My first post: I'm new to the blogging world!

A picture of the sunset from my Florida vacation this past May. Wishing I was sitting on the beach as I write this blog!

I have heard so many things about people writing blogs to keep in contact with each other and for other various reasons but I have never personally wrote a blog, until now! To be honest, I was a little skeptical at first because I wasn't aware of all of the tools out there for blogging and how personalized you can make your blogs. I think blogging could be a great tool to use with your students and their families. Teachers are constantly e-mailing parents information and answers to questions about the school schedule and assignments that parents have, but the e-mails are always individually sent. If one parent or student had the question, most likely others did as well and blogging could be the perfect tool to use to communicate with all of your students and parents.Something else I like about blogging is how personal you can make your blog. You can post pictures and tell stories and I think it would be a great opportunity for your students and their families to get to know their teacher on a personal level which could help promote a stronger working relationship between everyone.
Even though we just completed our first week of the course, I can already say that I have learned a lot about technology. This was the first time I have created a web portal and I thought it was a really cool assignment. It was awesome to learn how to create another resource for your students and their parents to use outside of the classroom. I like how the web portal and blogs create an avenue for communication between parents and the teachers because we all know there are many parents out there who have a hard time finding the time to meet or talk with teachers. These resources provide an easy opportunity for communication. To be honest, I struggled with creating the newsletter in Word. I have always used publisher in the past so I was not used to making a Word format. I have an older version of Word and I had problems trying to convert everything from one version to another. Even though it was a frustrating experience for me, I did learn a lot and I know I need to make a lot of improvements the next time I create a newsletter.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and go USA tomorrow!!