Teacher Blogs?

Interestingly enough, on Saturday I had to take a New York State exam and one of the questions on it was how as a teacher can I establish collaboration in my classroom.  One of my answers was by creating a blog and encourage students, parents, other teachers, and community members to reply or make postings!  I think it would be another great way of increasing communication between teachers and students as well as a lot more.  What do you think of this?  Can a blog really help increase communication between teachers, students, and everyone else?  Do you like the idea?

My Students From Nicaragua

   In Social Studies, one important aspect of the class is learning about neighbors, friends, people from far away and what problems they are facing today.  In my studies one problem I learned about was an incredible village in the country of Nicaragua call San Juan del Sur.  After visiting this small Spanish speaking city in Central America I was saddened.  There for people to obtain jobs they needed a good understanding of English due to their reliance on tourism, but often the students schooling was not enough to help and therefore unemployment was high.  After contacting friends we ended running a small school for one particular neighborhood or Bario and it was one of the best experiences of my life. 
   As students in my class this year I would like you to respond to two questions.  (1) What is something you could do to help someone this year personally? (2) What is something we could do as a class to make a difference in the world this year?  The best ideas will be something that we can do as a class that's possible, that makes the biggest difference in our community, and is thought out well.  Good luck!