Thing 15

I just finished adding to our page on the wiki. It was actually pretty easy to do. At first I did not really care for the idea of wiki's. However, I now understand how it can be a useful tool. I still don't like the idea of people editing other peoples stuff though. This is how my thought process began. As you read, you can probably tell that I didn't like wiki's at first. HERE GOES: So I am still on the fence about Wiki. I did like the you tube video we watched explaining the point of wiki. It was entertaining and simple to follow. The one thing I didn't like was all the editing. For example: in the video, a person would go in and edit and decide to bring something on the trip. They would add it to the items bringing list. The problem I had was there was no accountability, It didnt say WHO was bringing something. What if that person forgot? I did like how wiki makes it easier to organize vs. e-mails. That part makes sense. I had a college professor ruin me on wiki's for students. She said that is was ridiculous that her college students were using wiki's as academic sources. Kind of funny, really. We had a two hour class on what peer reviewed academic sources were and were told to NEVER use wiki's as a source for a report. But I understand the purpose of this learning activity was NOT for scholarly purposes. I could see using something like this as a tool to communicate with parents. Of all the tools we have learned about, this would not be my first choice. But I can see how it could be useful. As a teacher, I could post class needs/wants. I could include a section for parent volunteers during certain times. If the class had a picnic or a field trip, I could use it to post things that were needed. I did like the bookloverswiki link that this learning activity provided. I like being able to look up books and get reviews. I have heard teachers say that they have started books before with their class and then realized that it wasn't really appropriate. I think a wiki could certainly be a great took for something like this. I also like the link http://teacherlibrarianwiki.pbworks.com/w/page/19823570/FrontPage. This also has great information from one teacher to another. I especially liked the link that included books for elementary kids to read and great reading websites. I realize that if I used a wiki, it would be more for teacher communication with one another than it would be for parent/teacher communication. Teachers could have one site like this (wiki's) and communicate about lesson plans that worked/didn't work, etc. As I am typing this, I am realizing the potential in wiki's for teacher communication. I could see using this for that purpose...but I don't think I would use it in my classroom with parents. I wouldn't want parents editing or adding content that was actually inappropriate. Anyway, I appreciated this learning tool. I never knew that it catered to teachers in this way. I thought it was simply people creating pages of information to sound smart...lol I will be open-minded about wiki's in the future and look forward to discovering some more practical ones for teachers.

Thing 14

I really enjoyed this Learning 2.0 activity. Everything was easy to navigate and I thought a lot of the tools were applicable to the classroom. I first went to gliffy.com. I decided to look at the Venn diagram tool. I LOVE Venn diagrams. I know that I will want to use this in my classroom. It is a great concrete way to compare and contrast different subjects. Some of the common core standards actually pertain to comparing and contrasting, and I think this will be useful. This website only allowed you to do 5 different things for free and without signing up for an account. I did a simple Venn Diagram. It was very user friendly. I also played around with the flowcharts. I also love flowcharts. I am actually doing a lesson plan on teaching 2nd graders to write a personal narrative. A template like this could really be useful. I also played around with the floor plan tool. This was neat looking, but I couldn't quite get the hang of it. It may be useful in creating your classroom layout. But like I said, this was little harder for me to navigate, so I did not spend too much time on it. The next one I went to was the mindmeister. I thought it was need that I could sign in with my facebook account. Although I have enjoyed this 23 things project, I have not liked having to creating so many accounts. I went to the brainstorming tool first. This was fairly easy. I chose the topic of Inclusion and put it in my first bubble. I then branched off into different bubbles including laws and different exceptionalities that teachers see in the gen ed classrooms. I liked this tool. I think that brainstorming templates help students organize their thoughts and help them during the pre-writing process of a paper. I liked how it stored all of your projects in a folder too.This site was great that it made it easy to share your maps with others. But in order to do this you have to pay for an upgrade. There was an upgrade option that included a monthly fee. Although it wasn't expensive, there are too many free templates online for what I need. It is true that is makes sharing easy. I guess a teacher that had a site for parents could show examples of brainstorming with one click verses e-mailing or sending copies home for parents to see. I liked both of these sites. I just prefer the FREE sites with templates verses these.

