Homework for my Reading class...

Ok friends, here are the pieces of the instructions for my assignment this week:
Create a blog posting containing the following items: 1) a minimum of 4 of your favorite ways that you learned that middle school/high content area teachers are using blogs with their students, 2) one way you might use blogs with your students, and why, and 3) how you would know if this way of blogging was effective with your students.

Here are some cool "teacher" blogs out there:

http://gbrovont.edublogs.org/ On this blog, the teacher, Mr. Brovont, uses the blog to inform his students. He doesn't post as regularly as other bloggers might, but it does seem to be a tool that his students can use to engage in the classroom more consistently and regularly.

http://www.chaplescienceclass.blogspot.com/ I am completely impressed with this blog! Mr. Chaple uses this blog to keep his students in the loop! He also uses this to create articles for his students about topics that they need to be aware of.

http://missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog/ So, Miss Baker is definitely very into the blogging world! Her blog is very complex with lots of different sections and I'm pretty sure it would take me hours to get through everything on her blog!

http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=4771 So, Mr. Gonzalez uses his blog to keep his students tuned in and has gotten some very real attention for it! They're presenting at their local school board meeting about all the fun things their science class has been doing. I think this is a pretty interesting way of using blogs in the classroom.

One way that I have considered using blogs with my students would be to use it to share with them different "fun" things that are happening outside of their own bubble in the world of their neighborhood and school. I have wanted them to see that there are fun things happening in the world of science and so much more to life than just their school, their neighborhood, their family, even this city! However, I worry that they might not be open to the idea of participating on the blog or might not even be into it. I don't know if blogging is something that they're capable of in a way that would make this an accessible project. I think that doing this in this way would be a way for them to learn more about the world around them.
 
I think one way that I know blogging would be effective with my students would be that they would begin to ask questions of interest and engagement in what was happening in the world around me. In the long term, I think that I would know that this would really be an effective teaching tool because over time I would see students reaching for new things and engaging in new areas of the country or new areas of the world.