I must say that I am not a writer; writing does not come naturally to me. I don’t like writing. Blogging involves writing so it definitely is not my favorite thing to do. I know that I have to write in order to think through, clarify, and summarize to make what I am learning mine. But having to publish those thoughts for other people to read makes me uncomfortable and takes a lot of time.
I believe that students need to learn to write well and blogging is a tool that should make the process more enjoyable for them. In fact I believe it may be a way to actually get them engaged in writing again. Teachers often believe that giving students simple writing assignments will magically make them want to do the work. Instead we need to find real reasons for students to write. Teachers can use ePals, http://www.epals.com/, to give students a real-life reason to write. It can be use in all of the core classes- reading, writing, geography, science and even math. Word problems created and shared by students in another country just might be the way to get students to like solving them. It looks like elementary level students are already making good use of it. I wonder how many middle school geography classes make use of this tool. What a fantastic opportunity if you could locate at least one class to correspond with in each country of study.
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