Blogs are reshaping our classrooms. They are appearing everywhere in the educational field and offer great potential to transform teaching and learning. This experience of working on our group blog has helped me to understand the role blogging can take in the classroom environment. It reflects the way today’s students think and learn better than the older methods of producing written communication could ever do. It is said that today’s students want to share information and work collaboratively more than ever and blogging allows for exactly this type of activity. Teachers can guide students in their writing for classmate readers, and can teach students cite correctly. Commenting allows students to work together on a particular goal. Blogging supports teachers allowing students to use information wisely and with a critical eye. Students need to learn how to digest all of the information available to them and blogging can help teach these skills.
Constructivist learning theories tell us that children need to talk and share in order to learn. Blogging would allow children a way to explain their learning which is necessary for the learning to occur and become part of the student’s foundational knowledge. By participating in this blogging activity I was able to share information and work collaboratively. I had an opportunity to express my opinion and have a voice in the overall conversation. I was able to see a developing connected set of ideas come together in a way that produced a cohesive and yet ever evolving document. The blogging experience allowed me to use the internet to find information to support my thoughts and ideas.
Clearly, all of these things that I did in this activity were done to help me see how the blogging activity functions from the student perspective. One of the things I always get a lot out of by participating in my educational technology classes is an opportunity to be the student. All school year long, I am the teacher. It has always been invaluable to me to also be in the role of the student. It makes me a better teacher. This blogging activity was a very good example of where an activity helped me see the students’ side of the equation.
Constructivist learning theories tell us that children need to talk and share in order to learn. Blogging would allow children a way to explain their learning which is necessary for the learning to occur and become part of the student’s foundational knowledge. By participating in this blogging activity I was able to share information and work collaboratively. I had an opportunity to express my opinion and have a voice in the overall conversation. I was able to see a developing connected set of ideas come together in a way that produced a cohesive and yet ever evolving document. The blogging experience allowed me to use the internet to find information to support my thoughts and ideas.
Clearly, all of these things that I did in this activity were done to help me see how the blogging activity functions from the student perspective. One of the things I always get a lot out of by participating in my educational technology classes is an opportunity to be the student. All school year long, I am the teacher. It has always been invaluable to me to also be in the role of the student. It makes me a better teacher. This blogging activity was a very good example of where an activity helped me see the students’ side of the equation.
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