Blogging from the top of the Rockies

Last November my wife took a group of middle school students to Nicaragua to do some service work, she also took my 13-year-old son. During the weeks that they were gone I would check the school's website for any update as to what they were doing. I must of checked in on them at least 5 times a day. It was great to see photos and read the blog about their adventures.

This week it was my turn to return the favor...

This week I went along with the annual field trip into the mountains of Colorado to teach our 5th grade students about ecology and outdoor living. Every day I would blog about what we were doing and I would upload some photos. I thought a few parents would find this fun to follow along. Little did I know how they would respond.

Here is the math: we took 46 students, which means 46 families could possibly read the blog, if they each checked in 5 times a day that would be 230 "hits" to my blog per day. When I got home and checked my blog's stats I had over 900 hits a day!

What does this mean? Parents want to be connected to their kids -- they loved being able to check in and see that they were up to. I think the fact that we got over a foot of snow dumped on us (in May) helped because they just wanted to know that we were okay. Using a school technology like a blog allows us to be connected in a valuable and important way to the families of our students.

Check out my Classroom Blog to see for yourself.