Management?!?

Managing the blog seems to be quite difficult.  It takes up a lot of time to learn the new features, get information off the net on blogging efficiently and effectively, and keeping up with the blogs I'm following. 

I find the dashboard "reading list" a great time-saver.  It lists the blog entries of each of the blogs I'm following.  They are shown with the first few sentences and if the topic interests me, I can click on the title and it takes me right to that blog. 

Another nice feature is the "stats" window, available on the dashboard or at the top of the page when you are writing a post.  This helps me see which of my own blogs others have found interesting enough to comment on &, if or when we turn to advertising our blogs, what sort of audience I might find out there.  It also lets me be freaked out a bit that someone in Nigeria is reading this blog . . .    Anyway, I'd say using the dashboard, especially the "reading list" and the "stats" will help make my blog better and more useful to me and to the audience I'm trying to reach. 

If I were to decide to keep blogging after this class, I would definitely view the tutorials at the bottom of the dashboard.  I used one to learn how to download a video & would want to continue learning how to make the blog more useful to my users.  I have decided NOT to do a classroom blog for my spring term student teaching, but to keep learning & perhaps try one in the fall.  I want to do a bit more research on setting safety controls and learn how to limit access to a classroom blog. 

Lastly, I would want to set a schedule for "maintaining" the blog - deleting old posts; reviewing for spam or unacceptable posts, etc.  For me, since I'm just learning so much in the classroom, this is too much to add to my very first student teaching assignment.  But, it is also something I'd like to try and experiment with after I've learned a bit more.  I really liked some of the blogs that teachers are using with their students. I liked what the students said in one of the videos one of you posted.  I think it could be useful to students to have learned how to communicate with their teacher via a blog - maybe it will save them some time learning it in the future.

I am really looking forward to reading other management posts.  I'm off to WOU for two days of training in grading writing assessments, so I'll look forward to reading them when I get time this weekend.

Good luck, jan