Thing 13

This is the first time that I have ever heard of Zoho. I didnt event know that something like this existed. I have microsoft word and I guess I have never really had a need for anything else. Zoho is a web based application and I think this is a new concept. When I first started typing on zoho writer, everything looked about the same as it does on word. In other words, I was familiar with how to navigate everything. I did notice that it took a second longer to see the letter I typed on the screen. It seemed to take even longer to edit anything. I was frustrated because I am not use to having to Microsoft word. However, I started thinking about all the advantages to this. For one, its free. When I bought my pc, it was on sale for about $700. Then I added for spy ware (I mentioned I bought a pc...and not a Mac...right? lol) Then I had to buy Microsoft word. I dont remember what I paid for it, but probably close to $200. I knew I had to have it for school. I type all my papers using this and I need it to open a lot of e-mails. Who knew there was a better way? I love how documents can be sent this way and allows a person to open it without having to buy word. I remember when a family member of mine lost their job. They were applying on-line (thats pretty much the standard routine now for getting a job...online applications)...and he kept getting responses in the form of a document that he could not open because he did not have word on his computer. Some applications had to be sent this way as well. He had to use my computer a lot for this process, which was frustrating. It was time consuming too. He had to keep driving to my house to use my computer. After taking all things in consideration, I think I am in favor of using applications like zoho. It is easy to access and it is FREE!!! I think applications like this might but the pressure on microsoft word and force them to lower the prices on Microsoft Office/word. I understand that google driver is a way to share and send doucuments with others. It took a little while to install on my computer but I finally figured it out. I decided to play around with the drawing tool.. It was fun and okay, but I dont think I will use this feature of google drive. However, this application certainly be a great way to communicate as a teacher with students and parents. I actually tried to click on a link from a student in another section of this class..and it said I needed permission from this person to view it. This ensures privacy and I think that is a great thing. I prefer zoho. It was very simple and I could do anything that I needed on this application. Maybe as I gain more experience, I will find google drive to be better. I just know, for me, it took ahwile to download and I am always a little uneasy about having to download things on my computer that I am not familiar with. This is the link to my drawing............Hope it work:) https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1alC1BsVOO2I1J94fKXV1tvGFKoeMMgABx7dn-tFmYbM/edit

Thing 12

I think this is a great resource. However, I will be honest and say that I prefer a pen and a calender that I can write on. In the spirit of learning about new resources, I am trying to figure out how I could incorporate google calender in my classroom. I can see how it could be a good idea for parents to log into a teacher blog or shutterfly (or whatever on-line site they use to communicate) to see a calender of events. Perhaps it could be a calender with slots on it for parents to sign up for parent teacher conference. If there is testing that week that is changing the normal class schedule around, google calender could be used to post the new temporary schedule. This would save time and paper sending home a schedule. After reading a classmates blog (Alexis Wylie), I learned that you can connect google calender to your phone for updates. This is great for me because I almost always have my phone on me. I could put dates and times of in services, meeting with the principal, early release dates, etc. This would help me (or any busy teacher) remember important dates and I see the usefulness of that. I wanted to share a link to my calender but I couldn't figure it out. When I went to a classmates link, I clicked on it and it took me to my calender. She probably does not realize this yet. I will ask more questions and see what I can find out. Google translate was great. It was very simple to use. I can absolutely see myself using this in my class. This could be a fun project for the students to have to do. The can write letters (have pen pals) with kids from other countries. This is also useful for students who are ELL's and are trying to communicate but can't find the write words. They could easily go to the computer and find the translation. I thought it was great how it could also detect a language. For example, I typed in "do sprachenzi deutch" which is spelled wrong and it came back and told me it was German and it gave me the correct spelling. I thought that was GREAT! It makes google translator more user-friendly and very kid-friendly. I really liked this and I can see the potential in using this in my class. The URL to my google translator is http://translate.google.com/#auto/es/do%20sprechanzi%20deutch

