Blogging in Education

Jennifer Snair

Table of Contents123,4,56,7,89,10,1112

TitleTable of ContentsEducation WorldeSchool News

Conclusion

“Blogging? It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson!”Education World

Lorrie Jackson writes that blogging, even in an elementary setting, has become a useful and important tool in the classroom. Children as young as fourth grade write about recent news stories. Blogging is simple and there is an abundance of Web-based programs to get started, such as Blogger, LiveJournal, and KidzBlog. Blogs in an educational setting are useful for a number of reason. First, it’s widely known that students write better when they have a real audience, rather than just a teacher reading their writing. Every student is familiar with technology, so why not incorporate it into the classroom?

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What you need to start blogging To get started, you of course need a Web-based program. Blogger and LiveJournal are a couple of the most popular, but may not be the safest in this type of environment. Blogmeister is a downloadable program that is free and doesn’t require any software to be downloaded. In Blogmeister, the teacher sets up the blog himself/herself and the students add their own posts and entries.

Why Blogging is EffectiveEnables anyone, including first-graders, to publish on the webIt is a journalistic tool; it can help anyone to feel like a columnistStudents become better writes by writing more, writing in greater detail, paying more attention to grammar spelling and punctuationStudents feel as if their writing is more authentic because it is being read by a larger audience

How to Safely Go About Blogging It’s important to find out what your district or school Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)says about blogging and posting student names online. Also, always consider a program that requires a password.

Jackson, Lorrie. “Blogging? It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson!” 2005. Education World. 29 November 2009. http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech/tech217.shtml

I found this article very easy to read and also would consider it a good resource for teachers looking for ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. The article cover how to start a blog, ideas on what to blog about, and most important, how to be safe blogging.

“Panelists: Blog are changing education”eSchool News

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Dennis Pierce writes about the “Best of the Education Blog” Awards and how far educational blogging has come since its existence. Like the previous article by Lorrie Jackson, Pierce agrees that students benefit from blogging by feeling that they are writing to a more genuine audience and are allowed more room for creativity. He states that one strength almost all students have in common is their tech-savvyness, so why not put it to good used?

BLOG

Pierce, Dennis. “Panelists: Blogs are changing Education”. 24 May 2006. eSchool News. 29 November 2009.http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/topnews/ index.cfm?i=36898&CFID=28604849&CFTOKEN=14811997

The “Best of the Education Blog” Awards

CriteriaPersonalityUsefulnessWriting StyleUsability and DesignFrequencyRelevancyInteractivityFulfillment of PurposeAppropriatenessWould you revisit

TypesBest Classroom Instruction Blog for TeachersBest Classroom Instruction Blog for StudentsBest Education Theory BlogBest K-12 Administration Blog

I thought this article was great, especially where it talked about giving awards for blogging. Really, why shouldn’t they be given? Awards are given for other writing contests and this one was definitely a new, fresh idea that should be adopted nation or even world-wide. Not only are students already being creative, but they are putting forth a greater effort because of the chance of winning. I know that if our school had participated in making blogs and we would’ve known about a contest, hundreds of us would enter and work on our writing, resulting in a lot more time spent actually working on our writing than we did just being in the classroom.

“The Prose of Blogging (and a Few Cons, Too)”T H E Journal

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Rama Ramaswami is in support of blogging and writes about different teachers and their evidence as to how blogging improves students writing, as well as touching on why some educators are a little more hesitant to begin blogging in the classroom- one of the reasons being if there is no purpose or it doesn’t fit into instruction. Although blogging for education has not been around a while, he says that studies that have been conducted show blogging leads to great improvement in writing and overall organization.

Findings….Of Bachenheimer's study of 25 students,74 percent believed that blog posts helped them articulate their ideas better 68 percent said blogs helped them determine what to say60 percent felt blogging helped them begin writing their papers, which is compelling because 84 percent of the students said that the hardest part of writing a research paper is starting itThe students commented that blogs helped them organize their thoughts, develop their ideas, synthesize their research, and benefit from their classmates' constructive comments.

It lead them to Write More, Write Better

Ramasswami, Rama. “The Prose of Blogging (and a Few Cons, Too)”. 1 November 2008. THE Journal. 29 November 2009. http://thejournal.com/articles/2008/11/0 1/the-prose-of-blogging-and-a-few-cons-too.aspx?sc_lang=en

I found Ramaswami to be very knowledgeable about the concept of blogging and although he found many aspects that may be less educational than others, he made a good point that overall, children greatly benefit from blogging because of their familiarity with technology and computers. Ramaswami did a good job in writing this article because besides including how to incorporate blogging, he also mentioned the do-not’s of blogging and the most effective ways for it to be used in a school setting. The evidence he collected was very eye-opening because of the overall agreeance among students that blogging is a writing innovator for them.

Just like the blog we created on Blogger in this class helped me to write more and connect with other students, blogging in classrooms all across the nation have become a positive asset that teachers adopt who realize how prevelent technology is among youth. Blogging should be approached with caution and an open-mind, and that way the best possible outcome will happen- students showing their creativity and improving their writing skills!