Educational uses of a blog

We have talked about the importance of creating digital tools to become competent teachers in the 21th century, but let's now make a deep analysis on some educational uses of a blog:

1. Student Portfolios
A digital portfolio can be a useful way to use a blog for students. By writing about their learnings, insights and new discoveries of digital resources, students will be able to see and analyse their progress more carefully. Additionally, the blog will present and organize the students work in a stimulating and inspiring way. Moreover, by sharing their progress with peers and teachers, the learning will be cooperative.

2. Discussion 
Creating a class blog for discussions is a really interesting resource for students to discuss topics outside of the classroom, in a more relaxed situation. With a blog, every student has an equal opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions with no fears. Furthermore, students have time to be reactive to one another and reflective. Finally, teachers can also alayse the progress of the discussion more carefully and take part on the reflections to make them more fluent or highlight some aspects of it.

3. Share teacher resources
This kind of blog is not for the students of the classroom, but for the teachers and citizens interested on educational issues. Creating a blog for sharing teachers ideas, knowledge, strategies and experiences can be an extremely worthwhile idea. A blog of this nature will ease staying up to date on what people are talking about in the education space, and consequently, new ideas will arise from this enriching exchange.

And here are some examples of blogs for teachers:

• Mindshift: http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/

"Technology is revolutionizing the world of education – replacing familiar classroom tools and changing the way we learn. MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions – covering cultural and technology trends, groundbreaking research, education policy and more. The site is curated by Tina Barseghian, a journalist and the mother of a grade-schooler."

• Teachthought: http://www.teachthought.com/

"TeachThought’s mantra is simple: learn better. Our mission is modest enough–to create a modern enlightenment that results in healthy communities and truly interdependent citizens."

Hope you put in practice this educational uses of blogs and also different ones!