Thing 11

I really liked this "thing". It was very easy to do. All the the finding feeds were simple, but for some reason I preferred the google blog search. I think I liked this because my first time using it I got a great hit. I typed in Lesson plans. I found a blog from a teacher who posts blogs and gives help on doing lesson plans. She even shows you different templates that you could use yourself. Her templates were great and included standards and objectives. I am taking EDU 3070 and I am getting ready to have to make a lesson plan. For me, this blog is useful now and I will subscribe to her blog to stay current on new ideas.Using the RSS makes everything show up on one page and I think I will really like it. I hope this saves me time and doesnt mean I will spend more time on the computer because I keep learning about new things. I guess my least favorite was topix.net. I immediately got a pop up for net flix. The page was too busy for me and I prefer the simplicity of the google blog search. I will probably just stick to this. I liked the 2010 Edublog Awards and that could save time searching for good blogs in general. Just for the heck of it, I typed in "weird blogs". I thought it would be interesting to see what popped up. The first blog was about if a person should keep their pregnancy test after if confirms a pregnancy. I actually did not waste the time to read any opinions on this. Another that popped up was weird laws around the world. Here was an interesting one: In the UK, a pregnant woman can relieve herself anywhere she wants, even a policeman's helmet. lol Anyway, I liked this concept of searching and subscribing to blogs. I didnt know that this was so easy to do. There is so much valuable (and some useless) information out there on the web and I plan on using some of these ideas to my advantage in the classroom.

Thing 10

This was interesting for me. I have NEVER heard of an RSS reader until tonight. I THINK I might like it....MAYBE!!! This was actually very easy to set up. Apparently I already has a Google account so I really didn't have to do anything to set this process up. I was able to simply click on subscribe and enter the URL or do a search. I spent a little bit of time trying to decide what to describe to and why. That probably took me longer than anything else. I subscribed to a couple of blogs. One is a friend, another is an local pastor, and another is from someone who posts things about her faith and her daily experiences as a college student. After looking at what other classmates were posting/subscribing to, I also chose to follow/subscribe to a 2nd grade teacher. I play fantasy football with my husband and some friends and I subscribed to a site provided by NFL giving the latest fantasy projections. I also subscribed to Toys R Us and Target, because I always want to check out the latest sales. My husband always begins his morning with his computer. When I ask him what he is doing, he usually responds "reading the paper"....I have always laughed at this resonse, but now I get it. My dad would always begin his morning reading the local paper. He still does, he just now views the paper on-line. What I found funny was that subscribing to RSS and getting updates is really the equivalent of "reading the paper". I think that Google reader (or any RSS) can certainly be a great tool for teachers. Teachers can subscribe to educational sites or blogs by teachers that provide helpful information regarding the classroom. The teachers site that I subscribed to is really neat. She posts lessons and pictures of things that the class did. Teachers could get ideas for lesson plans, etc. It is true that RSS is not necessary. A person could simply surf the web and type in URL's and do different searches. RSS makes it a lot quicker to access pages that you are interested in and tell you in a second which of your favorite sites have made updates. RSS saves a lot of time. RSS could also be a fun and easy way for parents and teachers to communicate. (I say parents, because I want to teach the younger grades)...maybe there is potential here for teachers and students in older grades (middle or high school) to communicate. Anyway, this was interesting for me to learn. I think I will like it. When I wake up tomorrow, I will be sure to log onto my google reader and "read my paper".

