What is Technology Integration?

The definition as given in Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom describes technology integration as “a combination of all technology parts, such as hardware and software, together with each subject-related area of curriculum to enhance learning.  Furthermore, technology integration is using technology to help meet the curriculum standards and learner outcomes for each lesson, unit, or activity.”  It is imperative in today’s society that educators seek to incorporate technology into their teaching.  However, it is important that the use of technology be seamlessly integrated into the curriculum in a way that enhances what is being taught, but does not overtake the instruction.  According to the above mentioned text, “research is revealing that students retain knowledge longer when they are actively involved in using digital media to meet learning objectives and related benchmarks.”  Based on this information, it is incumbent on teachers to put the needs of their students first by recognizing that technology is a key facet of their lives.  We live in a time where gratification is instant and there is nothing we can not uncover for ourselves thanks to the availability of information through the internet and other forms of media.  Students need to see the relevance in the curriculum and technology integration is a step in the right direction for educators. 

Because we, as educators, know that our students thrive on the relevancy of what they are being asked to learn, we must constantly seek methods for successfully tapping in to what will best connect with our students.  It would be unacceptable to assume that the students are single-handedly responsible for acquiring the needed knowledge for the course with no assistance from the teacher.  It is a combination of teacher-based instruction and student-based learning that provides the optimal learning environment.  By engaging the students in what they are being asked to know in a way that connects to their life and the situations they are facing each day, you are taking curriculum that would otherwise appear mundane and bringing it to life.  This will increase content retention and improve enthusiasm for the learning overall. 

K.U.D. vs. 4MAT – Effective Uses of Differentiation

What is Differentiation?

Differentiation is a hot topic among educators today as we strive to find new ways to engage and activate our students to achieve at a higher level. But what is differentiation and what can it really do for me as a teacher and for my students?  A concise definition found in an article by Kay Brimijoin says that “differentiation is a conceptual approach to teaching goals, continual assessment of student needs, and instructional modifications in response to data about readiness levels, interests, learning profiles, and affects.”  The leading expert in differentiation, Carol Ann Tomlinson, discusses differentiation in an article entitled “Mapping a Route Toward Differentiated Instruction” as personalized instruction that focuses on student understanding and student engagement.  I am drawn to differentiated instruction because of this definition.  I am passionate about ensuring that my students are engaged in the learning and not merely checking off my course on their road to graduation with no lasting meaning or impression.  There have also been endless studies to show that differentiation can aid in the acquisition of general education curriculum by special needs students (according to an article by Margaret E. King-Sears) based on the idea that the methods used to help special needs learners will in turn help every learner.  Additionally, differentiation can aid in improving standardized testing scores (according to an article by Brimijoin) by allowing teachers to teach in a way that integrates the testing standards into the curriculum without making them feel that they are “simply covering the content” for the tests. 

Differentiation allows the teacher to offer engaging instruction to all learners through a variety of methods.  Some examples of differentiation strategies offered in the Brimijoin article include:

• Compacting
• Tiered Lessons
• ThinkDots©
• Graphic Organizers
• RAFT
• Anchor Activities and Task Cards

But differentiation is more than just the occasional implementation of an activity (see the article “Mapping a Route Toward Differentiated Instruction” for great examples of what is and is not differentiated instruction).  It is a way of thinking and planning that must infiltrate your entire teaching philosophy.  Two strategies and guidelines for planning differentiated instruction that I looked at were K.U.D.'s and 4MAT.  Here is a brief overview of each:

K.U.D.

Know. Understand. Do.  As a teacher, we should plan each unit of instruction based on what we want the students to know, understand and be able to do at the conclusion of the unit.  “Know” involves the facts, dates, definitions, roles, people and places; “Understand” involves the big ideas, principles, generalizations, rules, the “point” of the discipline or topic within the discipline; and “Do” involves literacy, numeracy, communication, thinking, planning, and production skills, etc.  The attached handout for drafting differentiated lesson planning uses K.U.D. as a roadmap for the course of study.  By first looking at what you want your students to know, understand, and be able to do in reference to course of study requirements, you are actively planning for their success: if you have a clear understanding of where they are going in the learning process, they will as well.  Developing a solid K.U.D. plan for the unit also helps you to easily determine the essential question for the content.  It is a tremendous tool to center and focus your planning as well as provides a benchmark to assess learning.

