Probably all of you reading this blog know the meaning of blogging, however, not all educators believe in the benefits of implementing blogs in their classroom. I was once in that situation where I would see blogging like a social tool and that is it. Unfortunately, many in my campus had a million of excuses of why not using blogs. Blogs are a crucial component of the Web 2.0 technologies and they exist for several important reasons. Digital natives need to:#1 - Practice their communication skills. Students are given a voice and it's a way of expressing their ideas.
#2 - Practice their reading skills.
#3 - Use technology to share knowledge. Using blogs will permit cooperative learning.
#4 - Be motivated. When students feel a sense of ownership they are motivated to create more.
#5 - Collaborate. Presently, collaboration skills are one of the most demanding skills in our workforce.
#6 - Be engage. Blogs are interacting, students discuss with each other permitting them to be engage in the lesson.
#7 - Participate. Blogs give learners an audience, a purpose to participate.
#8 - Be creative. When they are blogging no one will tell them what to do so they need to apply creativity.
#9 - Apply critical thinking. Participating in blogs or creating a blog will require reflection to what they will do. Blogging is a process!
#10 - Become culturally aware.
How many more reasons do you need? Blogs give students a learning environment which is open 24/7. All these are skills needed for their digital future! The following video gives you some statistics to why blogs are needed tool in education.
If your school district does not count with a web-based publishing system, here are some free web-based publishing and hosting sites that will help you incorporate blogs in your class:
- Blogger http://www.blogger.com
- Edublogs http://edublogs.org/
- LiveJournal http://www.livejournal.com/
You are minutes away to set up your blog. Let me know your experiences with blogs in your classroom.
See you later, virtually!
-Becky
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I love your list of reasons that blogs are useful in the classroom. I think one of the reasons that teachers hesitate to use this technology is because it is overwhelming to keep track of everyone's posts and responses. Not to mention the difficulty of helping students (especially younger ones) get accounts set up. Hourigan and Murray point out that "while the blog offers a wide variety of functions to the student, such as comment posting, image embedding, podcasting, and integrating RSS feeds, it is still vital to choose features that are relevant and appropriate to the task" (2010). I have actually been thinking about implementing blogs into my online class but it's difficult to decide which features would be most appropriate to use and for which TEKS. Also, grading would take time to figure out. I think many teachers would need help establishing a system and getting everything set up for it to work effectively.
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Hourigan, T., & Murray, L. (2010). Investigating the emerging generic features of the blog writing task across three discrete learner groups at a higher education institution. Educational Media International, 47(2), 83-101. doi: 10.1080/09523987.2010.492674
I really like the blogging idea for students. I have over 90% of ESL students in my classroom from all over the world. If computers were more available for my students, I would implement this in my classroom. It would be a great way for the students to practice their English, express their creativity, and share their culture. I have a lot of the students draw pictures if they can't explain something in words. Since they are older (9th grade), they feel like drawing pictures makes them feel like they are in kindergarten. By having a blog, they could embed graphics, maps, etc.
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