Educational Features of Blogs

As far as educational uses I find the feature that allows me to preview the comments before posting the best feature. I have has websites that allowed comments where students posted inappropriate comments anonymously. This always led to the discontinued use of the website. With this feature of the blog I can preview the comments and grade them from my e-mail account. Once the individual comments have been graded I can post all or just a few for a classroom discussion. This is one of the many privacy components that allow the blog to be educational friendly and kid safe. Another feature that stands out to me is the gadget button. From pictures to polls there are many way to make your blog kid attractive. This component along with a little imagination and creativity will turn your blog into a place your students want to visit. There is a future for educational blogs. I know there will be for my students and I hope the same for other educators as well. My caution for future educational bloggers would be to make sure what you ask your students to do on the blog is meaningful. Do not assign work that purpose is to make them sit at the computer and complete at task so you can say you are integrating technology. Like classroom busy work the students will know exactly what it is and resent the fact that they have to do it.