4MAT

In my somewhat brief exposure to 4MAT thus far, I have determined that it is a “Love it” or “Hate it” type of strategy.  Those who use it value it and those that do not use it are passionate about their reasons for not using it.  I have grown to be a big fan of 4MAT and how it can model thorough and effective teaching for your classroom.  4MAT uses the basis of learning profiles and brain modality to develop a 12-step process within a 4-quadrant cycle for learning a given unit or lesson.  This strategy allows you to actively seek to engage every learner through a variety of tactics designed to constantly apply and direct their learning to real-world applications.  See the 4MAT wheel image below to understand how through the course of learning, students will answer the following questions (all information is gleaned from the work of Bernice McCarthy and her book “About Teaching” and her website http://www.aboutlearning.com/):

Why? (Quadrant 1 on the wheel)

Answering this question establishes relationships with the content, and personal, meaningful connections based on previous experience.

What? (Quadrant 2 on the wheel)

Answering this question allows the student to connect, comprehend, organize, classify and clarify the knowledge.

How? (Quadrant 3 on the wheel)

Answering this question allows the student to practice, experiment and get hands-on with the information being presented.

What If? (Quadrant 4 on the wheel)

This is where the students will modify, refocus, summarize and ultimately perform the knowledge they have acquired in a real-world context that aids in answering the essential question for the unit or lesson.

Putting It All Together For Better Instruction

As I took a look at the benefits of K.U.D. planning and 4MAT strategies, I began to look at what each offered to the overall planning a teacher will undergo for a unit or lesson.  I talked with a mentor of mine, Tara Bensinger, who is a local English teacher and former curriculum and reading coach.  She is actively utilizing K.U.D. in her planning, but discussed that many teachers today are not using K.U.D. or 4MAT or differentiation at all for that matter.  Of her previous training of teachers as the curriculum guide, she says that she realized that “she couldn’t change teachers.  Teachers have to change themselves.”  To me this statement exemplifies and verifies the complacency that exists among some teachers today.  There are so many options to better your teaching for your students, but it takes an effort that so many are unwilling to explore.  It is not my vision to see every teacher overhaul their teaching philosophy and classroom structure, but an open-minded mentality that would embrace trying something new for the sake of your student's success is key.

I feel that as a teacher it is my job to exhaust all efforts to ensure that each student in my class has a significant chance for success based on what they bring to the table and what I, in turn, offer them.  One idea that I have had as a result of this study was to combine K.U.D. Planning and 4MAT for overall unit and lesson planning (of this idea, Tara Bensinger affirmed its validity and suggested she and I write a book…be on the lookout in years to come!)  K.U.D. planning offers you the opportunity to really think out and plan the “bones” of your teaching, how you want to reach your students and what you want them to take away from the learning.  It seems that this is a tremendously logical precursor to plotting out your 4MAT wheel of instruction.  By knowing what you want the students to know, understand, and do in a holistic sense, you can better determine who you will engage and connect them with the content.

In closing, I want to encourage every teacher to explore the possibilities that spicing up your classroom with differentiation could bring to you and your students. I will leave you with this quote from The Differentiated Classroom by Carol Ann Tomlinson:

“Every child is entitled to the promise of a teacher’s enthusiasm, time and energy.  All children are entitled to teachers who will do everything in their power to help them realize their potential everyday.  It’s unacceptable for any teacher to respond to any group of children (or any individual child) as though the children were inappropriate, inconvenient, beyond hope, or no in need of focused attention.”

There Will Always Be Questions...

The Fall semester of 2010 has been my first exposure to education courses in my path to receiving a Master’s degree in Secondary Education.  I feel that I have learned so much through my experiences and studies, but there is still so much to learn.  I will continue to develop my thoughts on teaching as I progress through the program and into my first years of teaching to conclude a solid personal philosophy of teaching.  Here are so questions that I still hope to answer:

• Why are there some teachers that are so adamantly opposed to student-centered learning for their area of concentration?  Is our job as educators not to seek out what is best for all students and not ourselves?
• How do I continue to develop as a teacher once I graduate and acquire a job to ensure that I am not complacent and hardened to new ideas and technologies for my subject area?
• How will I balance the pressures of state, local and national standards as well as administrative requirements to prepare the students for testing with the personal conviction to engage and connect the students with the content for the course?

