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"Blogging in the classroom was a watershed discovery for me.  I had such an acute need for a better way to manage my student's writing, but I was wary of blogging.  There are challenges to helping students learn in an online community.  Until I met Matt Hardy from KidBlog, I viewed these risks as too big to manage on my own.  I believe that as a teacher I have to both innovate and protect my own professional reputation.  When I heard Matt talk about how he created KidBlog to support exactly the kind of connected learning I want to happen in my classroom, I realized how accessible this learning is now.  Using school specific tools like Kidblog, or  Edublogs, can give you more control and management potential than using conventional tools like Blogger, or WordPress"

"I've heard many reasons as to why people who enjoy engaging with blogs, don't blog themselves. For some they don't know what to share, for others there is the issue of time, while there are those who  simply enjoy reading and are confused about what they can add. All valid reasons, but I think that what is missed is what actually constitutes a blog in the first place."

"There are people like myself, Steve Wheeler and others who think that blogging is a good thing to do for a number of reasons. I won't rehearse theme here because you can read them in the articles referenced at the end of this one. However, blogging is not necessarily easy. Even if writing itself is not a problem, there are several other factors that need to be taken into account. Steve has admirably listed them and discussed them in these articles:"

"In 2008 I was introduced to this blogging idea. I was in a workshop that my school offered. I was inspired by all of the possibilities that blogging could offer. I remember my mind being flooded with all of the possibilities that I started to think about in regards to communication, relationship building and perspective."

"Global2 is a blogging community provided by the Victorian government. It is the largest Edublogs campus in the world. Providing the functionality of WordPress, plus the added benefits of moderation, content filtering, class management and network administration. Examples of the blogging activities in which you can use Global2:"

"Imagine four schools that had a partnership/agreement that would mean that for a four week cycle, each school's blog would be the focus for one week out of four. Each school in the Quad would spend some time visiting the blog of the school for that week, leave comments etc. After that week, another one of the four schools would be the focus and this would be repeated for the four week cycle and then repeated."

"I guess given its title this blog post could come under some criticism but it's not really about that. These are just some things that I think help. I hope you concur."

"Teachers and their students are moving more and more online. Kids are blogging their learning as an excellent way to build confidence, reflect and gather feedback. Schools are showcasing the best of their students' work on their websites.and the educational world is benefiting from a collaborative worldwide connections. That's all exciting and positive but we have one important question: Who owns the material and it's components when it's published? This is where we must all be careful. A quick Google search will find a growing number of cases where people have sought damages for even single images republished on both blogs and social media like Twitter. This link tells the story of a bad photo taken on a phone that was found on Google and used In a blog Post resulting in an $8000 out of court settlement. Every photo is owned by the photographer automatically and if you choose the wrong image you can loose out substantially."

"In the digital age, kids need to have an understanding of what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. They need to learn the technical how-to's, as well as a more global comprehension of how to navigate the online world. To that end, Melbourne educator Jenny Luca made a commitment to help her students start blogging and to create ePortfolios. Here are five reasons why, at her school, these skills are now a high priority."

A neat infographic exploring the stages of blogging in the classroom

This is awesome John, love how it informs you on everything you meed to know about blogging in the classroom.

"Being able to write clearly is an essential skill for all students. It can be hard for kids to pen what they mean, though. With simple online writing tools and blogs like these, students get practice writing informally in settings that aren't too daunting. Get them writing with their peers and they may soar even more."

"Blogging is an excellent way of motivating students to develop a lifelong love of learning. Writing is a process, and when they learn this they will be able to apply the skills to other aspects of their schooling. It also teaches children critical thinking skills which will help them as they progress through school. Along with the development of critical thinking skills, students will learn how to conduct research. This is particularly important both in school and in the workplace they will one day take part in."

"Teach100 ranks and scores hundreds of education blogs. Check out the top 100 and beyond to stay up to date on what people are talking about in the education space."

"This leaves us with the question of how to inspire students to look through Internet search results with tenacity, to approach new technologies that may require more problem-solving skills, and to address tasks that are not as instantaneously gratifying as playing video games. It is our role as teachers to help students develop the skills to problem solve independently and collaboratively use 21st-century skills while not relying on technology to do all of the thinking for them."

Well on one random post, I grabbed one random picture off of google and then a few weeks later I got contacted by the photographer who owned that photo. He sent me a takedown notice, which I responded to immediately because I felt awful that I had unknowingly used a copyrighted pic. The pic was down within minutes. But that wasn't going to cut it. He wanted compensation for the pic. A significant chunk of money that I couldn't afford. I'm not going to go into the details but know that it was a lot of stress, lawyers had to get involved, and I had to pay money that I didn't have for a use of a photo I didn't need.

"According to our research, more than 90% of Creative Commons photos are not attributed at all. To make matters worse, less than 10% of the photos that do credit the original work are attributed properly. This means that more than 99% of Creative Commons photos are not adequately attributed. Not without pride, we are happy to notice that most of the bloggers using Foter.com attribute CC photos properly, which is greatly facilitated by our "ready to paste" attribution info. Every time they intend to use a searched image, all they need to do is copy the image and the accompanying attribution details into their blogs. Most is not enough, though. People often find CC photos on various sites and wonder how to attribute them. In order to help you, our team prepared a comprehensive infographic that reflects interesting research findings, gives details of Creative Commons licenses and illustrates how to properly attribute CC photos.

Social networking communities are here to stay. Facebook has over 500 million users, while Twitter has over 200 million. That's not even counting blogs or YouTube video blogs. There's no doubt that students are actively engaged in online communities, but what kind of effects are these sites having and how can parents counteract the bad and bolster the positive?

"There's one question we get asked quite often: Where can you find free, good quality images that are cleared to use for your blog posts or social media content? It's a question with a lot of different answers and caveats. Nearly every image created in the last 30 years is still protected by copyright-a protection that gives virtually every author the exclusive right to use or reproduce their work. But you can find a public domain photo, use a Creative Commons image that might need attribution or even create your own image from scratch. We'll explore all of these and then some in this post about free image sources. A few things to know before we get started:"

"Jenny and Lois have just got back to school after the Summer break. In this episode they discuss getting the school blogs up and running again and the different processes that they go through"

This chart was created by Richard Byrne to help teachers quickly identify the blogging service that meets their needs.