Blogging Across the Curriculum

Grandview High School English Teacher Diane Euston has a passion for local history that was born out of her childhood experiences exploring the historic neighborhood she grew up in. Recently she started a blog to write about and share that passion. The blog, entitled The New Santa Fe Trailer, focuses on local history, and the often forgotten regular people who made it. Since starting her blog last April Ms. Euston has had more than 30,000 views to her site. Now she would like to bring her love of local history and writing to Grandview High School Students. She is currently working with social studies teacher Mike Stringer on the development of a cross-curricular (social studies, ELA) seminar course on Kansas City area history that they hope to teach in the near future. 

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What makes blogging such a rewarding experience is the authentic audience it can reach. Blogging is a great activity that can be incorporated in classrooms at all levels. Teachers can use blogs to communicate with parents and students, or to provide resources for students in a flipped classroom. Students can blog as part of a class/group, or create their own blog for sharing their work on a platform that provides an authentic audience and space for authentic feedback. The blog can also serve as an electronic portfolio of a students writing/work. In short, blogs create a moderated online space for teachers and students to share ideas and feedback. 

Blogging is one of the easiest and most effective ways to integrate technology into your curriculum. We have many teachers at many levels blogging, but we really want to encourage more teachers to do so. If you are interested in blogging in your classroom feel free to contact Mary Cordry (Secondary) or Diane DeLaTorre (Elementary) for support.

You can check out Diane Euston's Blog here.

You can check out examples of how teachers are using blogs at all levels here

Scott Sisemore