My last post promised that a sword-wielding me would take on the blogging world full-steam... so here I go with an immediate follow up (well, it was immediate, but I decided to go to sleep after writing the majority of the response)!
(Picture: http://www.innosight.com/)
I believe that Blogging and/or, if I ever find some real ambition, web design will be very important tools in my development as a teacher. Blogging's most obvious benefit is organization. It will allow me to record each day's lessons in chronological order with supporting documents attached and, hopefully, some annotations to remind me whether a lesson needs some tweaking for next year's class. While, there is no doubt that I will benefit, my students will be able to use the blog to remind them of homework assignments, to inform them of what they missed when absent, and to give them easy access to missing documents.
In addition to organization, the blog serves as a communication tool. For struggling students, parents can monitor class assignments in order to ensure their completion. Students can perform activities verbally and through writing by posting responses to questions by creating podcast or simply making comments on the blog. Also, students can, anonymously, ask clarification questions for material that they may not have fully grasped in class.
As mentioned in my previous post, this is all very much a Web 2.0 utopian vision. Unfortunately, access and desire to access may pose problems to the effectiveness of the blog. If students cannot access my blog, will they be unfairly excluded from important content? If students and parents do not elect to look at the page, will the whole blogging process be a waste of time?
While the questions are salient, I believe they are merely small obstacles. Education is utilizing technology and I believe teacher blogs/websites are and will continue to be very efficient communication tools for all educators.
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