Blogs and Technology

I have to admit that I never really thought about blogs as an educational tool before yesterday. Until then, all I thought blogs were good for were voicing unnecessary opinions, telling the world how wonderful life is, or advancing political agendas. For those reasons, I never really considered posting blogs before. However, now I know that blogs are a bit more useful than I once thought. Blogs can actually be a very clever classroom tool. Teachers could possibly create a class blog and allow students to post questions, comments, etc. about whatever the topic of the day is. Blogs are also good ways for students who are absent to stay up to speed with what is going on in class. All they need is access to a computer to see what the latest postings were for that day. At the same time, the student can access files that were used (PowerPoints, Word documents, etc.) without having to worry about email.
Other technologies I once thought useless can actually be useful. It makes sense. Kids today use iPods. Why not let them use these tools in ways they might not have thought? Kids can create podcasts as ways to let them express their creativity and also be assessed at the same time. Kids today know far more about today's technology than the teachers might think. They can certainly put it to good use.