Student blogging in the classroom is great for many reasons. But, the blog can be great for teachers as well. I'm not talking about a single teacher and a single blog. What I'm talking about is one blog for many teachers! One teacher sets up the blog, then invites the staff to be contributors. And there you have it, a staff blog!
There are two ways to put together a staff blog. One is to have teachers post whenever the mood suits them. You could have a few blog posts a day or if no one wants to get the ball rolling, no blog posts for a week or even longer. It's because of this I prefer the second way, to create a schedule where each teacher posts during a given week. That way, you're guaranteed a post a week. So, for example, Teacher A posts something in week one, Teacher B posts in week 2 and so on.
The first question you may get when asking teachers to blog is "what should I write about?" The post should be about education, not what their weekend plans are. They can write a post about what they're doing in class and share exemplary student work. Teachers can blog about current events in Edtech or education in general. They can share lesson ideas and best practices.
There are a couple of reasons why blogging in school can be an effective tool. First, it can build a sense of community. Teachers can feel like they're in this together as a staff. They are all part of a blog that represents the staff. Commenting and responding to comments can also build community.
Second, a staff blog can serve as a collaborative professional development activity. Teachers can get lesson ideas and best practice ideas from each other's posts.
So, as you can see, there are many benefits to staff blogging. So why wait? Get blogging!
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