Thing 3 - How I Would Use a Blog in the Classroom

I admit it was initially difficult to come up with ideas for this subject. It's been less than a decade since I was in high school, but even with that short amount of time between then and now it's hard for me to comprehend that blogs may have a place in the classroom. However, after looking over a list of ideas provided to us and then thinking about how I would actually want to use a blog as a tool, I've come up with a few ideas.

My first idea I had was to use the blog as a platform for my students to discuss some relevant topics from our physical classroom. This would be similar to the message boards I've encountered while taking online classes at Austin Peay State University. Given that I'm aiming to teach math in high school, an appropriate topic in this setting could be quadratic equations. I could ask the students to state their preferred method for solving quadratic equations, explain how it works, and then why they prefer that one method over the others. On the flip-side, I could also ask which one they least prefer and the reasons for that. I imagine this could have a couple possible benefits. If there are overwhelming answers in either direction, it could indicate to me as the teacher that I have done a good job in teaching one of the methods, but I may need to spend some more time on one of the others. Also, this could allow a student struggling with one of the methods to read about one of their classmates explanations. Perhaps one of those explanation may be phrased in a way I wasn't able or hadn't thought of doing, and therefore help give some understanding to the struggling student.

My second idea was to use the blog as a bulletin board. I could post the homework assignments, reminders of when the next test will be, study guides, etc. Essentially those posts would be reinforcements to what was stated in class, but it could potentially be helpful if a student forgets to write down which problems to do for homework or misplaces his study guide, among other things.

My third idea for the blog would be more for the parents than the students themselves. I could post items like the syllabus so they can know for certain what is expected of their child in my classroom. Also I could provide occasional updates of the content we've covered so far, and also post recommendations for additional problems to work on if they feel their child needs more practice with certain things we've been covering. Finally I could also post links on the blog to neat websites that breakdown many of the ideas we'll be discussing in the classroom.