A teachable blog

Instead of a teachable moment, how about classroom blogs as *ongoing* instructional opportunities? Some smart teachers have established blogs (easy-to-update Web sites) to do a number of things: keep parents up on classroom activities, develop students' summarizing and writing skills, and teach kids safe, constructive blogging. An example is the class blog of 5th-grade teacher Mr. Roemer in the St. Petersburg, Fla., area, "among a smattering nationwide," the St. Petersburg Times reports. Mr. Roemer has students post daily entries about what they did in class that day, and he checks it at night, answering questions they or their parents might have about homework right in the blog. Blogging's as easy a technology as word-processing, so it's not the tech that's challenging here, it's the time Mr. Roemer puts in. But at least he's spending it on communicating rather than on the tech enables it.