A few people have recently asked me why I write a blog. There are many reasons, including that it helps me keep my eyes out for new tools and ideas that I can use in my own classroom, and that I appreciate the connections it’s helped me (and my students) make with others around the world.  What I have learned through writing this blog has certainly made me a better teacher.

In addition, maintaining this blog doesn’t really take up that huge amount of extra time over what I spend keeping my website updated. The people connected to our school who use the website daily include the three hundred students and family members participating in our Family Literacy Project; the forty students in our after-school ESL Computer Lab; the sixty Special Education students who use it as their “textbook”; and the many students in our ESL classes and regular ninth grade English classes who, though they might not use it daily, certainly use it several times a month.

By writing this blog, the numbers of students who can benefit from these resources can be greatly expanded — at little cost to me.

i also hope that my emphasis on the importance of using technology to develop and deepen face-to-face relationships has had some influence on how some teachers have used these web tools with their students.