Blogs as Teaching Tools

I believe blogs are a very important teaching tool. They have many uses including: providing a space for links to students' work; links to important blogs; web sites; audio and video materials; or documents (including those in .pdf format); a summary of class assignments; support materials for students; presentations done in Google Presentation or other presentation software.
Student blogs provide space for students to write reports that are public, post pictures, videos or presentations that are useful in the class, and create links to materials that they are worth sharing.
Blogs have other positive attributes:

• They are free!
• They provide for comments from others and those comments can be monitored before they appear if that is desired. Comments can also be removed by either the sender or the recipient.
• They can be private, public, or limited to a specific audience.
• They can be accessed anywhere in he world where there is internet access.

Many examples exist of blogs used in all grade levels in all of types of educational institutions. My favorite at this moment is the class website of Mr.C (William Chamberlain), a fifth grade teacher in Noel, Missouri. Mr. C's website is an excellent example of how technology can be used creatively and effectively in elementary education! I urge you to visit it.
Links to the blogs of my students can be found on the right side of my class blog: EDM310 Class Blog Spring 09. Student Podcasts can be found at EDM 310 Podcasts.