogging" and looking through the PowerPoint on blogging I can see why many people are turning to blogging.  I was not to get the video to play however, just by reading and using the other sources I can see how students would be more engaged and willing to participate through blogging.  I agreed in the one article when it stated that sometimes it takes time to get your thoughts together and figure out what you want to say, and once you are there the class already moved on.  This has personally happened to me many times, and I never really thought about my students feeling the same way.  I would try anything to keep my students active in my classroom and I think blogging would be a great idea.  My only concern is that not all my students have access to computers at home and I would need to be able to adapt my lessons like in "Teddy Bears go Blogging" were it is one classroom weblog and they could add to it on our computer lab days. 

S Mongerson

I am absolutely pro blogging in the classroom.  From my own personal experience, my students blog almost every day in class.  I use the program Kids Blog so that it is private and no one outside our class can read the blogs.  My number one priority for my students is privacy.  We blog about what we are learning in each subject, summarizing books, and writing topics I give them.  As written in the article "Blog on" students can respond to each other.  I liked the idea of writing words students do not know and having others respond to it.  I believe that sharing ideas and understandings deepens the understandings of students.