Getting started with classroom blogging

I had a workshop yesterday morning for an hour and a half with seven teachers from the local high school. They were interested in finding out about blogs and how they might use them to communicate with parents and students. I showed them a few moments of the video which we were given as a link in our class last week and also played a podcast which I had created with some grade 7 students last spring describing how they value blogging. By the end of the session, three of the participants had a blog that they were ready to publish, three more were working on their ideas, and one was convinced that blogging was not for him and his teaching style.

Some good questions that I have heard before but are worth reporting. I wonder what your responses to them would have been.

1. I have a lot to do in my day as it is. What is the value of reviewing student blogs and marking them? Can't I just continue to do that with them at their desks?

2. Some of my students don't have computers at home and I don't have enough computers in my class to make this worthwhile. Am I treating those kids without access fairly, even if I make blogging optional?

Comments?