Blogging!

I have spent a few hours setting up a class blog and researching how other teachers have used blogs for teaching and reflection. I'm always amazed by the amount of time it takes to learn a new technology and figure out how to best implement its use in the classroom! And I still have so many questions to answer as well as skills to acquire in order to become proficient at using just this one tool.

I am using Edublog. I am starting with one class blog and will eventually have students set up their own blogs to be linked within our class blog. Here's the URL if you'd like to check out the initial set-up: http://mrsblick.edublogs.org

I will begin the introduction to blogging by looking at examples of other classroom blogs and comment strings. As a class, we'll look at a few examples of blogging guidelines and then come up with our own to include on a page in our blog. I'd like to try and have the students be as involved as possible in the set-up of the initial blog. This way they'll have ownership and learn the skills needed to set up their individual blogs later. I envision these blogs to be used as portfolios for finished writing pieces as well as a reflection of the entire process.

It's a little scary jumping into something so new that none of us have done before. At the same time it is exciting. I'll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck!