Author Will Richardson, describes six functions of educational blogs in his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (2010). Two of his functions describe the class website and the class portal. A blog can be useful for teachers to communicate information to parents and students on a regular basis in a safe, efficient manner. For example, on a weekly basis I send my students' parents an email updating them on what their children are learning in Language Arts. Through this email, parents are informed of test dates, assignment due dates, and changes in policy and procedure. This information could also be easily streamlined and posted in a weekly classroom blog. Parents could subscribe to the RSS feed of the blog and would be able to receive an email when the blog is updated and read it at their convenience.
This method of communication would also be a resource for students. Students might not always remember to write down homework or when assignments are due. They could access the blog for reminders and updates. It would also be a great place for the teacher to post assignment descriptions, rubrics, and models so that students and parents would be able to see what she is looking for without having to either go through an email with multiple attachments or contact the teacher directly.
