Thing #3 - Classroom Blogging ideas

I have used my blog in several of my graduate classes to demonstrate what I have learned and to share ideas and activities with my classmates. In my own classroom, I have shared my blog with my students. Some of my students even decided to go home and create their own blog with the help of their parents. Blogs are a great way to communicate and share ideas and activities with classmates, colleagues, students, and parents. A teacher could use it to communicate with parents, share excellent examples of your students' work, or share practice activities with both students and parents. However, I generally use my own class website to do these things, including providing a calendar of classroom plans/homework assignments, links to Math resources, and Reading/Language Arts resources.  I also have links to the school calendar and the district website.  Students and parents can send me messages using a comment box as well.  When these comments are submitted, they are sent straight to my email inbox.  Although I don't include any class photos, I would certainly love to.  However, our school is pretty strict about using pictures of our students online.  If nothing else, I would love to let them create technology projects that could be displayed online for parents and visitors to see.  I think both students and parents would love to see their pictures and activities online.