Why blog?

Why blog?  My husband, Rob, is using Mrs. Daniel’s AP Stats blog to organize his Stats class.  It’s the first time teaching Stats.  He asked me why a teacher would create a blog.  Good question.  I originally started to blog when I was teaching in a public school.   I wrote grants and had a huge environmental club.  (Cacapon Institute was a parter.  Scroll down the projects to 2014 and older to see Musselman High projects.). I wrote grants for $5000- $10,000 to fund tree plantings, wetland enhancements, raised beds, etc.  Musselman’s WET club had several partners and raised funds from several foundations or agencies.  Projects and programs must report the results—preferably with photos and publicity to the funding agencies.  I tried to set up a blog to document projects.

While I taught full time at Musselman, I also taught home-schoolers in my classroom after school.  Yes, it’s very unusual for a public school to grant permission.  My colleagues were so awesome they loaned us dissection equipment and microscopes, too.  One of the home-school families was enrolled in Mother of Divine Grace School, MODG.  I wrote lists of labs and took photos—I was already in the habit of taking activity photos for grant projects to show evidence we did what we said we did, say plant 50 trees.

Once I retired (ran screaming) from public school I taught two days in a small private school and one day a week with two Co-op science classes in my home.  I began to blog and take photos in earnest, mainly to make writing reports for MODG or other schools easy.  It was helpful to organize my thoughts and materials.  When a child missed class, the previous class material was available online at the blog.

One reason teachers post work to blogs is for absent students.  Assignments are online; it reduces excuses for missed work.  It should eliminate excuses-kids just create new reasons, such as the internet is down or my cell phone was off.  Additionally, if the kids use Chromebooks, they can work directly from the computer.

Why do I still blog?  I’ve learned it helps to assess class or work completed.  I do not have trouble providing evidence my Co-op completed a year long class.  I post to the blog often, usually weekly.  The photos show kids working, samples of completed assignments, and equipment used in lab.  Guess what?  Home-schoolers miss class, too.  The blog posts summarize class for mom to read.  My husband, Rob, and I also use Google Classroom to store material, links, and grades.  Google Classroom archives to Google Drive.  Yes, I bought extra gigabytes from Google so I don’t worry about running out of storage space.

BTW, blogs, Drive, and Classroom are all stored digitally.  I search old blog posts to look for material, such as a timeline photo.   I encourage you to start a blog and document your child’s progress.  Create a Google Classroom and add every assignment your child finishes.  You’ll be creating a digital portfolio.  It can be a pain to record every assignment; next spring’s report to MODG or Seton or Kolbe will be easier.