Educational Blogging

It seems that the author of this story wanted to give both sides to the argument of why blogging is good for education and why it is bad for education. I wouldn't suggest reading it if you were thinking of creating a classroom blog. A wonderful, magical place where your students could respond to readings that you've done in class or web sites that you've asked them to research. A place where my students will find a new creative way to voice their opinion, and my quiet students will find the eloquence that they lack in the classroom. You see the criticism struck me because I am currently creating a message board for my students so they can respond to things we do in class, and yes it's going to be constrained. It has to be at first because that's how you start. They'll develop the idea of what this message board is going to be to them. I can only set it up. Like many web 2.0 technologies, we don't know where they are going to lead. But the thing is to present the idea to the students. And while they may think it drudgery because we didn't present it correctly, they'll have at least received the tool.