While Searching through the net, I've found some great websites and blogs illustrating how blogs are used in education.

Weblogs: A Powerful Tool for Educators - This is a great site to begin with. It discusses how blogs can be used in pedagogy. It also has a step by step tutorial on how to create a blog and provides examples of other educational blogs.

Blogging Pedagogy This site was created by the University of Texas. They describe the blog as "a blog about pedagogy and English studies. It is a space to share resources, stories, successes, and failures."

Every One Learns - Pedagogy, Technology, Motivation This is the personal blog of Mike Muir, a professor of educational technology at the University of Maine at Farmington. He discusses how he uses technology and blogs to motivate underachievers in schools.

While Searching through the net, I've found some great websites and blogs illustrating how blogs are used in education.

Weblogs: A Powerful Tool for Educators - This is a great site to begin with. It discusses how blogs can be used in pedagogy. It also has a step by step tutorial on how to create a blog and provides examples of other educational blogs.

Blogging Pedagogy This site was created by the University of Texas. They describe the blog as "a blog about pedagogy and English studies. It is a space to share resources, stories, successes, and failures."

Every One Learns - Pedagogy, Technology, Motivation This is the personal blog of Mike Muir, a professor of educational technology at the University of Maine at Farmington. He discusses how he uses technology and blogs to motivate underachievers in schools.

Take the fifth grade California Content Standards for language arts as an example.


2.0 Reading Comprehension (Focus on Informational Materials)

Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material. They describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and perspectives of the text by using their knowledge of text structure, organization, and purpose. The selections in Recommended Literature, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students. In addition, by grade eight, students read one million words annually on their own, including a good representation of grade-level-appropriate narrative and expository text (e.g., classic and contemporary literature, magazines, newspapers, online information). In grade five, students make progress toward this goal.

Comprehension and Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text
2.3 Discern main ideas and concepts presented in texts, identifying and assessing evidence that supports those ideas.
2.4 Draw inferences, conclusions, or generalizations about text and support them with textual evidence and prior knowledge.

Expository Critique
2.5 Distinguish facts, supported inferences, and opinions in text.

3.0 Literary Response and Analysis

Students read and respond to historically or culturally significant works of literature. They begin to find ways to clarify the ideas and make connections between literary works. The selections in Recommended Literature, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students.


Narrative Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text
3.2 Identify the main problem or conflict of the plot and explain how it is resolved.
3.3 Contrast the actions, motives (e.g., loyalty, selfishness, conscientiousness), and appearances of characters in a work of fiction and discuss the importance of the contrasts to the plot or theme.
3.4 Understand that theme refers to the meaning or moral of a selection and recognize themes (whether implied or stated directly) in sample works.
3.5 Describe the function and effect of common literary devices (e.g., imagery, metaphor, symbolism).

Literary Criticism
3.6 Evaluate the meaning of archetypal patterns and symbols that are found in myth and tradition by using literature from different eras and cultures.
3.7 Evaluate the author's use of various techniques (e.g., appeal of characters in a picture book, logic and credibility of plots and settings, use of figurative language) to influence readers' perspectives.


1.0 Writing Strategies

Students write clear, coherent, and focused essays. The writing exhibits the students' awareness of the audience and purpose. Essays contain formal introductions, supporting evidence, and conclusions. Students progress through the stages of the writing process as needed.



In order to address reading, wiring, and comprehension objectives, a teacher may assign a chapter book to the class. Each week, the students would be responsible for writing about the story in their classroom blog. On some weeks the teacher may ask the students to post a response to specific questions about the story and on other weeks the students can write a readers response entry about their readings. Finally, the teacher can ask the students to write an essay summarizing and incorporating the students feelings about the story.

Besides meeting Reading, writing and comprehension state standards, blogs also meet Research and Technology standards.

Research and Technology
1.3 Use organizational features of printed text (e.g., citations, end notes, bibliographic references) to locate relevant information.
1.4 Create simple documents by using electronic media and employing organizational features (e.g., passwords, entry and pull-down menus, word searches, a thesaurus, spell checks).

Students love to use technology because they are familiar with it. The use of a blog is especially appealing to students because they are able to customize the look and style of their blog as they see fit. Blogs also make it easier for teachers to detect plagiarism in the students writing. A teacher simply needs to copy and paste a sentence from a blog into Google Search to determine if the sentence was taken from another source.



Links: California State Content Standards. Grade 5: Language Arts

One of the complaints that I hear from many teachers is the lack of parental involvement and support. While I do have sympathy for the teachers I also have sympathy for the parents. Teachers need to understand that some parents are simply unable to provide much, or any, support to the teacher. Many parents work full time or have more than one job. Therefore, these parents are unable to speak to the teacher during regular school hours.

Blogs can be a solution to this problem. Teachers can create a blog in which they discuss classroom events and address any classroom concerns. Parents can provide feedback on this information. Thus creating an open arena for parents and teachers to communicate effectively.

In this blog, teachers can also provide links to websites that provide additional support and resources for student homework and projects. This will help the parents understand their child's work, thus allowing them to assist their child with school work.

For confidentiality reasons, this blog should be password protected and the parents should have the option of sending the teacher private messages regarding personal matters.

Examples of teacher created blogs:

Mrs. Scholder's Kindergarten Class Blog

Miss Higginbothan's Weblog

Mr. Wright's Class Blog

And now, a bulleted list of all that is Ledis:
I am:
Funny [dark, sarcastic humor]
Usually, a very nice person.
I enjoy classic rock music. Some of my favorite bands are Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and Pink Floyd.
I am a respectful and hope for the same in return.
I am Shy when I don't know someone, outspoken when I do.
I enjoy nerdy conversations that involve cheesy internet memes such as All your bas are belong to us.
My Macintosh computer and I are soul mates! I an internet junkie who can be online for several hours.
I am lover of cats and cat culture!
LOVE Hello Kitty! but not enough to wear THIS dress
(click to enlarge)
Speaking of Hello Kitty and blogs, Hello Kitty Hell is a really great blog! </b>