Reaction to Richardson, CH 2/3

     In chapters two and three of his book, Richardson discusses the pedagogy behind using blogs (like this one!) in the classroom, and provides practical strategies for doing so. It's certainly an inspiring read, and got my creative juices flowing regarding how I might implement blogs in my own practice. I envisioned a classroom where each student maintains their own blog and performed virtual "gallery walks" to provide feedback to the authors of an individual work. A truly paperless classroom that eliminated turn-in boxes and homework excuses. A shining example of how technology can be used to enhance (and eventually replace!) what can be done in a brick-and-mortar classroom...

     And then my enthusiasm was quickly dampened by the fact that due to the demographics of my student body, many of them would not be able to establish or maintain a blog from home- a reliable internet connection is understandably low on the list of spending priorities in some of their households. Establishing blogs using school-provided technology isn't an option at the moment either- we have a lonely laptop cart that is fought over tooth-and-nail. Many of my students do possess smartphones, but I'm not currently aware of any reliable, free blogging app that might be suitable for our purposes. What suggestions do you have, readers?

References: Richardson, W. (2010) Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin