I believe blogs are an essential component of the classrooms that want to encourage our students to use twenty-first century skills. Students will need to learn how to express themselves and blogging is a great way to allow students to engage in meaningful communication.I also see blogging as a great tool for teacher sharing and reflection   I would like to use blogging in two ways in my classroom: one for reflection and one to showcase student's thinking and projects.

      First I would like to use a blog to communicate what is going on in my classroom through the teacher's point of view. This blog would include lessons and how I feel the lesson went, ideas that I used from other sources, such as Pinterest, to allow other teachers to see how these "Cute ideas"a actually work in a real classroom setting. I also see this as a way to communicate with parents. Parent communication is essential and often the are not privy to what lessons you do in your room and more importantly why you chose to do this lesson. Having a deeper look into the classroom will help parents see their children are in good hands. 

      The second way I would like to use a blog in my classroom is as a place for students to share their work. Blogging gives students an authentic audience and I think writing for "real" will have a profound effect on students even as young as my third graders. I also think the ability to comment on posts will be very powerful. Having peers and parents comment on a child's work will have a huge impact on that student. The teacher reading your paper and telling students what is a strength or weaknesses in the writing will never be as effective as what a peer or a parent has to say. I see blogging as a way to strengthen my instruction of writing by making it authentic and accessible to others to read and critique.