To blog or not to blog?

Now that's a question.

I think that the most important requirement in having students use blogging successfully, is to have clear objectives of what you want them to use it for.

In the past, I had students in a 4 class period enrichment opportunity set up blogs and begin posting to them. Because I had a total of almost 2 hours to work with them, Mot of them simply set up a blog about something they were interested in. Of the 20 kids who I worked with throughout the year, I had 4 of them who continued posting after the enrichment class was over.

The interactivity that makes blogs a really effective learning tool was not present. Even when I asked them to view the others' blogs and respond to something on it, I still was not pleased with it as an educator.

I'm not sure, at this time, just how effective a tool blogging would be as an elementary teacher. Access to computers is limited in our schools. Typing skills are almost nonexistent. The kids are often still overly concerned about "how do you spell...." instead of putting their ideas down. Then when the ideas are on the screen, they will spell-check, but almost always will take the first suggested spelling, whether it is correct or not. My middle school students, on the other hand, could make valuable use of blogging. While some still have rudimentary touch-typing skills, they are much quicker and can usually get their ideas typed out.

Is blogging an age-appropriate learning tool for elementary students? Maybe.