Blogging with students

My co-teacher and I are excited to start our class of 6th grade boy readers on the path of blogging. I never realized how much work this would be! I don't know how classroom teachers have the time to get the technology set up amid all the other priorities that they have vying for their time!

I gave the boys a tech survey and so far 11 of 19 boys have returned them. Of the 11, only 7 of them have an email address. As I wait for the rest of the surveys to be returned, I am wondering what my next step will be. On the survey, I am asking for permission to post student work online, but now am wondering if I can extend that permission to setting up email addresses for those students who don't have them.

On the bright side, the boys got a chance to see some blogs today and what they might be able to accomplish with them. They created a name for our class blog: Mohawk Boys Read! and have started brainstorming what picture they want me to take of them to use for the header. I've sent out log-ins for the 7 boys who already have email, so I am interested to see if they do anything with it tonight.

In the meantime, I'll continue to read all the tutorials on edublogs. Sue Waters's The Edublogger has been extremely helpful, and I'd recommend it to any blogger with questions!