As a high school teacher, I could really use blogs in my future classroom. Not only is it an excellent way to keep students' work documented, but if they happen to continuously use their blog, it's a great way to keep up with them. Even more so, as a college professor, blogs would be a superb thing to use in my future classroom.
English is seemingly splitting itself between two separate mediums: the Internet and paper. Internet writing is similar to novel writing. Certain rules are not as important, and there are other fads on the Internet that could make or break your writing if you follow them or not. For example, a popular form of prose on the Internet right now is to completely ignore capitalizing proper nouns or the first words of your sentences.
Also, run-on sentences are used to express when someone is stressed out or trying to make a point. However, on paper, it is expected that you write properly and use all of the skills that English and grammar classes should teach. This split in writing can sometimes separate those from professionalism and un-professionalism.
My wife is an English/reading teacher now for five years on the high school level and I have encouraged her to start using a blog. With this being my first experience with blogging I find that this could really take off in a classroom setting. The possibility of being able to not only update your students and see their progress, as in our current class, but to give them tips and ideas as how to proceed in different areas is such a wonderful tool. As far as the split goes that will be a battle that we all will fight as shorthand becomes more and more popular in our culture....IMHO, LOL! We, as teachers, could almost use our own blogging and other social media skills to promote proper handwriting techniques and other skills through our pages. The student may not care but noone can say that we didn't try. Hopefully if we make a habit out of it so will they. We shall see......
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