Using A Classroom Blog Where Students are the Creators

Besides having a blog that I could use in my classroom to facilitate discussion, I would also use blogs as a way for students to express their own feelings, opinions, and ideas.  Many of the Maine Learning Results for writing are geared toward students' writing processes with the ultimate goal of it being polished and viewed by others.  If students feel that their work will be viewed by others, especially through publication, they will likely be much more motivated to create writing that is thoughtful, intelligent, and polished.  By encouraging the students to create their own blogs and update them periodically, the boring old process of writing in a notebook can be discarded and students will be introduced to the technological world.  Having a blog will also help their typing skills and general writing schools.  The link below is a kid-friendly blog site where students may go and begin publishing.

http://kidblog.org/home/