What? No Red Pens?!

The tools of the trade for an English teacher have long been a heavy Grammar book and a red pen. While I still wax nostalgic for a book-in-hand and the ability to edit in crimson, I do understand that the world is changing, and it is not all for the worse. Today's students can greatly benefit from media and technology literacy, as much of today's communication and new information is most readily available online. Blogging is a simple way to introduce students to the online world and provides a relatively safe forum for voicing one's thoughts and opinions. Especially in the field of Language Arts, blogging lends itself to a myriad of educational possibilities. I do not mean just homework, either. Reading often opens the classroom up to numerous discussions of real-world problems, hot-button issues, moral questions, and even some questions that simply cannot be definitively answered. Blogging would allow for each student's voice to be heard without being interrupted, without having to give an on-the-spot response, and with the benefit of being able to research a topic before discussing it. The digital communication could also alleviate the stresses related to students receiving their responses back with red marks all over their papers. So, goodbye pens and hello pixels, blogging could very well be the new alternative to the notebook not only for the future, but for the present also.