Blogs Rock!

Before I even started this class I loved to Blog. For me and my family it is a way to stay in touch and keep up on everyone's lives even though we don't have time to see each other. But, I didn't realize that blogging could be a great use in the classroom.

I want to teach 5th grade and most parents might freak out if a teacher asked their child to get a blogger account, but I think it would be a great tool. Blogging is a form of journal writing in my mind. Whether you like to write poetry, songs, a play-by-play of your day, or to just cover big events in your life, it is a wonderful thing.

Most teachers have children write a journal entry or do some form of writing in class each day that takes about thirty minutes. I think blogging could be the new form of that in class writing, to be done at home. I know that whenever I was an intern in a classroom, teachers always wanted more time for one subject or another. If we took that simple writing time out of the classroom, teachers could have more time for other things.

Also, another great point could be made with having students do a daily journal entry at home. When I was a kid, I didn't realize that writing was important and needed to be used outside of the classroom. I learned to enjoy writing and keeping a journal of sorts when I was in high school. I think that if we have kids blogging at home they will learn to apply writing and what they are learning in school to their own lives much faster.

Although parents may be skeptical there are other positive things about blogger that I haven't mentioned yet. Blogger is a secure site, students can all have their pages available to the teacher and fellow students only. Using this internet site can help children become more familiar with using different tools on the internet. The way fonts, color, and bullets are used in this program are similar to many word processing programs that kids will have to use to write papers.

Each child could benefit from blogging in accordance with their classes. Blogger is a great way for children to learn more about computers and how they work, to apply writing to their own lives, and to have fun while doing school work and learning. In the future, I hope to be able to incorporate some sort of blogging into my own classroom.