Thing 9

This was my least favorite thing to do so far. I first attempted to get a photo of one of my daughters (just her head) on a different body. I found a tinkerbell image and I thought my daughter would enjoy seeing her face on tinkerbell. However, it did not work. Her head was crooked in the face frame part of tinkerbell and it did not look good. I finally was able to do a simple frame around a photo of my oldest daughter. This was easy to do. I honestly doubt I will ever use this though. I actually love to scrapbook....but I prefer glue and scrapping stuff from Hobby Lobby. I would NOT allow my children or students to use these particular sites. There was a lot of inapproprate content on the links provided by 23 things. For example, there were half naked (provocative) bodies that you could put your head on. I want to teach elementary students, and I would not approve of some of these things. There were also too many advertising links that were a distraction. Some of the suggested discovery links would not open on my computer. It said that firefox prevented me from opening them. I feel like I am suppose to find something useful with every discovery exercise. I actually feel bad for not liking this exercise. I will continue to play around with this activity and will add to my blog if I find something useful or fun.

Okay, this is pretty cool. My daughter loved this. This was cute and this was very easy to do. This could be fun to do in the class, but I am not sure this would be practical in the classroom. It would take a lot of in ink (and money).....and you couldn't just do for one kid...you would have to make for the entire class...anyway...this was cute....

Thing 8

Thing 8, a photo by marianne1022 on Flickr.

This is my Ella Payton, a photo by marianne1022 on Flickr.

Okay, So I just played around for about 2 hours on the whole mashups and I still dont know what to think. I tried to play around with all the discovery tools. The one that was the easiest was creating a puzzle from a photo on flickr. That probably only took me a few minutes to figure out. I just chose a random picture on my desktop. I think the puzzle is a cute concept. I think that art teachers could have a lot of fun with this tool. I also chose to do a mosaic. This was also fairly easy and was fun to do. What really baffled my mind was how flickr was connected with so many other tools. For example, I could chose photos from facebook to make my mosaic with. I also liked doing the spelling projects that flickr had. I think that kids could have a lot of fun with this and many different lessons could be incorporated with this tool. I understand that one of the objectives for the 23 things is to explore technology and use it to help facilitate learning in the classroom. However, I am just not sure if I would really use this much other than for creating picture mosaics of the class. Maybe the poster thing would be fun and practical. The kids could upload a picture of themselves and write a caption. This would be fun and creative. However, I am not sure this would be a good idea because the kids would probably want to print out the posters and it would not be economical for all the kids to print a poster of themselves. Maybe as I get more familiar with these features I will be able to find ways to make these tools valuable for the classroom. However, at this point I only see myself doing the picture mosaics. (By the way, I did try to do the clock mashup, but my computer would not allow me to do so...I am not sure why not...I hope someone is able to so this one and posts it because I would like to see it.)

thing 7

015, a photo by marianne1022 on Flickr.

This is Zoe. She is my baby. She is a miracle and I am blessed to be her mom. When I was pregnant with her the Dr. told me that I had miscarried with her and that I was beginning to develop pre-cancerous cells due to a partial miscarriage. I was given what I call an abortion pill (which I decided after reading the label to not take) and was sent to a specialist to remove the tissue that was "cancerous". After a few sleepless nights and lots of tears, I went to my appointment in Nashville with the specialist. After a quick ultrasound, it was very obvious that I was indeed pregnant and did not have any cancer cells at all. Zoe is my miracle and her name means life. She is my reminder that when no one else sees us, that God sees us. When no one else hears us, God still hears us. And when others do not acknowledge us, that God does and he calls us LIFE. I am thankful for the grace of God and my Zoe Grace is a daily reminder of that. I decided to use her photo while trying to learn how to navigate flickr because it would give me something to blog about. As you can see by her picture, Zoe is a little monkey and is full of LIFE! I will have to be honest and admit that flickr was not easy for me to figure out. I was able to create an account easily and upload my photos. I understood what it meant to tag people and I was able to tag our class, but I still have not figured out how to send it to our group because I can not find our group under search. Has anyone else had this problem? I uploaded pictures on shutterfly once, then decided not to get them developed because it cost money for shipping and handling. I probably sound lame, but I still prefer to go to Wal-greens and put my card in their machine and crop, edit, etc. my pictures there. I don't really mind my pictures being "public". That part does not bother me. i just prefer to get pictures developed where I have the actual picture in my hand verses having a bunch of jpegs on my computer. It took my a little while to figure out how to get my picture from flickr to my blog. But like everything else with this project, once you learn how to do it once it gets a lot easier the next time. When I want to share pictures with family and friends, I just put them on facebook. Typically people do not want to see and entire album from you, and facebook make is quick and easy to share one or two of the cutest pics from an album. I guess flickr does to, but I prefer facebook to share. I do need to proably get more comfortable with posting pic on blogs though. I am still thinking that blogging and sharing classroom photos with families would be a great thing to do with my future classroom. I am just not sure at this point if I will use flickr.

