Thing 3

I can really see a blog being very useful in my classroom. I think that I would use a blog in various ways:

1. Posting assignments and due dates. It would be a great place to lay out the schedule and work that we are going in class. That way, students (especially students who were absent) can go there to see what's going on in class and what is coming up. In addition, parents can take a look to see what kinds of things they should maybe be seeing their kids working on at home.

2. Question and answer forum. It would be a great place to have kids post questions and answer questions about both course structure and course formate

3. Activities. One of the blogs I visited suggested having students post hypotheses prior to completing experiments in class. And students could also post results of experiments (including graphs, tables, images...). Since I teach science, this would be a great way for students to really "do science."

One concern I have is time. I can see all the great possibilities that blogging might provide. But I can also imagine spending enormous amounts of time to set up, monitor, and respond to blog items. And that is just my time. I think it might also be easy for students to "waste" time on blogs. I have often found myself following links all over the web--it has been very interesting, but took valuable time away from the things I was supposed to be doing.