Educational Blogging

Blogging in the Classroom

            If used appropriately, Web 2.0 technology, namely blogs (weblogs), can be, not only, a teaching/learning resource for any classroom, at any grade level, and for any content but also an exceptionally effective strategy based on constructivist theories of teaching and learning (Loertscher & Richardson, 2010; Deng & Yuen, 2011). Students collaboratively create content and share their products with learners around the world, which then becomes a part of the wider body of knowledge about a given subject (Loertscher & Richardson, 2010; Deng & Yuen, 2011).

            Furthermore, Loertscher & Richardson (2010) outlines six practical benefits of using blogs which make them appealing to many educators. These benefits include: 1) increased student motivation from assigning work that is relevant beyond the classroom, (2) opportunities for collaborative assignments with classes across the country or across the world, (3) organized archives of completed work facilitate reflecting, referencing, and searching, (4) different learning styles are supported giving all students a “voice” to communicate thoughts and ideas thus increasing participation, (5) enhanced student knowledge in a particular subject matter, and (6) students are prepared to analyze and manage more information by developing research, organization, and synthesis skills.

            It should be noted that Deng & Yuen (2011) consider research related to blogs and pedagogy under-developed; therefore, they hypothesized four areas in education that blogs would support. The four areas they considered are self-expression, self-reflection, social interaction, and reflective dialogue. Still, Loertscher & Richardson (2010) and Deng & Yuen (2011) agree that using blogs for education are a means not of merely communicating but of connecting with others that students can learn from.

            The table below can be used as a guide to effectively utilizing blogs as instructional strategies. The goal would be to have students posting blogs at the highest level. Blogging is a “new literacy” (Richardson, 2010) for many students and therefore implies that it is a learning process. Students will need time to develop their blogging skills. It will also be necessary to consider the grade level of the students and the purpose of the blogs.

Activity	Assessment
Posting assignments	Not blogging
Journaling i.e., “This is what I did today.”	Not blogging
Posting links	Not blogging
Posting links with descriptive annotation i.e., “This site is about…”	Simple blogging depending on depth of description
Posting links with analysis that gets into the meaning of the content being linked	Simple blogging
Reflective, metacognitive writing on practice without links	Complex writing, simple blogging
Posting links with analysis and synthesis that articulate a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind	Legitimate blogging
Extended analysis and synthesis over a longer period of time that builds on previous posts, links, and comments	Complex blogging

Note. Adapted from "Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms, third edition" by W. Richardson, 2010. Copyright 2010 Corwin press.

Blogging and Pedagogy

References

Deng, L., & Yuen, H.K. (2011). Towards a framework for educational affordances of blogs. Computers & Education, 56(2011), 441-451.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin press.