The Next Frontier

The talk of blogging has been swirling around me for quite some time, but this morning when I offered to help a fourth grade teacher prepare a series of minilessons to teach her students how to blog, I decided it was time to dive in.  So this is my first blog post, and it is little more than a confession that I've never blogged...and that I need to head into this new frontier so I can actually figure out how to teach blog-writing strategies to fourth graders.  Why would we want to teach fourth graders to blog?  Because for now, blogs are the way many people get the news, form opinions, or develop hobbies.  When these fourth graders are out in the world, who knows what new genre supported by what new technology will be their main source of information.  But for now...this is it.  So kids better understand how to communicate in this forum without being disrespectful, inappropriate, or vain.  Online etiquette, solid grammar/usage/mechanics skills, effective communication, digital responsibility...there are so many lessons here that I am anxious to get started.