Friday, August 14, 2009

Blogs

A Blog is a great tool to enable anyone to instantly publish simple web pages. As a teacher this tool can be used to post resources, lessons and homework. It can also be used to communicate with parents and caregivers, giving them a window into what is happening in the classroom. Other uses include the opportunity for educators to join with others in hyperconnected communities, sharing teaching practices and ideas.
Students can use blogs to share their schoolwork with those they choose, and it is a great tool to facilitate collaboration on assignments. It is also a fun and convenient way to keep a reflective journal recording learning throughout the school year.
Kids using blogs is a perfect vehicle for the donate phase of the engagement theory principle as described by Kearsley & Schneiderman, (1999). After researching areas of interest, what a fantastic way to share this knowledge in a meaningful way, by posting the students findings on a blog! Researchers also contend that student work is of a higher standard when they understand that their work will be viewed by not only their peers but others across the world wide web. (Kearsley & Schneiderman, 1999).
Barriers to the use of blogs are essentially based upon the issue of access that hopefully will be addressed with a common sense approach in the near future. Teaching kids how to keep themselves safe on the internet needs to be a key component of the new National Curriculum, and effective monitoring by educators of the posting on any blogs are some ways of providing safeguards for students. Scholarly organisations such as the Crimes against Children Research Centre have reported that the risk to students of online predators is greatly exaggerated. (Magid, 2009)
Providing opportunities to develop hyperconnected communities of learners can be enhanced by using tools like blogs, allowing students to share their thoughts and knowledge, and to gain an insight in to the thoughts of peers in other locations. In this way students are using multiliteracies to connect to the increasingly diverse global world in which we live in the twenty first century.


Kearsley, G. & Schneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning.[electronic resource]. Retrieved July 31, 2009from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Magid, L. (2009).Should sex offenders be banned from social networking sites? [electronic resource]. Retrieved August 14, 2009 from http://www.safekids.com/

1 comment:

  1. Hi Sharon,
    Yes I also find blogs an excellent learning tool, but am frustrated by the speed at which the students take to log in. Having only 2 working computers in the class made this task even more difficult, but where there is a will there is a way (you know me!). Linda Pilkington enlightened me, get the students to save their work in word docs and then during the day, certain students can cut and paste onto their blogs. As time is precious in the classroom this works well and seems to be a great incentive for students to complete their work so they can go on their blogs. My year 7 class are loving it, they are all engaged.
    Mandy

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