Education and Blogs

Applying blog activities to classroom instruction:
I would like to implement blog journals as a weekly assignment in my classroom. At the end of each day I could have students spend a few minutes reflecting on their day. They could write about what they learned that day, something exciting that happened to them, or something that was challenging for them. I would then ask them to login with a family member once a week and have their family member make a comment on their posts. Then, as a teacher will login and comment on the student’s blog and on the family member's comment. This would be a great way to implement communication between the student, the parent and the teacher. Of course I must take into consideration the fact of having a diverse class and using technology is sometimes difficult in diverse classrooms since some homes do not have internet access, or would not feel comfortable with their literacy level to write. The use of technology may have to be used only for in school activities. However, if all students have access to internet outside of school this would be a great way to enable parent-student-teacher communication.
I also like the idea of having students post blogs that focus on who they are. They can post photos, list special things about them, and post their favorite pieces of work they did in class. I would then have students read each others and comment. This would be a good way for the class to get to know each other on a deeper level and support each others’ work and successes.