Perhaps one of the most fascinating tools that has emerged from the Internet cloud in recent years is the Blog. A shortening of the term Web log, the Blog is an online publishing tool that enables people to easily publish their loves, passions, dislikes, peeves, discoveries, and insights. (Reference)
Blogs are set-up like conventional Web sites, with navigation links, and other standard Web site features. Blogs have one standard characteristic, however: the posting. Blog postings are text entries, similar to a diary or journal, which include a posting date and may include comments by people other than the author, photos, links, or other digital media. Blogs work well for students because they can be worked on at virtually any time, in any place with an Internet-enabled computer. Hence, they can be used by computer savvy teachers to create a classroom that extends beyond the boundaries of the school yard. (Reference)
Thousands of teachers have discovered the value of classroom blogging, both as an avenue for their communications, but also as a tool for giving voice to what their students are learning and how they are learning. (Reference)
Educational Benefits of Blogs
In addition to providing teachers with an excellent tool for communicating with students, there are numerous educational benefits of blogs. Blogs are:
- Highly motivating to students, especially those who otherwise might not become participants in classrooms.
- Excellent opportunities for students to read and write.
- Effective forums for collaboration and discussion.
- Powerful tools to enable scaffolded learning or mentoring to occur.
This page contains a list of NZ classroom blogs.
Start here: www.blogger.com (You need to create a Gmail account) It's all free!
some good reasons there^^
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