Best Practice Ideas from the New Tools for Schools workshop in Portage, Wisconsin.

• Ensures safety of students
• Focuses on reflective thinking
• Incorporates mulitmedia
• Allows for feedback from an authentic audience
• Involves parents
• Current, up to date, with "frequent" posts
• A communication tool for school or a component of the school
• Focus on students as producers of content rather than just consumers
• Has structure, what do you want in the end?
• Involves helping students make correct choices about what they write about
• Involves providing students with appropriate content-based prompts
• Involves reading, commenting and writing, not just reading
• Focuses on fundamental skills such as vocabulary development, etc.
• Connect to locations, ideas, self, and attention
• Blogs should be considered one piece of the puzzle
• Should encourage the development of new views and perspectives
• Should provide voice in your own learning
• Technology is a container of tools that is always changing, what's next, let's prepare them for whats next
• Looks at blogging from an instutional or organizational perspective
• Equity both horizontally and vertically