A chicken in every pot, and a blog in every classroom...?

Not really.
Failed quotes aside,  if you are interested in setting up a blog for your classroom, I can help so be sure to let me know. Or, if you'd like to just read some tips and tricks here and try it out for yourself, DO!

Some of the teachers at Pioneer and Healy have already started implementing a class blog to post assignments, weekly vocab/spelling words, test reminders and practice sheets, videos, tutorial links, and more.

A quick how-to:

1. From your Gmail, click on the small tile box in the upper right corner near your profile. This connects to your Drive and related apps. Scroll down to 'More' and click Blogger. Alternatively, https://www.blogger.com/start and you'll be taken to the Blogger start up menu. 
2. Blogger is pretty intuitive. After naming the blog, and guided through the various set up steps, you're ready to publish your first post. Your blog URL will show in the address bar once you View blog. Invite students to view your blog by sending them this URL, or letting them know that it is also linked-to on your school web-page. Hint, hint. 
3. When creating new posts, find the Labels tab on the right side menu. Depending on the content of your post, you should create various Labels for the post so users can easily search your blog with these keywords. You can add as many Labels as you'd like. For example, if I write a post about Online Classroom Behavior, I may want to add the following Labels so my users can search for this post if they ever need: online behavior, digital citizenship, bullying. 

As students (and you) get accustomed to using the blog, you may want to open it up for student comments and discussions, using these online discussions as part of class participation points. Be sure to send notification to parents (elementary especially), letting them know how their child will be participating in this online platform, and invite them to view the blog as well. Maybe even invite parents to post too:)

I've referenced back to a really good article that talks about the benefits, uses, and best practices when using blogs in education. It's a couple years old, but I haven't found a better article that talks about the what, why, and how so thoroughly, especially in regard to digital citizenship and resources to help in these teachable moments (i.e. students posting inappropriate comments, cyberbullying, digital footprint, etc). Find the full article here. 

As always, if you need any help getting this set up for your class, please let me know.  Or, if you have a classroom blog and would like to share it, please post that here as well!