beginnings

[rhmichel]

Well, I am finally beginning my own blog after years of hearing about other people running their own blog. I am hoping this experience is as beneficial as others purport it to be, though I am concerned that it might be just one more item on my task list for each day.

Comments

[sammason]

Which online platform are you using? I've not run a teaching blog but I've briefly participated in one during teacher training. That was on the course provider's website. As it happens, I dropped out of the training for unrelated reasons, so I don't know how useful the blog really was.

[ext_2800261]

I thought that livejournal.com is the online platform. Maybe I misunderstood. I am in a graduate level course in Technology in Distance Education. The assignment is to create my own blog that classmates can read and comment on. I am supposed to document the concepts that I am learning and how I am learning about them. Is this not exactly the right place to do that? If not, what URL can I use to begin my own blog?

[sammason]

I think LJ is a good platform to use. As mentioned by krissi below, blogspot is good too. I've used wordpress for a science blog and liked it. The main thing, I think, is to choose a platform that your blog readers will be comfortable with. For you that means your classmates.

[ext_2800261]

I am supposed to start my own without being part of a community. I can't figure out how to post an entry at livejournal.com without a community. An error message keeps telling me that there is no such community or journal when I try to post outside of this teaching community. Does anyone know what is going on?

[krissi]

I started a classroom blog last year and it was a huge hit with the parents (I teach Grade 2/3) so I did it again this year. I'm currently using blogspot and I'm enjoying how easy it is to use. I tend to post once or twice a week with important reminders/information, as well as pictures of class work and what we did during the week. It is also an access point for other online things that are part of our school (reading program and math website). I find it easy to keep up with it, and tend to do my "big" update Friday afternoon, when my kids have their earned free period of the day. They also like watching me update, so I fire up my SMARTboard and do it in front of them.

Later on in the year I ended up having weekly "bloggers" - kids that were responsible for blogging about our week and creating the blog post. They loved that last year, looking forward to doing it again with them!