Teachers and the use of blogs!

I personally do not see my school using blogs, because they are elementary school students. But I do believe that blogs would be a great tool to use in middle and high schools. Teachers could set up blogs to use as collaboration between students on class projects and discussions. Students could focus on the 21st century skills of critical thinking and a higher level of thinking through group participation. The students could expand their creativity levels by engaging in class discussions related to class projects.

If I taught up the upper level grades I could see myself posting a discussion topic on blogger, and seeing where my students went with the topic.  It would be a great way to hold a classroom discussion.  People love to text today, so I do not see why they would not enjoy blogging!

I could use blogs with parents to open another line of communication.  I have many parents who e-mail, and by blogging this could be a way to communicate homework assignments, what took place in subject lessons throughout the day, and upcoming projects that need to be done.

Blogs that are useful to my own professional development!

I am currently searching for blogs that relate to differentiation within the classroom.  I teach all of the fifth grade math at my school, and I am expanding my knowledge on ways to differentiate the lessons for my students.  I would like to find a blog that expands on differentiated lessons and how teachers are using differentiation within their own classrooms.

I found a blog on differentiated instruction at http://www.wordpress.com/.  This blog focuses on differentiated lessons that are posted daily.  It focuses on differentiated math activities that could be used within the classroom. 

I also found a blog on technology.  This blog is located at http://www.brighthub.com/.  This blog focuses on integrating technology into classroom lessons.

I am interested in reading more of these blogs that are included in the blogs on differentiated instruction and technology.  Both of these areas could be used within my classroom, and increase my professional development.

What do I want to get out of this course?

I would like to learn many different areas of technology that I am able to take back to my classroom.  I am always looking for new ideas to teach for lessons or incorporate within my computer times.  By learning new techonoloy I can teach these to my students to increase their knowledge of various technological areas.