Can I Blog too?

Blogging has become a factor in everyone's life, willingly or not! If you are a fun of politics, news media (CNBC, CNN and the like), Pundit Shows, or even the hilarious Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher you are definitely influenced by Blogging.

Ariana Huffington, a now world famous author/blogger has made a name for herself via her blog The Huffington Post. So what can blogging do for you or me? Well, a lot! For one, it is very possible that a blog is your favorite news source for movies, clothing, sports, etc. Perhaps blogging has become a hobby or means of keeping in touch with friends and loved one from far away. Blogs are immensely useful and relatively easy to use.

One obvious and growing purpose for the world of blogging is its educational malleability. Teachers and students alike can use blogs for everything for discussion groups, homework, research, all the way through to having a paperless classroom (a more popular goal in today's green conscious world). In my teaching experience I have found many places to make a blogging a tool in the classroom. In the coming school year I hope to set every student up with a blog and have them submit questions and assignments through it.

The New School

The most relevant idea from the reading (they were all quite relevant) is the focus on the nuances of the 21st Century Learner. As I skimmed through the list of new AASL Standards and the portion about "Owning Our Curriculum," I began to realize that the change that is needed in the current educational system must come from within. In the article, "Technology Skills Every Student Needs," Johnson very accurately states that those of us (teacher/librarians) who can, must step up and once again learn how to master the world of information around us, simplify it, and pass it on to our students and colleagues.