How Many Ways Can You Blog?

Today, I worked with our Librarian to present information to teachers about our website program, Schoolfusion. This past summer, the site was updated with some new tools (blog, wiki, podcast/video/photo slide show upload) and we discussed how these tools could be implemented effectively into their class pages and lessons.

Let's talk about blogs first. We went over how to add posts or entries to the blogs in Schoolfusion. There were lots of great ideas discussed. Two of our PE teachers talked about using the blog as a way to discuss important health topics with students. One of them asked me to look over her first entry and see if it was a good start. She started with an entry on her fitness routine and asked what students do to get in shape. For a first timer, I think she's on a roll!

The other PE teacher asked about including pictures in entries. Last year, she and I did a trackstar "WebQuest" on different health topics and one of these was anorexia. One of the sites student's visited showed pictures of people suffering from the disease. She asked if she could find a copyright free image and use this in an entry and have a discussion online about it. Another great idea!

Another teacher at our school created a parent blog as a way to communicate with parents especially when they have questions about homework or classwork their students are doing.

We also showed the teachers our blogs outside of Schoolfusion. I showed off My Technication and how I use this as a way to spread information about Instructional Technology ideas and tools. I also talked about added features that Blogger has such as adding widgets (my voki avatar), the blog roll, and my STAR DEN badge. Our librarian showed her blog, http://ashbyreads.blogspot.com, and how she uses this as a online card catalog of books and a discussion forum for students. She pointed out the tag feature that Schoolfusion doesn't have and how students can use this to look up other books in a specific genre.

If you have a blog, how do you use it? Have any great ideas to share for those just starting? Add a comment for this post and I'll compile the best ideas and put them back in another post. Have an idea, but not sure if it will work? Try it out on us first!