Welcome to my class blog!

One of the methods I use to transform my classroom into one for 21st century learners is by using a class blog. I have used it now for two years and it is far from perfected. I love it as a tool for communicating, collaborating, creating and enabling out of school learning. As it appears in August 15, 2010, it has many features such as:

1. links to web sites and information- enable students to have the same information as the teacher and to access it easily
2. wikis- allow collaborative work and us to create documents which build on others' work
3. student projects- multi-media creations such as podcasts, movies, animations and cartoons
4. links to social media such as digg, del.icious, technorati, fickr, blogs
5. teacher created posts to emphasize an idea
6. thought provoking links to stimulate critical thinking and essential questions
7. various widgets communicating anything from blog visitors to recommended books
8. many links to web 2.0 tools to communicate creatively

After two years of class blogging, I have revised the purposes of our class blog (subject to the approval of my class). The main purposes of our class blog are:

1. for each student to learn about, communicate and express opinions on a subject of their own choosing
2. for each student to develop a global on-line learning network or community from whom they learn and to whom they communicate their learning
3. for each student to share their critical thinking projects on their blog in a creative way
4. to provide the teacher with a convenient platform to encourage and enable students to communicate, create, collaborate and to extend their learning beyond the classroom.

My class blog is one of the 21st century tools I have to bring about transformative change to my classroom.