Blog Ideas for the Classroom

This is all very foreign to me, but I have come up with a few ideas for using blogs in the classroom:

• As a Class Portfolio to showcase to parents, family, friends etc what the students have been doing and creating in class.  Students can participate by taking photos, writing activity summaries, doing videos and then uploading into the blog, and providing quotes.  This could also be an opportunity for students to comment and reflect on some of the activities.  (This could give valuable feedback to the teacher for future teaching).
• Individual Student Portfolio whereby students can showcase their own work and reflect on the activities they have done (what they liked, didn't like, what they learnt, what they would have liked to learn more about, ideas about alternative activities etc). These blogs would be available for all students to see and comment on.  It may add extra motivation for students to think about their product as others can view it and comment on it.
• Thinking Blog - I like the idea of posting thought provoking topics/readings, videos or pictures for students to respond to (as a homework activity).  It could be something like a photograph of a war scene, a Van Gough painting, or a video on the fragility of the planet or 'The Lost Generation'.  This could be a great introduction to a new topic or to increase depth of understanding of an existing topic.  This could also include viewing news broadcasts and commenting about what was portrayed, how it was portrayed, the influence of media on peoples' perceptions, how students felt about certain topics (lets face it, there is not a lot of good news on TV).  The postings can then be discussed in class the next day.
• KWL blog -  for each new topic, have students post what they think they know about a topic and what they want to learn about it.  After the topic has been covered via video, various texts, practicals (or whatever the case maybe), then student can complete the last part of the KWL.  Students can then reflect on what they thought they knew (was their information correct), new things that they learnt and whether this new information resulted in changed opinions or thoughts about the topic. 
• Online book club - whereby students get to comment about or critique books read in class and/or privately and students and teacher can work collaboratively in setting the criteria on which to critique books (e.g. the characters, the plot, ease of reading, style of writing, enjoyment/recommendation rating etc).  This could be particularly motivating for students as they get to talk about books that they enjoy reading, not just ones prescribed by the teacher (e.g. DragonLance, Harry Potter, Saddle Club or whatever kids are into these days). 
• Class 'Newsletter' - to post class related information such as calenders, events, homework assignments, student achievement (and not just of the academic or sporting kind), articles and photos about school events (e.g. sports carnival, book fair, crazy hair day, disco etc).
• Class Suggestion Box - a platform for students to provide feedback about classroom and school activities.  Probably of more benefit for the teacher than student, but at least it gives students a chance to make comments in a least threatening way.

I'm not sure if this is what I am suppose to do, but it is all I can come up with at this stage.  While the options seem endless, it's important to consider what we do with blogs is purposeful in the classroom.  Interestingly, I read today on the "Beyond Schools" blog about using blogs for homework related things.  It suggested that readers will not return to a blog that's full of homework posts, and then commented how a resource such as a blog can be used in such a 'schooly' way.  And he is probably right.  We probably have a tendency to use these digital technologies in such a 'schooly' way, but perhaps it is more about creating a balance between blogs with an outside audience in mind (as in a product) but also as a teaching platform (such as posting homework tasks).