BP3_2009111_Educational Blogging

Blogging as an educational tool?  As an elementary teacher, I have to admit when I first read the assignment I had difficulties thinking of ways that I might help teachers to incorporate blogging into a useful learning tool for students.  After a brief pause and a few clicks of the mouse I had my "aahh" moments and realized that blogging works for all ages like everything else you just need to open your eyes and be willing to look at something in a new way.

Ideas that I looked at that would benefit my elementary age students/parents is to use blogging as a communication tool.  For the older students using a blogger as a means of developing writing and communication skills makes it a useful tool.

It is usually difficult to get parents to come into school and experience all of the wonderful things their child is doing and learning so maybe another idea for younger students is to post their work allowing parents to see and learn what their child is doing from the comfort of their own homes.

Another use for blogging might include posting homework assignments, providing students and parents a place to ask for homework assistance or clarification.  This would work well for the students who are absent or for those parents who need to follow up on the "I don't have any homework" child.  My only concern for this type of communication would be the parent who uses the blogging site to share too much personal information about their student or to vent about another student/classroom situation.

Beyond the basics, I thought of the ESOL and ESE students within my school who might benefit from a blog designed to introduce/pre-teach upcoming lessons.  If the lesson or a overview were made available for students they could look up terms or information related to the topic to prepare themselves for an upcoming lesson.

Another use might be for students to present information on the blog site, making them the teacher.  It is often stated that we learn by teaching.

Last year at my school our busy schedules did not afford us the time to meet weekly and discuss the great resource books we were using in a book study, so we turned to blogging.  The group was required to post a minimum of 1 blog each week in response to a prompt left by the group leader.  Members were welcome to post more frequently and to respond to each others blog responses.  Then the teams met once every four weeks to review blogging comments, what they were learning, how they had implemented ideas into their classroom and most importantly to celebrate learning.  It was my first experience leading a book study and using blogging and I have to say it worked well for the most part.

References

Support Blogging (2009).  Educational Blogging.  Retrieved November 3, 2009, from

     http://supportblogging.com/Educational + Blogging