Blogs in the Battlefield

In considering how I might use blogging in the classroom (or in the battlefield, as I call it), there seems to be two main ways that seem the easiest: having my own blog and having individiual student blogs. For my own teacher-driven blog, I believe that I would use it as an organizational tool. Each day, I could post the in-class assignments (so absent students can view them) and the homework. I would also post tips or reminders for them, rules for writing, due dates, etc, as encouraged by the idea of routine in classrooms. It would also be a great place to post hyperlinks to resources such as MLA on the Web. Students could concentrate more on their learning if they had to worry less about keeping their notes organized. As for student-generated blogs, these would eliminate so many of the papers that I drag to and from school (and thus eliminating many of my chiropractic bills.) I could ask a discussion question, assign each student to post a blog as a response, then assign each student to comment on at least two fellow students' responses. Students would be given examples of valuable comments (in to faciliate an intellectual, ongoing learning experience) on which they would be assessed. More ideas to come later...