Using Blogs in Education

The possibilities for blogs in education are as endless as the number of subjects and topics addressed by teachers! While I can see numerous benefits of a teacher and his/her students blogging, I had not truly considered the possibilities or implications of an educational leader using a blog.

I believe that blogs could be utilized by educational leaders in numerous ways. One example would be a blog for administrators and their colleagues. A blog monitored by the central office could offer networking, advise, and proposed solutions to problems or issues to new and even experienced administrators. There they could post reflections on readings sent out by the superintendent, answer each other questions and share the results of their own campus based action research. It could offer opportunities for collaboration that many administrators don't often have. A second way that blogs could be employed is as a means of communication with parents, and community members. Schools could have blogs that parents could follow that would contain important information and allow parents to network with each other. A third use of blogs by educational leaders might be the most important. School leaders could blog with their own faculty. This would allow for a free flow of ideas, questions, etc. Teachers could read current research and journal articles relevant to their courses, instructional strategies and even the schools action research question and participate in a professional dialogue with their colleagues and leaders making them more a part of the school's team.