Climb Aboard and Blog!

Blogging...I love it! I am one of the 8 million people identified by the Pew Internet project that read blogs. I get my news from blogs, and for entertainment I read blogs on celebrity news. One of my all-time favorites is Go Fug Yourself, a blog that makes fun of celebrity fashion choices. My husband reads Michele Malkin's blog daily. As a native New Orleanian, I was very worried about my family, friends and our old neighborhoods in the hours and days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. How did I get the most up to date news? It wasn't on CNN, instead I turned to the "blogosphere" and read blogs, comments and forums. With the advent of Web 2.0, the Internet is no longer a vast virtual space that provides readers with information, but rather it's become a huge global community with opportunities to share, communicate, and interact. Blogs are an integral part of Web 2.0. As educators, we need to recognize the potential of using blogs as another tool to engage our students. Here are the links I shared in my session on Blogging at the Principal Institute on June 4 -5.

Examples of teacher and classroom blogs:

• Ms. Fighera's English Class
• Grade 1 Classroom Blog
• 5th Grade Classroom Blog
• Western Civ Classroom Blog
• High School English Classroom
• Mr. Chase's Classroom Blog
• Math Playground

Blogging Resources:

• Blogs in Education
• Teachers First – Gated Blogs for the Classroom
• Classroom Blogs
• Steps Toward a Successful Classroom Blog
• What’s the Scoop?
• A Practical Guide to Blogging

Now, climb aboard and blog! You can use this same service, Blogger, to start your own blog!

Happy blogging!