Blogs in Education

I searched educational blogs using Google, MSN, and Yahoo as the search engines. The results were all very similar with epals.com, educational.blogs.com, weblogs.com, and wideopendoors.com showing up as the results. They were all very similar because these search engines find websites in much of the same way. The search engines I used are similar in themselves as well resulting in a similar process of searching the internet. So respectively, the results were alike. For example, after typing in "educational blogs" in each search engine, they all scan the internet for websites containing the words "educational" and "blogs."

There are so many interesting ways blogs are being used in kindergarten through twelfth grade. Blogs are used to update students with upcoming holidays, newsletters, and other school events and notices. They are also used as a place where students can play educational games, post their own comments and education assignments through blogs, as well as comment on blogs from other peers in class. I like this idea the most. Teachers can give students assignments in class and have the students post essays as blogs on the blog site. Blog sites also gives parents the opportunity to be involved in their children's lives. Parents can become members of the blog site that their children are involved in and they can receive e-mails of all the school newsletters.

Although blogs used in classrooms can benefit student learning in many ways, there may also be some cons as to why I may not use blogs in my own classroom. I am interested in teaching either Kindergarten or first grade and blogs may be a little too advanced and intimidating for students at this age.