Blogging in the Classroom: Week One

I never used blogging in grades K-12, but think it would be a good idea to incorporate into future teaching methods. Being technologically literate means having the ability to communicate, solve problems, and evaluate and create information in all subject areas. This is an important aspect in today's society. There are ways to introduce this new digital genre; examples can be seen here. Blogs have great potential in education and can promote many different ways of critical thinking. It also promotes reading and writing. They can also aid social interaction by having a student state his or her ideas or thoughts and getting feedback from other students. There are many different ways and reasons to use weblogs; they can be used for teachers to manage and set guidelines in a classroom, for students to communicate with their peers and other teachers of the same course, for students to showcase their best work, for collaborations (maybe even around the world), and to involve parents in their child's work. Blogs are a great tool that can be updated easily and gives students, parents, other staff, and the public access to class resources and information.

Parents may not be ready to let their children make the transition to the digital world of education, but working together to form a reasonable agreement could benefit a wide variety of students. Of course there are going to be concerns of safety, but there are effective ways to monitor student behavior. One way to assure parents of their child's safety is through a letter that explains what information they are and aren't allowed to post along with how they will be monitored, etc. It also explains the benefits of blogging and how it will be used in their studies. The letter might look like this. Parts of the letter that particularly stood out to me were that student's posts require approval by the teacher, and that their personal information such as last name and age isn't allowed to be posted. Students are required to use the same standards in their blog posts as they do when they answer a question verbally. I think these are fair and reasonable guidelines that can help students understand their responsibilities and how blogging is a learning tool, not a place to share details that could compromise their safety.

Education standards need to be upheld to achieve a student's full potential. Blogging is a great way to do so. There are standards in Oregon and National standards, which happen to be the same. These standards can enhance and deepen learning by allowing students to communicate their thoughts and ideas in a diverse community. Blogs aid students in analyzing their ideas as well as expanding their knowledge. They are encouraged to reflect on what is being learned in the classroom by writing creatively or reflectively. Either way, they are analyzing and connecting ideas. We tend to write to connect with others who can teach us more. Blogging allows students to work together collaboratively by responding to one another's posts and analyzing their own work as well as other's work. I grew up using paper and pencil and only collaborating with the students in my class. Being able to collaborate with others across the world is fascinating and a great way to bring different perspectives into learning. Technology is steadily growing in the lives of children, so there needs to be a healthy way to incorporate it into their lives, where they will be able to use it in everyday society later on in life.