Tumblr

A friend of mine mentioned Tumblr to me on Sunday, and I decided to check it out.

It's freaky awesome.

It's like a blog, but so much more: You can simply email things to the site and have it posted that way, as well as posting it from the tumblr site. You can reblog things easily, and it has its own tumblr reader.

My favorite thing, as a future teacher, is the moderator aspect. On a blogger blog, for example, you can have multiple authors, but there isn't a device for moderation, as far as I can tell. Tumblr, on the other hand, does. Isn't that lovely?

So, imagine me, an English teacher (yippee!) with a classroom blog. I use blogger. One of my kids is having trouble at home, so (s)he makes trouble on the blog: posting inappropriate things, be it pictures, words, or other. I don't check the blog that day, and half of my students, being in love with English (of course), get on and see it before I have a chance to take it down.

Parents get angry. Students get scared. The administration gets involved, including the school board, and possibly my Bishop, too. My blogging days are over.

Now refocus.

Instead, I use tumblr, and the same situation happens. Instead of everyone seeing the post, I have to approve it, so it doesn't go on until I see it, and I don't post it because I'm responsible, and I have the opportunity to take that student aside and address the deeper issue at hand without a mob of angry parents leaping down my throat, wondering why their child's class blog had swear words on it. Or whatever. It could get really out of hand, you know. Especially in middle school.

The likelihood is that a student wouldn't even be inclined to even submit such a post knowing that I moderate it.

I haven't done VERY much on tumblr, but I think it might be a very attractive option for a classroom blog.

Here's a link to my tumblr blog:

My Tumblr!