To blog or to pod?

I have to admit I was skeptical about the whole blogging thing? Why should I blog, what on earth does this have to do with learning to teach children? However whilst coming to terms with the fact that maybe blogging and podcasting (or perhaps podding…no?) are becoming norms I decided out of interest to see if they exist in the dictionary and to my surprise they do, a blog, to blog and even the blogger!

So first things first I need to pick up my game and quickly, who knew I had been left so far behind? The second thing is I need to see the potential a blog or a podcast can have within my classroom, whilst reading part of a given literature I felt myself becoming excited by the ideas and possibilities that blogging and podcasting could provide my students with. This literature spoke about due to the format of blogs, children/students can use this online space as a type of journal, this got me thinking of how I would like to use it, perhaps setting weekly tasks that a given student would reflect on their favourite part of the week. This brings me back to an early post I have made regarding how we know if what our students are learning is meaningful, the blog and podcast provide a new and exciting way for students to show you as the teacher and even a wider audience such as parents and grandparents what they are learning and thus this interactive software can be used successfully as an assessment tool. I do not believe for a second that this could be its only purpose it is just a little to late for my brain to get all excited with ideas, however I shall expand on this I am sure, I really hope I do anyway.