In her premiere article for School Library Media Activities Monthly, “Blogging Basics,” Kathy Fredrick provides a great overview to blogs.

I love her opening sentence:

“Web 2.0 is all about creation — about each person contributing to the online world.”

Yes! That’s one of my favorite hidden benefits of Web 2.0 — that Web 2.0 facilitates communication without having to know a lot of behind-the-scenes techie code, but using technology to generate something new, something original.

Kathy talks about PURPOSE in her article, about knowing the reason for which you’re starting a blog. Here are some possibilities:

Professional Development

• You start a blog just to see what the experience is like, or
• You use a blog to take notes at a professional conference for colleagues who couldn’t attend or to track your own learning, like Jenny Levine’s The Shifted Librarian, or
• You share upcoming events and trends with colleagues, like the AASL Weblog, or
• Like the California School Library Association, your blog provides professional development activities for others.

Commentary

• You share a personal perspective on your profession, like Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog or Diane Chen’s Deep Thinking blog.

Books and Literature

• Maybe your blog focuses on motivating kids to read, like Brighton (Michigan) Area Schools’ Books Worth Reading, collectively written by the three outstanding elementary media specialists. (I like how they share authorship of each article.)

Student Portfolio

• You use your blog to post examples of student work, like the Beverly Media Center.

Any of these blogs could be long, ongoing projects … and if that’s something that has held you back from blogging, consider a blog with a short-term timeline. For example:

• Create a blog that will be active only during the Battle of the Books.
• Create a blog about a special school activity or focus, such as the Duck Diaries, about a duck laying eggs in a Northern California school courtyard.
• Invite students to blog in the voice of a character during the reading of a book or play, such as Springfield Township High School’s Hamlet blogging project, coordinated by Joyce Kasman Valenza, or use it to create a reader’s guide for a new work of literature, such as Will Richardson’s students did for The Secret Life of Bees.
• Get a group of students to blog about their alternative spring break activities, from Habitat to Humanity to Hurricane Katrina rehabbing to a New York museum internship.
• Blog a school reunion.

Image: Flickr

Join the Conversation
In what other ways can blogs share student knowledge? communicate information? share ideas?

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 12:50 am and is filed under Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.