Why this blog has stayed blank since 2006!

So, if you look at my one previous post on this blog, it's from April 2006, and I apparently planned to use this space to share photos.  When this blog assignment came up, I thought to myself, "Hey, didn't I create a blog with a funny URL several years ago, and never do anything with it?"  Lo and behold, it was still here, though google had since bought blogger and I had to get all reconnected.

Reading Craig Burgess's "Are Blogs Still Relevant" and comments (2012), I considered why I made a blog six years ago, and why I never did anything with it.  2006, I think, was an exciting time for blogs - MySpace and Facebook weren't ubiquitous yet (I think Friendster was just coming around then, right?), and this was the cool, easy way to have a presence on the web.  So many things have since made having a web presence even easier - photo sharing sites, Facebook, Twitter, etc., that for the average person, having a personal blog became too time consuming and redundant.  I still see certain personal blogs being more useful than FB updates or a flickr album - for example, I happily read the blog of an acquaintance spending 2 years in Rwanda in the Peace Corps, and a family friend who was undergoing cancer treatments found that a blog was the best way to get information out to a large, geographically diverse group of friends.  In 2007, my husband and made and updated a blog as we spent three weeks in southern India.  So, for things of this nature, I feel that personal blogs still have use and relevance.  However, in my everyday life, using Shutterfly, FB and Twitter is easier, faster, and seen by the family members and friends I want to share with.

Blogging in the classroom seems like a great idea for students to keep personal reflection journals on books read (for example), or other classroom topics.  A student can be as creative as he or she wants, and blogging could be used in many different subject areas.  As an alternative to students each keeping their own blogs, and allowing teachers and/or other students access, the librarian or teacher could keep a blog, and ask students to respond in the comments section.  This could be responses to a vlog booktalk, or reflection questions -- this way all students could see each others' responses, and students who are more shy or reticent in class could shine in this kind of class participation.   Another important point is that this would be extremely simple for the teacher or librarian to set up.  Clearly, this corresponds to many AASL standards:

• 4.1.3: Respond to literature and creative expressions of ideas in various formats and genres
• 4.1.7: Use social networks and information tools to gather and share information
• 4.3.1: Participate in the social exchange of ideas, both electronically and in person