"Professional" Blogs

So this week I spent some time looking at what I consider "professional" blogs. These are blogs on sites like msnbc, cnn, abc, etc., that are written by professional journalists. I went looking for blogs related to some of my favorite shows. What I found impressed me. Reading the blogs actually added to the stories that were reported on TV. I found it interesting to get these journalist's perspectives on a variety of subjects. This is what blogs are supposed to be about! So, if these were the only blogs I was reading, I'd see the benefits of blogs.

Now, for this week's positive classroom application of blogs I thought long and hard. I came up with the idea of an online pen-pal program using blogs instead of email. The students could partner with a school in another state or another country. The students could enter blogs like emails. If you were teaching a foreign language class, you could have your kids partner with a school in that country. Your students could blog in say German, and the other school would blog in English. This would be a great way for students to learn about other people and places. The blogs would be in "letter" form. I'm thinking I may decide to use blogs in my class after all. I still have some research to do, however.