Week 2: Blogging in the Classroom

Our key focus this week is blogging, and how teachers can use classroom blogs to enhance collaboration, communication, and transparency among students, parents, and really anyone who has an interest in what is going on in the classroom.

One of the most interesting places I visited as part of this week's exploration was the 2013 Edublog Award winners. I particularly liked the winner for the Best Library/Librarian blog, as it's such a great example of the value that a Media Specialist can bring to teachers among all subject areas and grade levels.

We were also asked to experiment with Twitter and how it could be used in a school setting and I came across a classroom blog of a 1st grade teacher in Canada.  In addition to having a very inviting, engaging blog, I thought it was interesting how her students interact with other classrooms across the world using Twitter and Skype (just in January, they've worked with other 1st graders in England and Italy). While they could certainly learn the same concepts without collaborating with the other classes, I think it's so cool that, at age 6, they are "meeting" people from different countries/cultures. It also makes future lessons much more meaningful - for example, if they are learning about Italy in a social studies context, they now have a personal connection that can only make them more interested and invested in the lesson.