Ideas for Classroom Uses of Blogs

Using a blog in my classroom is something I really want to try and make work. My ideas for using it are simple at this point but hopefully will develop with some research. I have a personal blog where I post information and pictures about my family to share with other family members across the U.S. An extension of this idea for the classroom would be to create a classroom blog with pictures that follow our activities in the classroom. I think this would be popular with both the students and parents. The students are going to love to get on there to see pictures of themselves and the parents are going to feel more informed and involved by viewing the blog. I've thought about extending the activity just a bit and having a student write a post about an activity or concept in class. I suppose I would send the student home with the write up as a homework assignment and require that it is proofread and polished before it can be submitted. The post would have the student's name on it of course, and maybe that will be an exciting thing to participate in!? I guess we'll see.

Other ideas that I found on the web:
1. Post classroom reading assignments and enhance these reads with weblinks that enhance the information and add interest. Maybe this will be more successful than a textbook.
2. Blogs are interactive. Students can comment, ask questions, etc. I must say here that experience is my teacher on this point. How much time will I be able to devote to interacting on the blog with my students in addition to the full time teaching position and full time family position? Actually doing this will help me know.
3. Promotes ESL participation. This sounds right. Computers are a great motivator and an ESL student may feel more comfortable in front of a computer on their time frame accomplishing an assignment.
4. Electronic Agenda - keep due dates, test dates, assignments posted on the blog and students can access them anywhere. This sounds extremely valuable!!
5. Allows a student to work from home if the focus in the classroom just isn't there. This may be very appealing to some students. This sounds good but I can see that this could turn into a double edged sword because if students are coming to class with the mindset that they don't need to pay attention in class because they can just go home and do everything off the blog then you've created a management nightmare. I think this is probably a fine line to walk.
6. Participation on the blog is not directly in front of peers so it takes away some of the pressure for those students who are nervous or shy about standing out in front of others. Plus, this participation is likely to become more extensive on the blog than it would in the classroom, therefore students can learn more from one another.