I wanted to extend a warm welcome to the world of blogging to Ashley Brichter, Beacon sophmore, captain of the girls Ultimate team and all-around nifty person!

So this got me to thinking (and since I’m putting off grading logs…), so far, I think much of what is cool about Beacon-blogging is how it’s building community. I love what Kate is doing in her New Media classes, and what Mary is doing in Social Justice, and despite myself, I think the kids are doing cool stuff in my New Media class… but I also admit that I love reading Zana’s and Jeremy’s and Jessie’s and Kate’s personal blogs. And here’s what I’d love to explore… or get comments on… does it make a difference when kids blog on a school site as opposed to just getting LiveJournal or another blog? For my money, I think it does. I think that writing for a school community does change the writing — probably for good and bad, honestly — but I like that, as a school, we now have a tool to encourage writing and community for kids. It’s one more thing that I hope makes Beacon more of a community that kids want to take part in. And I do think that it won’t take long for the blogging to make its way from the personal blogs into the classrooms more and more. I know Alison Tolpin wants a blog… and I need to follow Will R.’s example and set up the newspaper with a niftier layout that they want to use.

Comments? Thoughts?