Blog Assignment

First of all, I love blogging now! I've extended them into my real life, as well as revamped my social networking.

I like that these posts are appropriate for writing more than on Facebook or Twitter, but images can still be attached. Appropriate use of space has been my biggest challenge. I like to write a lot. I like to research a lot. I know that people lose interest fast, so I'm working on that.

But the space issue brought me to another thing: Where will I use this?
I know many teachers who use these for their classrooms and they do get traffic. It is the same few people and even those friends of mine have admitted that it's the parents who are active anyway who are following and posting. Why?

Blogger is not THAT popular. Many (or even most) people know about it, but it's not very convenient to follow on a daily basis. My thinking is that parents might be really into it the first week or so, but then lose interest. The ones who show more interest will probably only follow it if it has a link to a facebook or twitter, and even then they might get bored.

SO many people speak against using Facebook or Twitter in the classroom, but I think after using this and talking to other teachers/friends, I'm going that route for my daily classroom updates. It's just easier. Almost everyone on the planet is on Facebook now. My grandmother is one of my top followers. The world is different. Parents are young and busy. As long as rules are set and privacy settings appropriate, I think it works best. As a matter of fact, everywhere I go, I have been asking people I know who have kids if they'd follow a Classroom Twitter or check Facebook updates, and almost all have been VERY into the idea.

Social networking and blogger are kind of different things, but not really. I just think now that the world has decided to embrace online communication and networking, the purpose of a medium like this can be re-examined.

I think I will use this more for my own reflection so that I become a better teacher. I'd love to have other teachers follow me and respond to my blogs and vice versa. Of course, we'll also be facebook friends. But at least here, we can write out our thoughts in paragraph form.

Face-to-Face communication is great and it's needed for some circumstances, but social networking or blogs work much better. If  parents can keep tabs of what's going on in the classroom 24/7, for many students this will mean there's less of a chance of them falling behind because their parents will know what to look for.

I hate to say one thing is better than another, but this IS better than relying on face-to-face communication and it is better than email or take-home notes. It is quicker and parents can check or communicate instantaneously. Convenience is the keyword for us all. I advocate all of this!