Trying to get our students to practice their writing is definitely a challenge. Blogging is one way to get them in the practice of writing informally to find their voice, while also being a great classroom teaching tool. Using a free service like Kidblog (I really recommend this site, because it is built for classrooms and does not require email addresses for student accounts) makes it simple to set up a classroom so that every student has their own blog. Within a classroom, a teacher and student can access any blog that belongs to the class. Students also have the option to comment on other students' blog posts. The teacher will have to approve any comments before they are displayed, though, which is a very nice feature.The real opportunity with using blogs is letting your students get used to writing for an audience, learning from peer feedback, and taking pride in their writing. Using classroom blog posts of examples of the good and the bad are great teaching moments that students can easily connect to. It also takes away from all the stacks of paper that you are used to grading every week. You can give students instant feedback once they publish a post that you can choose for everyone to see or keep private for only that student. More and more classrooms are using this as a tool to get kids excited and analytical about their writing. Don't be afraid to try it out.
*UPDATE 1-24-11 check this week's tech tip for more info*
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