Thing 6

      The site that I chose to blog about from the list of Web 2.0 Award nominess is facebook.  I chose this because I think that this site has had the greater amount of influence over social media than any site.  Although facebooks has a disclaimer at this time saying you must be 18 years of age to use, it is easy to open an account and there are many minors who also use facebook.  Facebook is a way to communicate and share photos with people from all over the world.  Each member has a profile and what is called a wall.  The profile is set up by the member and included any personal info the member wants to share such as birthday, hobbies, religion, marital status, etc.  Member of facebook can search for other members.  It is a great way to stay in touch with family members or old friends.  There is a simple way where you can request particular people to be your friend.  After the other member accepts your friend request, it is easy to "chat", share pictures, and communicate with one another.  Members of facebook have what is called walls.  Friends can write on each others walls about anythng they like.  Members can give status updatesas often as they want.  I have noticed that tonight a lot of people are posting political things.  I assume that this has to due with the DNC going on right now.  When people post on walls, it is out there for everyone to see. There are privacy settings that can prevent others from seeing your wall.  There is also a way to send private messages.  There are also games that people can play. 
     What I like about facebook is the ability for family members and friends who live far away to stay connected with one another.  Pictures can be posted.  Althought I havent figured it out yet, video clips can be taken as well and sent to one another.  Staying connected is my favorite thing. What I dislike about facebook it all of the political and religious hatred posted on facebook.  I dont understand why people make facebook their soap box.  It can be contoversial and people can post pretty inapproprate things.  Teachers also have to be very careful if they have facebook.  This is where ones past can come back to haunt them.  It is possible for anyone to find an old picture and "tag" another with the picture.  This essentially means the picture is placed on that persons wall (the one who was tagged) for all to see.
     Some people do not like the idea of being on a camera.  I do not skype for this reason.  I prefer to type and see pictures.  Facebook is a very usefull network for connecting people without a camera.  It is also useful for companies and businesses.  Businesses can have their own page and members can "like" it.  This allows the business to keep people updated on sales, coupons, etc.  It seems like big business and local business all tend to use facebook to help promote their products.
     Although I think facebook could be used in schools, it would need a lot of modifications first.  Maybe a smaller and seperate network could be created just for schools.  At the present time, there is not enough of security measures and no way to prevent inappropriate content from being placed on it.  It is too risky and not really approprate for children.  However, I think that if a kid friendly version of facebook could be created, it could be a very valuable tool.  Kids could interact with other kids from across the country (or even the world).  There is also at this time no use for facebook in a library.
The link for facebook is facebook.com.  It is free but you have to sign up before you can view profiles or create your own.

