blog! blog! blog!

'Our student is genuinely excited to come home and show us what's going on at school. To read his own words and listen to his own voice on the Internet makes it all more real and fascinating for him. This knowledge will help him to better utilize these resources, increase his understanding and awareness of the technologies, and keep us parents in the loop :-)'—Jim, Parent

Retrieved from: http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/w/page/17791566/Blogging

This week in Managing E-Learning we have had to analyse one, out of three digital tools which can be used in the classroom to help learning. Digital tools can be implemented into the classroom to provide students with an interactive and up-to-date learning experience. By ‘up-to-date’ I mean a learning experience which caters for the individual themselves, and not the class as a whole. We are in the knowledge era where technology plays a vital role in almost every person’s life. Teachers in this day and age need to start implementing technological learning tools to keep their students up to date with society and to develop new skills and attributes towards technology that learners of the past weren’t exposed to.

I chose to post my reflection on the tool of ‘blogging’. Before I began this course I thought a blog was just a place to put down your thoughts and ideas for the world to see. I thought it was similar to a diary, just an online copy. What I’ve learnt from this week’s readings and from participating in this blog, is that they can be used for so many more things then just documenting your holiday, or telling us what you do each day. The many ways in which blogs can be used is nearly endless.

A blog is maintained by an individual person (not all of the time) who has control over what is being posted on their page. There are seamless amounts of templates, fonts, designs, colours, and other features which enable you to make your blog individualised. You can embed movies, wiki’s, or other documents, and you can link to almost anything you want to.  A blog could be about anything; a documentation of your holiday, a place to share thoughts and ideas with others, a place to share photos or a place to share resources. A blog can also be used for group collaboration and interaction as Stephen Downes explains in his article ‘Educational Blogging’.

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/educational-blogging

The use of blogging in this article provides a strong argument that using a blog in the classroom can be a very effective tool for students to use. Blogs promote the necessity for collaborative thinking and interactive learning experiences which cater for all learning styles. A blog could incorporate visual aspects through linking videos or interactive games or it could even incorporate resources for those who enjoying reading (rather than seeing) by linking articles or informative documents.

(Shona Chornenki - Top 10 Reason's to Use a Blog in the Classroom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfJETK3am1M&list=PLF4D98AE7D4D41B4E)

As the embedded You-tube video shows a blog could be used in many different ways. It would allow students to develop their creative thinking and writing abilities and develop new skills and attributes. The use of blogging, I think, would motivate students to write and reflect on their learning. I believe the use of blogs as a digital tool in the classroom could be a very effective way of engaging students into the topic and giving them power over their own learning. I love the way this tool has been used in the article posted above, as it gives the students a sense of ownership and individualisation. They are in charge of their own blog and need to maintain it. The way blogging is used also encourages students to reflect on their writing, and writing of others, and allows them to better themselves through creative criticism. The way St Josephs has utilised blogging has made the learning experience a very learner-centered environment and has given the teachers and students an effective support tool for their learning.

In my classroom I would most definitely implement the use of blogs to facilitate learning. Rules and regulations would have to be implemented to minimise the risk of inappropriate materials being posted, or commented, but with these in place I think it would be a good environment for the students to have ownership and pride in their work. If I was to implement blogging into my classroom I would not use it on an everyday basis (as resources may not be available) but I would use this in conjunction with assignment work. I think if students had an assignment due where they had to research topics then a blog would be the best place for the students to share their findings. Each student would have to have a different topic to eliminate cheating, however, this would encourage the students to interact with one another about what they have found and compare information. I think this would give the students an environment where they could learn off each other and reflect on their learning.           

Blogging is a wonderful tool which can be implemented to help learning in the classroom, however, when comparing it with a ‘wiki page’ the features on a blog is limited. In a blog you can only embed material which is compatible, this leaving word documents out of the picture. Blogs only allow you to choose out of a selected few fonts and you cannot embed audio files. I think the positives certainly out way the negatives! 

This course has really influenced my opinions about blogs, I never knew they could be such a great education tool (:

Thanks for reading, I’ll keep you posted!