While I’ve been reading blogs for quite a while… and stumbled upon the reading of them quite by accident, to be honest…. I’m still not sure what role they can/do/will/won’t play in my classes. I can see the idea of community building, writing, responding, etc….however with 140+ students, I have no idea how to manage blogging with a community of this size.

Maybe a wiki fits a larger group?

bah. that’s what I’m hoping to figure out through the PLC.

I have a blog…but that doesn’t mean I blog about teaching. It’s actually really fun for me to blog about things OTHER than what I do with my 20 hours of life a day. That is why it is engaging for me.

I read about teaching, teacher blogs, ideas for teaching, etc and participate in listservs. reading blogs through the google reader has really saved me a TON of time as I am not checking sites nor feeling overwhelmed by the millions of emails I don’t have time to read on any given day/evening. Instead, I can log in to the reader and read what appeals to me or NOT. It’s lovely.

Learning to say NO and save my time for family is IMPORTANT for me. Teaching can be all consuming.

There are a few blogs I read about teaching/etc. Some of them are purely for entertainment (not necessarily for “teaching”). Those blogs are:

• CoolCatTeacher (She has WAY more time than do I and her blog is a bit overwhelming – which is why I like to read her feed – less stuff to see when I read it!

• Rate Your Students (Totally snarky…totally inappropriate…but somedays..totally WORTH the read!

• So You Want to Teach? (This is a new blog for me…but I enjoy some of his commentaries)

• Weblogg-Ed (Written by Will Richardson who wrote a book about blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc in the classroom)

• A Teacher’s Education (Written by a “Ms. Chili” who posts “Grammar Wednesday” and various commentaries from her classroom. Makes me feel less isolated in the classroom sometimes when I read what is going on in her classroom.)

• NetSquirrel - (Okay..not really a blog, but a great resource of online tutorials and ideas for teachers.)

As I am exploring other teacher blogs and how teachers use blogs, I am realizing how must easier student feedback and tracking the when/where/why/what of all of the feedback will be.  I’m not sure I’m ready to understand how to manage a blogigng project with 140 kids… but I’m willing to work on it.

So far, I am thinking of having students register their own blogs and link back to one big one.  Maybe this means that I set students up in small groups or teams and those teams manage their own blog and responses.  I don’t currently use my teaching “blog” this way – but the potential for communication is great.

The one lingering question for me is:  If I write it, how do I get them to come and read it?