Oh, the things I have learned!

     One of the most exciting things I have learned in this course is the process of setting up a blog- who knew it was so easy! I had never seriously considered setting up a blog for myself or any of my hobbies/interests because I was intimidated by the idea of it all- no more. I can set up a blog that is practical to my uses and manage it effectively. I can promote and monitor my blog with ease, whether I use it in my classroom or in my personal life. I can easily find my way around blogger and my dashboard and am confident I could do the same through other websites if I so choose.
     I have decided that I will set up a blog for use in my student teaching starting this spring term. I will begin Drama at McNary High School after spring break, and I believe that will be a good environment to promote a classroom blog. It will be a discussion forum for extra credit and if that goes over well, I will think about extending the use of blogs in my future classrooms. I look forward to getting students feedback and input for this type of learning tool, because I think it is a truly valuable outlet.
     I know there are many, many blogs currently being used in classrooms and I will continue to do my research about new uses. Teachers need to stay updated on new teaching tools and blogging is certainly one of them. I have good role models for uses of blogs in schools, so I have no qualms about incorporating this technique. I also know how to find interesting blogs that I find useful, including ones that concern the field of education. Educators should stay connected and up to date on concerns throughout the field, and blogging is a great way to do that.
    Overall, I am very pleased with my growth in this class; it was much less structured than classes I am used to, but I appreciated that at times. I felt free to post what I found interesting when I had time to do so. I enjoyed the process and look forward to blogging more in the future- thank you Denvy!

My new favorite thing

I believe I understand more what is meant my 'managing your blog' when I see just how much there is out there to see and interact with. My own personal blog seems pretty simple, but everything else is overwhelming. I am becoming a big fan of my dashboard; it looks organized and useful and there are no flashing lights so I don't get scared. Also, my scrolling list of recently updated blogs I follow is very useful and makes my sense of order feel happy. I look forward to getting more comfortable in the blogging world with the help of my dashboard!

Another use of Blogs- HS PE

I almost forgot about this use of blogs! My mentor teacher last term (for high school P.E.) kept a blog for students who wanted to earn extra credit. It is surprisingly easy to fall behind in P.E.- mostly if you forget your clothes or don't feel like dressing down and lose your points for the day. My mentor created an extra credit blog on blogger and posted a different health or fitness quote every week,. If the student left a meaningful thought/comment they received 5pts extra credit. Most students who signed up for blogger and left comments were students with 100% in the class anyway, but occasionally it helped a student from a C to a B and gave students another option for earning points in a participation based class.

Promoting my blog

     I would assume that my blogs for my classes wouldn't need to be promoted, and Denvy is right in pointing that out. If, however I was inspired to start an educational blog for the wide world to see I would like someone other than myself and my mom to read it.
     Denvy pointed out some great ideas in his latest blog post, and I think they all sound do-able. I would probably have to begin by trying to connect better on the web as it is, and connect my facebook with my blog. I would also be sure I was updating on a regular basis and discussing what people seem to be interested in.
     Also, this site: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42377 is blogger's own ideas for promoting your blog and it looked very useful as well. There are ideas for promoting your blogger blog specifically, and techniques for connecting you blog to other places around the web.
     If the time comes where I want to promote my blog I feel as though I am equipped to do so!

Managing blogs- in general

          In thinking how best to manage my blog, I can't help but wonder if that would really be a problem? In my world of blogging I don't believe it would ever get out of control to the point where I wished I had some mad managing skills. But I could very well be naive about the uses of being a knowledgeable blog manager.
         This is one particular website that I found interesting, and I know it would be extremely useful if I were not taking this class: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/tools-for-managing-multiple-class-blogs/22893. I appreciate the instructions on RSS feed and a blogging client (for if all of the classes I taught had blogs built in).
         I, like others in this class have checked out edublog- a website for educators and their blogs. I think that is also a great resource if I got to where a good portion of learning was done online.
         I am going to continue to look for ideas about how to manage a blog like the one I have in mind and in the meantime I will see what others have to say on the subject!