Putting My Beliefs Into Actions

My philosophy towards teaching is one that I plan to infiltrate into every aspect of my classroom to ensure that my students are well aware of my vision for their learning and the expectations for their success.  It is my desire to foster a personal connection with each and every student, to diversify my teaching style to maximum student engagement, and implement student-centered learning in my instruction.

I feel that a key to successful education is a personal connection to your students.  This allows you to determine what style of teaching will be most effective in reaching them.  No Child Left Behind has a significant impact on this issue.  An article published by Douglas Reeves entitled “Preventing 1,000 Failures” discusses how one school took the initiative to stop the downward spiral occurring in their school.  One of the key components to their plan was personal connections with the struggling students to let them know that the school cared and was genuinely concerned with their success.  Unfortunately, I feel that sometimes we, as teachers, forsake the student to get the grades.  This is in no way a negative reflection on the teacher, but a reality based on the pressures we face to maintain these academic standards.  In this push to meet standards of excellence, I worry that we begin to see the student as a number or score and not as a person.  Hunter Brimi published a 2009 Clearing House article entitled “Academic Instructors or Moral Guides?  Moral Education in America and the Teacher’s Dilemma” that spoke volumes of this issue.  Brimi discusses that educators have lost that personal connection with the student that allows us to have an impact on them morally in addition to academically.  Moral education was a key component to traditional education in its early stages, but it is now being covered up by legalities and standards.  However, I feel that a genuine interest in the student and who they are will allow you to maximize your effectiveness in the classroom.  With this genuine interest should come the desire to engage the student in the learning process and with this will usually come a diversifying of your teaching style as well.

An open-mindedness to adjust my teaching style is something that I have gleaned from my studies and observations this semester.  In one particular day of observations, I witnessed my teacher adjust her teaching style on the spot in an effort to maximize the impact of the lesson on her students. Her initial lesson was predominantly lecture-based, but when she saw the lack of intrigue from her first period class, she immediately made the determination to change.  By the next class, she has completely restructured the lesson to be student-based, and, as a result, the students were more active and involved in their learning.  I was so inspired by my teacher’s genuine desire to activate and engage her students.  This experience will serve as a reminder for me as I enter into teaching that the ultimate goal is always to maximize the students’ learning.  It would be selfish of me to assume that it is the student’s fault for not understanding the information I am giving them when only presented it in one way.  By using 4MAT as a guideline for my units and lesson plans, I am confident that I will always be cognizant of the different learning styles of my students and consistently attempting to ensure that all types are reached through the instruction I provide.  One excellent way to reach different learning styles would be through the use of student-centered learning.

So often, students in high school are so concerned about being better than their peers that they lose sight of the goal or intent of the pursuit. In my classroom, I will implement cooperative learning as a means of diffusing that competitiveness and embracing unity and team work among fellow students. The reasoning behind my desire for student-centered learning is that I believe strongly in the research available today in support of this style of teaching and implementation. I feel that group learning taps in to the crevices in the brain that, for some students, the teacher can never reach. Students today need to experience for themselves in order to fully learn and grow as individuals. As an educator, I feel compelled to provide every opportunity for each learner to tap into those crevices and uncover the study of English in a new way.

My Philosophy For Teaching And How It Came To Be

It was 1993 and I was beginning what would be my life’s greatest adventure to date…high school.  Full of excitement and anxiety, I ventured down the hallways towards this new unknown.  Everything was going to be so new and so different.  And then, I entered my first class.  It was 9^th grade English.  I entered the room and sat down in my assigned seat among the rows of desks.  I pulled out my notebook and ink pen and began to dutifully take notes as the teacher lectured about the semester ahead.  There was no interaction from the students other than to answer “here” for the roll call or to answer the occasional question.  And as this English course progressed and my following Math course progressed and the rest of high school progressed, it wasn’t that different after all.  No teacher asked me to step outside my comfort zone and learn in a way that contradicted my elementary and middle school experiences.  High school was just like the rest of my education:  structured and traditional.  Is this so wrong?  Was I somehow cheated in my education?  No.  I don’t feel that way at all. I love the structure of a lecture-based classroom. I love to listen to the teacher impart his or her knowledge on us as we feverishly take notes.  But did everyone in my high school feel the way I feel?  Absolutely not!  I thrived in these traditional academic settings, but every student is different.  Every student learns in different ways and thus instruction should not be so “cookie-cutter.”  Or should it?

