teaching students about blogs

I was amazed today when I took my students to the computer lab and told them they were going to set up a blog account and post to the HHS Art Class Blog. Two out of 17 were all that had a blog page. I was surprised. I guess I was expecting them all to have one and know what they were. I have two students in my class that are ELL students and it was fun watching them set up their blogs and then they asked what you used them for. I told them they were like Facebook or MySpace but it was just about them. A way to post things about themselves so people could keep up with what was going on with them. They got excited about them. I got excited for them. All the students have posted something to the page so that I can see if they got on. Some of the students have started posting comments about our field trip to meet Kenneth Wyatt an artist in our area. They are to post to at least two other student's post and to leave a question to ask Mr. Wyatt. After the field trip I am going to have them post again on their impressions of the trip. We shall see how it works out.