What do I think of Blogging?

Ok so I have now completed my first official blog.  I feel slightly more comfortable than I did in class on Thursday morning.  My experience with blogging before our first class was very limited.  I have never had my own blog site but my sister used one a couple years ago when she traveled through South America.  She would post pictures, journal about the places she had been to and people she had met as well I could read the comments that family and friends posted about her blog entries.  

To be honest I had never thought about using blogging in education until it was mentioned on Thursday.  As a parent, my first reaction was a fear of online predators.  I feel very uneasy about the thought of students posting information for all the world to see but as I have worked through the first assignment and read some of the uses that blogs have in the classroom my opinion may have softened some.  The reality is that students today rely far more heavily on computers and technology than they used to.  Walking around the university campus is proof of that, nearly everyone has a cell phone or blackberry in hand.   Blogging would allow students and teacher an immediate avenue for communication.  Teachers could post assignments, engage students in online discussions with peers or have students complete various writing assignments online.  Blogging could also open the lines of communication between teachers and parents that might not otherwise be available.  Parents would have a window into the classroom allowing them to know what their children are doing at school or need to be doing at home.  While I am beginning to see some merit in using a blog in an educational setting I am still cautious about it replacing too much of the face to face communication between teachers and students, teacher and parents and students with their peers.  Call me old fashioned but I still prefer a face to face conversation to an online chat.

Patty