Blog Use in the Classroom Environment

When examining this week’s content, I began to examine how I would use a blog in my own classroom and identified a few ways blogging could help my students to be successful. My current classroom is at the ninth and tenth grade level teaching global studies in New York. Overall, I believe that blogging is an excellent addition to my classroom and can benefit my student’s ways I had previously not considered.

The first way I would use a blog in my classroom in to create a teacher blog posting classroom information for students and parents to access any time a computer is available. I plan to incorporate class rules, the class syllabus and current homework assignments. This way the students always have a way to find out their assignment, teacher expectations or additional resources. One of the biggest issues I still encounter is the students claiming they did not know about an assignment or a particular due date. By having the information always available and updated this will eliminate any chance the student did not know what was expected of them (Richardson, 2006, p.21). Also, at any time parents could access class information eliminating many possible classroom issues. Once a teacher provides the opportunity for parents to become involved in the classroom, the student’s grades will often improve as there is another adult closely monitoring student progress.

Secondly, at specific times during the school year I would like to post discussion topics for the students to comment upon. Many of these topics will be open-ended opinion questions where there is not a single correct answer and the students will gain credit from participating. This use of a blog serves to promote critical and analytical thinking, strong skills that can be used throughout the students lives (Richardson, 2006, p.20). The students will have to work to find an answer and will be expected to compare and contrast their thoughts to other student’s opinions (Laureate Education, “Spotlight on Technology”, 2008). Using a blog as a format for discussion I can further benefit my class by allowing all students to provide an opinion about a topic and participate in a discussion we could not work into the finite time in class.

Also, I would like to have the students create their own blogs on a topic in history. Rather than creating a boring essay or PowerPoint presentation the students could create a multimedia presentation that could be viewed and commented on by the teacher, other students and people outside of the school. The students not only learn and research this material but rather they become a part of the scholarly work available on the Internet. This blog allows students to interact with each other about their topic and showcase their work in a meaningful way. As a teacher I could easily establish a RSS feed to an aggregator account monitoring all of the student’s blogs ensuring the information posted stays on our selected topic and is academically based work.

One major issue that I see with the use of blogs in the classroom is many of these blogs are blocked through the school security system. Many of these sights are considered to be personal information and the schools have deemed much of the information to be inappropriate for the students to view. Instead of having the teachers monitor what the students are working on, they have simply eliminated access to all blogs and a great source of information. This specific rule can be changed and blogs can be viewed; yet to accomplish this task a solid game plan needs to be established to appropriate student use of the Internet. I could overcome this challenge by using an RSS feed to an aggregator account and monitoring what the students post on their personal blog (Richardson, 2006, p.71). Also, by providing parents with the links to their child’s blog, I have another adult closely monitoring the progress of each student. Finally I could have the students sign an acceptable use form outlining the expectations of using school technology.

A second issue that needs to be addressed is the difference between academic and socially based work. The students must understand that other people outside of their peers are able to see their work so proper grammar and format are essential. In class I will overcome this challenge by teaching what is considered to be correct grammar and how blogs are different from the language used in instant messages and text messaging (Laureate Education Inc., “Spotlight on Technology”, 2008). By explaining to my students that everyone can see their work, this issue should take care of itself, as students will work harder if they know others will see the final product.

Blogs are an excellent tool that is often underused in a classroom. Yet the benefits of blogging are real and allow the students to create an authentic project that can be viewed by others outside. Blogs provide a great way to share ideas a shrink space between people both inside and outside of the school (Laureate Education Inc., “Technology and Society”, 2008). The students are able to participate in a different type of learning experience while gaining skills that can be used later in their lives.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). [DVD]. “Technology and
Society”. Baltimore, MD.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). [DVD]. “Spotlight on
Technology: blogging in the classroom”. Baltimore, MD.

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for
classrooms. (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.