When I reflect on my own education experience, it is the principles of essentialism that most closely align with the practices and procedures used by my teachers.  By making this assertion, I am merely testifying to the traditional and systematic methods with which my teachers sought to impart through a mostly lecture-based learning environment.  While I feel that I gained a solid educational foundation for my adult life, the principles of progressivism seem to offer missing pieces to what could have provided a more complete experience for me.  By studying John Dewey and progressivism and actually experiencing these tactics in my collegiate courses, I can see how it fosters a more engaging experience that assists in retention of the knowledge.  I was resistant at first to the ideas of cooperative learning and differentiation, but this semester has opened my eyes to the many benefits it can have.  Through group projects, incorporation of technology, and just a basic sense of being pushed to find the answers and uncover the knowledge for myself, I feel that I became more intrinsically engaged in my education.  I am walking away from the semester with knowledge that has been solidified by experiences.  Additionally, in my observations, I watched as my teacher employed the same strategies with her middle school students.  Even at this age, the students were more receptive to the lack of lecture and the challenge of “getting their hands dirty” with the material.  Through these collegiate and observation experiences, I can see the benefits that progressivism will offer both my students and myself, as a teacher.  

While I embrace many of the philosophies that progressivism presents in terms of teaching to the whole child, there were some thoughts to which I opposed.  One article published in the International Socialist Review described John Dewey’s thoughts to an extreme by stating that “He [therefore] urged that manual training, science, nature-study, art and similar subjects be given precedence over reading, writing and arithmetic (the traditional three R’s) in the primary curriculum. The problems raised by the exercise of the child’s motor powers in constructive work would lead naturally, he said, into learning the more abstract, intellectual branches of knowledge.”  My concern with this statement would be the omission or lack of emphasis placed of the formal teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic as I feel these are fundamental and necessary in spite of a need to diversify overall methods of teaching.  It is my belief that the ideal educational experience would offer a combination of essentialism and progressivism. 

After studying the depth and dimensions of student learning types and 4MAT training, it is clear that one method of instruction will not offer the students with the maximum opportunity for knowledge acquisition.  I am confident that an educator that embraces diversity and differentiation in their teaching style will reach the most students and offer the most memorable educational experience.  At the beginning of the semester, I wrote an initial philosophy for education that answered the question "What do I believe about the new vision for teaching and learning in American schools?" (see image below)  I feel that I still believe in an integrated style of teaching, but I now recognize that lecture has a specific place in the classroom…and it fits snuggly in a 10 minute window of time.  Lecture-based instruction will only get you so far in reaching your students, and even then, it will reach just the handful of students that do not completely shut down when the lecture begins.  It is imperative that I try to engage the students on a variety of levels to ensure that the instruction is being digested and retained for maximum success.

It's All About Me...

Sitting at a desk writing ad copy and press releases were my daily tasks.  As the years passed by, the monotony of the “daily grind” began to wear on my heart and my mind.  I began to search my soul for the reasons why I was working in the advertising industry and the reasons I came up with were few.  All the while that I was working in “Corporate America,” I was also teaching color guard and dance at a local high school.  It became glaringly apparent that I was gleaning more personal satisfaction from the work I was doing with my students versus the work I was doing for the public eye.  I realized that the impact I was able to have in the lives of the students in the color guard program had given me a sense of fulfillment and worth that I would never feel or find in my advertising work.  I wanted to be able to leave this world knowing that the contributions of my time, energies, and passions made a difference and, for me, education is the outlet for that goal.

As a teacher, you hold the key to propelling students beyond what they think they are capably of into a realm of potential and possibilities that gives them hope for a future.  Teachers must be passionate about their job, committed to excellence, and convicted by the needs of their students.  A teacher has tremendous influence on their students and the responsibility to impart knowledge in a passionate way is both exciting and intriguing to me.  It is for this reason that I am currently enrolled at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the Alternative Master’s Program to receive a Master’s degree in Secondary Education. 

My certification area will be in English Language Arts because I have always loved to create with the written word and read the creations of others.  During my undergraduate years, I thought that I could take this passion and put it towards a corporate end.  However, it is the teaching and training of literature and writing that is more intriguing to me now than the output of such works.  I am so excited to show students how what they read and how they write will impact their future opportunities and overall potential.