Thing 5

     Wow....I am absolutely amazed and blown away by School 2.0.  Children have such an advantage to learn in such fun and interactive ways.  When I was in school, technology to us was using the projector from the library.  Occasionally we would get to even watch a VHS tape!  I am 35 years old, and I remember using a typewrite to write my papers in highschool.
     I would describe school 2.0 as using all the technology of computers and incorporating them into the classroom to encourage learning.  With today's technology, students, students are able to use i-pads, smart boards,  and much more.  The internet itself offers all types of different options as well.  Students can use social media such as facebook to communicate with people from all over the world.  School 2.0 is quick and becoming easier for people to learn.What really fascinates me is how most of these new technologies out there are able to sync together.  It amazes me how an i-pod and connect and communicate with your computer to transfer music.  I still have difficulties understanding how a software disc can be inserted in my computer to create a new program on my computer!
     Education has definitely been transformed due to all the advancements of technology.  With School 2.0, we are moving into an age where school can be taught in so many different ways.  There is not just one way to learn (such as paper and pencil).  Technology allows the teacher to manipulate learning and engage students in ways that will prepare our children for the future.  I love how children with disabilities are now able to participate and to be included because of  tools such as the i-pad.  Students can now "go to school" without even leaving the house.  I love the public library (and I hope it does not become obsolete), but now children can read books with devices such as the nook.  High school students and college students can do research without even having to go to the library.
     Classrooms in the future probably wont need textbooks.  Paper and pencils may not be needed.  All learning will probably be done on some sort of computer.  I think it would be cool if a student could one day take a foreign language class such as Spanish by logging onto the computer and watching a teacher from Spain teach the course.  I'm sure it is possible to do this already.  We just have not made it logistically possible yet.
     I imagine the classrooms will continue to change as technology advances.  Although the gadgets being used will change and keep improving, the one thing remains a constant.  The purpose and goal of the classroom is to educate children in a way in which they can reach their fullest potential.

Thing 4

I never thought about this until now, but blogging certainly creates a sense of community. Reading my classmates blogs about their experiences with this project allowed me to see that I was not alone. Others were having the same anxieties and issues with setting up their blogs that I was. This made me feel like I was not alone in this experience. A friend of mine with a child with Down Syndrome has a blog and has many followers. (some with children with special needs and some without) People (even strangers) are able to offer support and encouragement. She has a built in community surrounding her offering her encouraging words. Some followers are able to relate to her experiences and can offer great advice to her. I know a few other people that blog too. One of my friends is a pastor of a church and blogs different experience from his daily life and relates is to the bible. Another friend is an amazing singer and blogs about her life as a stay at home mom. When reading 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog, I really liked how suggestion 8 had a question mark after it. To be controversial or not; some may say yes because it draws for followers and more responses to your post. However, it is worthy to consider what kind of community you are trying to build by blogging. By adding controversy, you may lose followers who actually have input that is essential or enhancing to building your blogging community. I agree with the author when he says he tries to stay clear of controversy. I also agreed with CoolCats blog about leaving meaningful comments. I know I don't like on D2L when people comment to my post by saying I agree or good job. If I publish a blog, I have put time into it and I want some time put back into any comments. If you can’t post anything better than "I agree, then don't comment at all. I chose a few different blogs to comment on. I posted to a girl named Rachel. I don’t really know her, but I know her mom. Rachel is a college student at UT Knoxville. She writes very articulate and inspiring blogs about her journey as a college student and blogs about her faith and her relationship with Jesus Christ. I simply chose to blog encouraging words to her and told her I appreciated her honesty and her blogs. I also blogged to Angie Howard. She is a friend of mine that I haven’t seen in about 7 years. She posted a video of her singing God Bless America. It was amazing, and I blogged to her thanking her for posting her video of her singing. When I commented to her, I got a message from blogspot saying I would have to wait for her to approve my comment before it would show. I am imagining by the time this is being graded it will have been approved. The link for Rachel is http://rapelt.blogspot.com/2012/09/dear-me.html?showComment=1347584971549#c7759980820174374441 and the link for Angie is http://angieacapella.blogspot.com/2012/09/i-remember.html#comment-form I chose a few classmates blogs to comment on. I chose Wendy Young because I know her. She was in a class of mine this summer. She also agreed that technology was hard for her to use to her advantage. I could relate to that so I posted a few comments to her letting her know that she was not alone. The link to where I commented is at http://wyoung3780fall.blogspot.com/2012/09/thing-1.html#comment-form I commented on Ashely Saunders post blog http://gonnalearn23things.blogspot.com/2012/09/thing-3-blog-in-classroom.html#comment-form I commented on her because we initially had the same questions about how a blog would fit into our classroom. I thought it would be good to see how we both felt I chose Danielle Witter for the opposite reason that I chose Wendy. I don’t know her at all and she posted in thing 1 that technology was her strength. (which is my weakness) The link is http://dwitter3040.blogspot.com/2012/08/thing-1.html I commented on Alexis Wylie at http://wylie23thingsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/in-my-future-classroom-or-teacher.html#comment-form I chose Alexis because she sits behind me in two different classes and I thought it would be good to get to know her. I posted on a few other blogs to from other sections. I will try to find the URL to this one girls post and edit this one. It was so funny. She talked about how she was in tears and curled up in a fetal position because of the difficulties of setting up a blog…It was so funny to me because I could relate. I blogged to another guy in a different section about his avatar. The avatar had an army shirt with a chef’s hat and I think he was a cook in one of the armed forces. My section is really slacking right now. There are not many posts to comment on. 2 of the registered blogs have no entries, and one blog has been temporarily shut done to investigate appropriate content. Anyway, I am sure I will comment as the semester goes on. I like this assignments of 23 things and I am beginning to like the whole blog thing here is another link to a comment I made...I was actually responding to Wendy a classmate) who had a great idea on how to incorporate thing 9 into the classroom..sharing ideas!!! just one of the benefits to blogging... http://collegemomsblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/blog-post.html?showComment=1347765420320#c5227731978529188322

