Using blogs to enhance learning in the classroom

Using a blog effectively in the classroom will allow students to learn to use a critical piece of technology that they will need in the future. One of the goals at my school is to create life long learners and using technology is definitely the wave of the future. I have not previously used a blog in my classroom and I considered two ways that I might utilize one in my classroom.

One way that I might see that one could use a blog in the classroom is as a scribe blog where one student blogs about the experiences of the class, what material was discussed in class, what the assignment / activity consisted of that day, what needs to be reviewed and/or completed at home and then other students could comment if they had questions, needed clarification, or felt that more information needed to be provided. I teach in a middle school and I currently am teaching a 7th grade Gifted Social Studies class. I do currently use a homework website where I post a summary of my class each day and post assignments and attachments for the class. The difference in using the scribe blog is that the responsibility would rotate among the students and they would have responsibility for the content. The advantage of this would also be found in the fact that parents would be better able to see what was going on in class each day and would have an additional source of information about what is being learned in class. This is particularly relevant for my class because I use the textbook very infrequently because most of what I teach is not in our textbook.

Since I am just beginning to explore the ways to best utilize blogs in the classroom, I think I would also be interested in using a blog to explore learning opportunities for students to hold class discussions about a common topic. I would post a weekly discussion question on Monday that either reinforced a concept from the previous week or one that would be discussed in class that week and would have students post a response. I think that this would improve writing skills as well and would help students realize that what they are writing is important. Students would also need to post responses to the other students in the class so that they receive feedback on their posts. This would be beneficial to students as well because we have several objectives that repeat for different units of study and would need to be applied to various regions of the world. These discussion posts would give students an opportunity to compare and contrast regions of the world and to get feedback from more than just their table which should lead to better understanding of the topic.

The one stumbling block that I have in utilizing this technology is the limiting number of computers in my classroom (1) and the limited number of labs/laptop carts in my school. I do think I could work around this by setting up certain response days in class. I would also need to find out more about the limits and filters placed on the Internet access at school as not all of my students have Internet access from home. I will have to explore more my school system's policies on using blogging in the classroom as well.