The best way to become familiar with blogs is to look at a few. These education and technology focused blogs are a great place to start:
Teacher-Teacher
Free Technology for Teachers
Will Richardson's Read Write Connect Learn
Teacher-Student/Parent
Mrs. Olson's Pre-K
Mr. Buxton's 5th Grade Class
Mrs. McDonald's 3rd Grade Class
Kindergarten Tales
Student
The Daily Blog (5th grade class)
A sample kidblog.org blog where login is required to view posts
Create a Blog
You will use your blog to post your reflections, experiences, and links to products you create using Web 2.0 tools. There are many options available. Tutorials for creating a blog using Blogger, Wordpress, and Edublogs are embedded on the right. Remember to go to the Settings for whichever blog site you choose and explore your options for managing comments and giving permissions for who can see your blog.
Before you leave your blog, create a post reflecting on what you learned about blogs and how you might use them in your professional development or in the classroom.
Follow Blogs
Use your favorite search engine to find no more than 4 blogs you want to read on a regular basis. Most blogs will have an
RSS feed button. Click that button and choose to send the RSS feeds to a news reader/aggregator (like GoogleReader, Bloglines, My Yahoo, Newsgator, and others). You will need to create an account with a reader first. You can also download apps like Flipboard or Google MobileRSS to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to follow the blogs you found. For a quick intro to RSS, watch this RSS in Plain English video.
