I Blog Therefore I Can

Having kept my own blog for the past five weeks I understand why it is the topic of one of the last posts for this course—how can you talk about blogs until you have actually done one for a while.  I look back at the blogging I had the students do last year and they seem so superficial.  Not the students but the blogging.  It is almost embarrassing.  There was little reflection in the student blogs, little construction of knowledge and the discussion between the students barely scratched the surface of learning.  And collaboration within the discussion—it didn’t exist.   I was using technology and therefore I was a good teacher.  Wrong!  Blogging isn’t about just picking a title, a URL and a topic.  It isn’t only about making something look pretty by adding pictures or video.  Blogging can be so much more.  If done properly it can be a conversation between the writer and the audience.  It can be a reflection of learning and potential learning. 

Richardson knew what he was talking about when he said “if we want our students to learn from blogs, we have to experience that learning firsthand” and “[j]ust as writing teachers should write, and literature teachers should teach, teachers who use blogs should well, use blogs” (43). 

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that blogs don’t have to be everything but the potential of blogs to lead students to become reflective, life-long learners who want to share and communicate with an audience to make meaning of the world is quite amazing.  Teachers by using blogs with students “can promote student self-assessment by providing opportunities for students to think and talk about what they are learning, including why and how they are learning it. By encouraging them to evaluate their own progress, [teachers] are empowering students to reflect on themselves as learners” (2006, Joseph). Blogs, like the one we have done for this course, allow for this type of reflection. And if I am not mistaken, doesn’t every course we teach in schools encourage student reflection?

Rachel Boyd has put together and excellent video on why we should be blogging with out students.

Anne Davis in Edublog Insights  also has some great insights into why we should blog in her post on the Rationale for Education Blogs. Such as:

• Blogs provide a space for sharing opinions and learning in order to grow communities of discourse and knowledge — a space where students and teachers can learn from each other.
• Blogs help learners to see knowledge as interconnected as opposed to a set of discrete facts.
• Blogs can give students a totally new perspective on the meaning of voice. As students explore their own learning and thinking and their distinctive voices emerge. Student voices are essential to the conversations we need to have about learning.
• Blogs foster ownership and choice. They help lead us away from students trying to find what the teacher wants in terms of an answer.
• The worldwide audience provides recognition for students that can be quite profound. Students feel more compelled to write when they believe many others may read and respond. It gives them motivation to excel. Students need to be taught skills to foster a contributing audience on their blog.
• The archive feature of blogging records ongoing learning. It facilitates reflection and evaluation. One student told me that he could easily find his thoughts on a matter and he could see how his thinking had changed and why.
• The opportunity for collective and collaborative learning is enormous. Students have the opportunity to read their classmates blogs and those of others. This is not possible in a regular classroom setting.
• Blogging provides the possibility of connecting with experts on the topic students are writing.
• The interactive nature of blogging creates enthusiasm for writing and communication.
• Blogging engages students in conversation and learning.
• Blogging encourages global conversations about learning–conversations not previously possible in our classrooms.
• Blogging provides the opportunity for our students to learn to write for life-long learning.
• Blogging affords us the opportunity to teach responsible public writing. Students can learn about the power of the published word and the responsibilities involved with public writing.

There is so much information out there on how to blog with students and blogs are so easy to set up with free programs such as blogger and wordpress that any teacher who has students who have access to the internet and computers can have their students keep blogs.  Teach Web 2.0 and Blogging Options for Teachers   have some wonderful resources for teachers who want to blog in their classrooms. 

With all of this information and tutorials available to us on blogging and using blogs with students I wanted to bring up a  question  that has been at the back of mind the entire time I have been writing this post. 

Should a teacher who doesn’t blog or read blogs expect her students to blog? 

After emmersing myself blogging for the last five weeks I realize blogging is tough and can a teacher who doesn’t understand the difficulties with “putting yourself out there” really understand the difficulties students might experience.  I realize I didn’t even suggest that my students read blogs prior to having them create their own blogs.  Was this because I myself didn’t read blogs?  Did my inexperience hurt the students?  I am definately rethinking what I did.  I still don’t think I have a firm grasp on the nuances of blogging effectively. I don’t agree with and never have agreed with the idea that  ”those who can’t…teach”  instead it really should be “those who do… teach”.    But then, that is just one short-time blogger’s opinion.

 

References

Nancy Joseph.  (2006). Strategies for Success: Teaching Metacognitive Skills to Adolescent Learners. New England Reading Association Journal, 42(1), 33-39,75.  Retrieved August 9, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1047701411).

Topping, K.. (2009). Peer Assessment. Theory into Practice, 48(1), 20.  Retrieved August 9, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1634923481).

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~ by kreierso on August 9, 2009.