To learn more about me and why I want to teach English Language Arts, please visit the “About Me” and “About this Class” sections of my wiki page at mrsfitchpatrick.wikispaces.com.

When It's Bad...

I am an advocate for the collaboration of teachers within a given field.  Sharing ideas and lesson plans allows our students to benefit from a wealth of ideas and knowledge.  The unfortunate reality is that for every good (or great!) lesson plan that is available, there are a least two poor lesson plans.  For my EHS 600 class, my group and I have been posting on our blogs about characteristics of great lesson plans and examples of these great characteristics in lesson plans that we have found via the world wide web.  It is imperative that we also bring to light the examples of bad lesson plans that do not exemplify these characteristics.  For my research, I have supported that differentiation and adequate details are two key characteristics of great lesson plans.  Here are some examples of lesson plans that did not showcase these characteristics:

DIFFERENTIATION:  Poor Example
"Verbs and their Tenses"
While this lesson plan offers thorough instruction to the students regarding the subject matter, it appears to be very lecture-based with no outlet for the students to engage in the material in alternate ways (i.e. group work, activities, etc.) 

ADEQUATE DETAILS:  Poor Example
"Color Poems"
This lesson plan allows the students to be creative and reflective in their reading of "Hailstones and Halibut Bones," but there are minimal details provided in this lesson plan.  We are only given the instructions and materials.  We are not informed of any goals, standards, objectives, modifications/accommodations, differentiation, etc. 

Detailed Lesson Plans are the Key to Teacher Collaboration

In continuation of my research for my EHS 600 class, I am expanding my search for characteristics of great lesson plans.  Please also reference my group mates' blog posts regarding this research at Andrew's Teaching the Future blog and Kristen's The Heart of an Educator blog.  As I continue to find lesson plans that inspire me as a future educator, I am reflecting on what it is that makes a lesson plan truly great.  I am still firmly committed to my previous thoughts in support of differentiated instruction.  I am also finding that adequate details can make or break a lesson plan in the eyes of fellow educators.  As I am searching through the world wide web, I am finding that there are many lesson plans that have potential and could be great, but the details that would enable me, as an educator, to execute the lesson plan are far from sufficient.  These details range from objectives, state standards, time, materials needed, technology needed, etc.  Without these valuable pieces of the puzzle, a lesson plan can not achieve its full potential when attempted by someone other than the originator. I support the idea of shared lesson plans: if someone has a great idea, share it so that other students can have that impacting educational experience.  Here are some examples of lesson plans that I feel went above and beyond to provide the details necessary for dynamic execution:

1 - Poetry Slam
This lesson plan gave very thorough details on the state standards and objectives.  Additionally, this lesson plan provides extension and remediation alternatives to make the lesson applicable to all learning types.  It is also extremely helpful when the originating teacher attaches her original handouts and rubrics, which this lesson plan did.

2 - Translating in your own words: Pride and Prejudice
This lesson plan offers details in the standards and objectives but also thoroughly explains the materials needed and incorporation of technology.  This lesson plan offers documents to further highlight the lesson as well as offering remediation for challenged learners.

Differentiated Instruction: Options For Success

What is it that makes a lesson plan great?  There are so many qualities that define a successful lesson plan, including organization, incorporation of technology, actively engaging the learner, accomodations, and collaboration.  For my group work in EHS 401/600, we are searching for lesson plans to find those that exemplify the qualities that we find most instrumental in a lesson plan's effectiveness.  For more information on my group members research on these qualities of great lesson plans, you can look to Andrew's Teaching the Future Blog and Kristen's The Heart of An Educator Blog.  For my research, I find the incorporation of differentiated instruction to be an important characteristic of a well-constructed lesson plan.  Differentiated instruction allows the students to choose between different project, essay, and assessment options that best coordinate with their learning type and educational preparedness for the subject.  By allowing the students the freedom to choose the outlet that best meets their needs, you offer them the great chance for success and achievement.  I have searched the worldwide web for examples of lesson plans that I feel incorporate differentiated instruction in an effective and powerful way.

1) To Kill A Mockingbird:  Building Knowledge
This lesson plan is a concluding lesson to a study of To Kill A Mockingbird in which the students must demonstrate their knowledge of how the setting effects character and plot.  The students will use information about setting gleaned from the reading of the novel to create a model of a particular scene. The students will present their models to the class.  The differentiated portion of the lesson comes in the concluding essay assignment.  The students are given two different essay topics to choose from to complete an essay on setting for the conclusion of the lesson.  This offers the students the opportunity to choose the topic they feel that they can most confidently execute based on learning style (as one is more analytical and one is more reflective).