Thing 3

This is my 3rd blog and I think I am really going to enjoy doing this.  This is great practice and I can honestly say that I think I will use something like this for my classroom.  I plan to teach younger kids (perhaps 1st grade) so I think the parents would use my blog rather than the students.  I imagine my blog will be used mostly as a communication tool between myself and the parents.  I think it is realistic to say that my goal will be to update blog entries weekly.  I think it would be a good place to connect and communicate with parents about what the class was doing that particular week.  I would have a place for spelling words and another place for the weeks homework.  If a student missed a day, the parents could log in and look to see what the child's homework was for that day.  I could include a monthly calender where important dates such as field trips and test days could be viewed.  I could post all the children's birthdays on the calender as well. 
     I think it would be a good idea to provide important links for parent on my blog.  Maybe there would be fun educational games I thought the students would enjoy that we just did not have time to do during class time.  There are many education sites other than just games that could reinforce learning at home.  Maybe if we are learning about plants (for example), I would have a link for an educational site that could serve as a fun review over what the students were being taught that week. (Let's face it, sometime parents need to be reminded about what photosynthesis is to help their child with homework)   Another good idea would be to post additional literature that I think the families would enjoy reading together.  A book club would be fun as well.  I imagine that there is not enough time in the class day to do everything that I would want to do with my class.  A blog would be a great idea to encourage reading and learning outside of the classroom while involving the parents.  I could give suggestions to the parents on what specific questions to ask the child about particular books.  If teaching older kids, I could give incentives to the children for posting a book review on the blog site. 
     I could also use a blog to communicate with other teachers.  I could post my lesson plans and ask for suggestions or feedback with other teachers. I could include reflections about what worked well and what did not seem to work for the class.  Getting feedback and using the process of reflection is a great way to become an effective and successful teacher.  Maybe another teacher had some of the same experiences and could provide feedback to encourage and provide suggestions.
     Like I mentioned before, this is only my third blog ever.  The possibilities are endless.  I am sure as I continue to learn  more about blogging, I will have even more ideas about how I will this technology to foster learning in my classroom.  My daughters 3rd grade teacher actually uses a site from shutterfly which I think is awesome.  She includes weekly homework assignments along with what the class is learning all week.  She has a place for a wishlist of things the class needs (supplies, snacks, etc.), and even post dates that she is looking for a parent volunteer.  I hope to get lots of ideas from her and incorporate them into how I want to use a blog or some sort of class website for my students.  I think this is a great way to communicate with families and to include parents in the education of their children.