Classroom+Blogging+Made+Easy

Blogging

Why Blog?
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Before you blog, I strongly suggest you begin reading other bloggers in a field you are passionate about. Immerse yourself in a topic that consumes you normally. Whatever you are into, it is virtually guaranteed that someone is blogging about it. A popular quote on [|Technorati], a leading blog tracking site, exclaims that "55 million blogs, some of them have to be good."

How to find blogs to read:
 * Go to [|Technorati] and search blog posts for a keyword or phrase that interests you.
 * Use [|Google Blog Search] to find a blog that contains something that interests you.
 * If you are into Education-based blogs, try this [|list].
 * Or if you would like to see some of the blogs that I read, check out the list on my [|Chalkdust] blog.

Blogging with your students
One of the ways you can involve your student in a collaborative effort or project is through a class blog. They take several forms in the classroom:
 * Teacher posts, students comment on one blog
 * [|7th Grade English]
 * Teacher and students both post and comment on one blog
 * [|AP Calculus]
 * [|Poetry Contest]
 * Teacher posts on their own blog, each student posts on their own blog, everyone comments.
 * [|A Really Different Place]

Recently, a group of educational technologists announced the revealing of [|21Classes], a blogging site designed for teachers to use with their students. There have been several like this before (like [|Classblogmeister], [|Edublogs], or [|Drupal]), but what makes this so different is that the security level is customizable. You can control who has the ability to post, who has the ability to comment, and who has the ability to see the blog. This is great for teachers who would like to experiment with blogging with their students.