Topic 14: Blogs, Blogs, Everywhere!!!

This year has become the year of the blog for me. I have gone from having no clue what a blog is or does to making it an integral part of my life. I now use blogs for school, work, and personal reasons. Surprisingly, I use each of the blogs in very different ways and for different reasons.

School- Obviously, I have created a blog for this class. This is my first blog written, designed, and executed solely by myself. I find it very easy to use. The site is very user friendly and I even managed to customize my blog with a cute new background. (Thanks to some google-ing) I use this blog as a means for my expression of thought and reflection on things that I am learning. I am not sure that it would be the type of blog that others, outside this class would follow, but I am definitely learning the basics of using a blog with this experience.

Work- I started a blog with my class year as well. This blog is hosted by a different site and is also easy to set up however I am using it in a MUCH different way. Our class blog is a chance for the students to express themselves in discussions about material that we have learned in class. In this blog, instead of writing in a narrative way about my learning experiences, I post a short open ended question about something that we have learned in class. The students can then go online and post comments to answer the question of comment on other student's posts. This blog focuses on the student comments to provide content.

Personal- I have recently come across several blogs created by other technology teachers. I read these often to gain ideas on ways to incorporate technology into the classroom, read about new trends in educational technology, or just to hear the opinions of current issues in technology. One of my favorite blogs is iLearn Technology. It is created by Kelly Tenkely, who is a technology specialist. I love her blog because she reviews various websites that can be used for educational technology. She tells you what it is, how you can use it in the classroom, and even give you tips on the programs. I have found numerous ideas from her blogs that I use in my classroom.