Blogging in the Classroom
Blogs are a great educational tool to integrate in your classroom. Blogs allow for self expression and enable you to write about your experiences and achieved learning. Students can use blogs individually or as a means of collaborating with others. Blogging, ¨encourages students who are shy about talking in class to share their ideas¨ (Google, n.d.). Because blogs are a public forum, students will work to produce their best work. There is an audience they are writing for, their parents, peers, and others will be able to see their work. This motivates students to put forth their best work and helps to build their self-confidence. Who doesn't like to put their best foot forward when in public? It has been shown that students who write blogs have better writing skills and improve their writing when they are blogging (Alsamadani, 2017).
Educators are also given a voice through their blogging experiences. They can collaborate and share their resources, successful teaching experiences and activities, as well as their struggles and failures. Educators can share their insight and ideas with people they can not connect with face-to-face. They can create blogs which showcase their students' work and insert videos, photos, and text. These blogs can be shared within the school and with the parents as well. Educators can use a blog to journal the day's activities and lessons, providing links and information for the students that they can use in class as well as at home to review (Google for Education, 2017).
Students can use their blogs to create a portfolio of their work and educational experiences. Students can write about their STEM/STEAM experiences including their successes and failures. Other students can then collaborate with them and even offer suggestions for modifications and ways to strengthen their project designs. Students can share book reviews and other students can comment on the book as well (WebED, n.d.).
As with all things, we can not just give our students a link to set up a blog and tell them to blog. We must help them identify the purpose of this tool they will be using. We need to establish guidelines for healthy use and for writing with respect for others as well as themself. Educators must also guide their students in using good writing skills and technique.
Some disadvantages for students in blogging include that some students may not have access to the technology needed to blog once they leave school. This can have an even greater impact on a student who really writes better at home when alone than they do in a school setting. Some students feel blogging is a less formal writing practice, students at times are uncertain how or what to reply to other peopleś work. There are times when no one replies to a students blog which devalues their time, effort and work as well as lowering their self-esteem. If students feel they do not know enough about a topic, it may be more difficult for them to blog about it. Some students also may have subpar typing skills which may hold them back and or slow them down (Furnari et al., 2011).
Educators also have disadvantages they must face when it comes to blogging. The first is the concern we often have about exactly who sees the students´ work. While we love platforms that allow others to see their work and we love to have them collaborate with people around the world, who exactly are they collaborating with and is it safe? The second is that grading blogs can be difficult and to do a fair job of grading they will need a well written rubric. In addition, grading blogs takes a lot of time. And then, what happens after the blog. Is the experience discussed in class? Does the experience just end? According to Blogging Disadvantages, ¨If teachers don’t give opportunities to bring the conversations in blogs back into the classroom – the conversations in blogs are no different to written assignments which are handed into the teacher to grade¨ (Furnari et al., 2011).
Do not be discouraged! Walk this journey with me and begin anew this school year. Start slow and find one good way to incorporate blogging in your class and move forward from there.
References
Alsamadani, H. A. (2017, December 22). The effectiveness of using online blogging for students’ individual and group writing. International Education Studies Vol. 11, No. 1. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1165114.pdf
Furnari, M., Ahmad, Hughes, J., & Duncan, L. (2011, July 1). Blogging Disadvantages. To Blog or Not to Blog. http://blogteam423.blogspot.com/p/secondary.html
Google. (n.d.). Pros and cons. EDUBlogs. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://sites.google.com/site/howtouseblogsintheclassroom/pros-and-cons
Google For Education. (n.d.). Organize your class and school materials more effectively. Use Blogger to Gather Ideas. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://skillshop.exceedlms.com/uploads/resource_courses/targets/117436/original/index.html?_courseId=30483#/page/5e459d8d07fc8402560609c5
WestED. (n.d.). Blogger in the classroom. Google. https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//educators/activities/pdfs_GTA/CribSheet.Blogger3.pdf
Ruth,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your thoughts on blogging with the educational world. I find it so easy in the age of social media to forget about blogging as a great way to enhance your PLN. There are a ton of great educational bloggers that would be an excellent way to learn, meet, and grow from others.
I also love the idea of a student portfolio. Student portfolios was an idea I introduced to my principal last year. We are a small private school and I loved this idea for students to show their parents at parent teacher conferences. While we do conferences once a year, an online portfolio would be a great way for parents to see how their child is doing!
Wow, what a great response to Blogging for Educators. I sometimes become so overwhelmed with so many tools for educators and students to use. For instance, a portfolio can be created in Google Sites, Google Drive, Blogger and using other tools as well, it can become quite hard to navigate. I appreciated your encouragement to start slow and try just one use of blogger in my classroom this year. Thanks
ReplyDeleteRuth - I appreciate your very thorough blog. I am planning to use blogging with my students next year. I think your insight on how we need to teach our students so that they can be successful with blogging were great. Having a purpose is definitely the starting point. I also liked your thoughts about establishing guidelines. Thanks for some excellent points as I prepare to work with my students.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate how you point out that blogs can give a voice to shy students who may have difficulty speaking up in class. When I was teaching 5th grade, I remember one day where the students wrote fictitious short stories and were given the chance to read them out loud to the class. I had a shy girl who rarely spoke up, but writing stories was her thing! She shared her very creative story about a pencil coming to life and was spontaneously applauded by her classmates at the end. Seeing her joy in being able to share in a way she felt comfortable was so much fun. Blogs have the potential to give voices and a platform to share to even more students. I also liked that you mentioned how it is necessary to instruct students in the purpose of a blog, to give them guidance as they begin.
ReplyDeleteRuth, you've made a good case for the benefits of blogging on many fronts. One thing that stood out to me was the idea of showcasing student work. It just occurred to me right now that during these days of remote learning (who has even thought about Back to School Night yet?), a blog can display the work of a class or individual students in a similar way as a cork bulletin board would normally do. Your other point about the importance of peer feedback on blogs is very well made, too. Blogs are a form of social networking--they are conversation starters--and if nobody responds, is anybody listening? In that sense, the reciprocal aspect of blogging can be a good way to train students in the art of active listening.
ReplyDelete