2) Character Metaphors - The Great Gatsby
This lesson incorporates a gingerbread template that the students use as the basis for their character metaphor.  The students will select a character from the novel and then use magazines, newspapers, clipart, etc. to create metaphors about the character that coordinate with body parts.  The reason this lesson plan appealed to me is because it offers a technology extension to the assignment with differentiated options of completion.  These technology options allow the students to expand the assignment to websites that are geared at creating these character analyses online.  The combination of technology and differentiated instruction makes this a great lesson that challenges the students to expand their knowledge and exposes them to other project options.

3) The Pearl Novel Study
This is a fantistc lesson plan that is thorough and well thought in its organization and overall preparation.  I selected this lesson plan because it offers differentiated project options for the students' final assessment of the novel study.  The goal of this lesson plan is for the students to have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the novel.  The differentiated project assignment offers the following options: 1) in a group,  rewrite the novel in modern times using illustrations as needed, 2) write a 16-20 line poem and find music to compliment, 3) write a 1-2 page paper about the symbols and their meaning in the novel.  These options offer something that will appeal to every learning type.

4)  Poetry Writing
This lesson does lack in some areas of organization and does not include all of the elements that I feel are important to presenting a complete lesson plan (objectives, standards, etc.)  However, I do enjoy the differentiated instruction offered in the overall basis of the assignment in that the students are able to select the poem types they will create that they feel they can most confidently execute in a timely fashion.  This assists the students in setting realistic goals for themselves and, by working with the teacher to set these goals, they are still pushing themselves to grasp and create different poem types.

What's with the Wiki Craze?

As I am researching effective forms of educational technology that I might integrate into my classroom, I have found the use of a wiki to be a point of interest.  Traditionally, educators could create a website or simply deal with their classroom communication via email, phone and letters/handouts sent home.  These methods now seem so archaic compared to the wealth of more progressive options, such as a wiki.  A wiki is an engaging teaching and learning tool that is easy to use and simple to maintain. As a educator, you can create a hub of learning and information for your students and parents.  There are some school that require every teacher to have a wiki for this purpose.  I found a great example of using your wiki to inform students and parents about you and your classroomin which this middle school English teacher used the wiki to post assignments, class calendars, goals and more (http://tbensinger.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/Calendar). 
A wiki can be much more that a place to inform students and parents.  Wikis can be a place of collaborative education among students.  A wiki can be a resource for general information on a topic of interest.  For all the many ways that a wiki can work to benefit teachers, students and parents, it is important to be mindful of the main downfall to the wiki:  the freedom for anyone to edit a wiki.  You must be careful when using this outlet and monitor the content to ensure that what is "out there" is what you intended to represent you and your classroom. 
So, is the wiki craze all it is cracked up to be?  I think that wikis have their benefits, but also some significant limitations that must be considered by an educator before commiting to this form of communication.

To Blog Or Not To Blog? (if you are a teacher)

What some consider a place for opinionated individuals to rant about the world around them is actually becoming a place for education to thrive.  Blogs are not just a casual outlet for the opinionated.  Blogs are surfacing as a way for scholars to document and share their research with the world.  Blogs offer a vehicle for scientists can lead you step-by-step through their experiments.  Blogs are also becoming more widely used by educators as a means of communicating and sharing ideas with their colleagues and also their students.  One such example of teacher-to-teacher blog is http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/.  This blog is designed to offer ESL- and ELL-specific assistance to teachers as well as general educational resources.  As a teacher, it is so encouraging to know that there are fellow teachers out there that are figuring out keys to success and passing them on.  Blogs are also being used by teachers to reach out to the students and their parents.  A fantastic example of using a blog in the classroom is http://weblogs.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/bees/.  This blog offers an overview of class activities as well as postings of student work so that parents are informed and aware of what their child is doing each day.  Blogs can also be used interactively with the students as they move into the secondary grade levels.  Students can post journal entries about their readings, comment of teacher post topics, etc. 
To answer the question that defines this post, I would emphatically respond, "YES!"  Blogging is just another way as an educator to expand your ability to reach your students and engage them in your classroom and the course content.