Blogging in the School

Blogging in the School and University Environment Within this rather broad category, blogging may work better in some grade levels than others, but for the most part, the general use and application of blogging are quite similar. Blogging is a form of communication that is used at all levels in this environment, although with the obvious limitation that the students must be able to use a computer. Even if they are not yet reading and writing, a student’s blog can just consist of their artwork (scanned or drawn on a computer using a paint program) or pictures of their family, or some other form of visual media. The teacher will have to be more involved at the early grades due to lack of knowledge of computer use by the students, but given the proliferation of computers in the schools, it isn’t long before blogging can be a classroom activity that does not require much assistance from the teacher for a student to use. Why would a teacher even want to use blogging in the classroom? Much research has already been done on whether or not blogging is a useful pursuit for students as a part of the curriculum or if it has little or no educational use. Usually, the students enjoy the addition of blogging to the curriculum as long as it is not too regulated, but teachers themselves differ on whether or not they think it is a worthwhile exercise. Blogging cannot replace teaching - the best it can do is promote a different method of teaching and a different way for your students to interact. The teacher must act as the blog "moderator" in some fashion, so it increases their workload this way, but may reduce the time spent on traditional teaching methods. Having looked into some of the research and teacher comments, here are five major pros and five major cons of using blogging in the classroom: Pros:

• Helps the traditionally shy student. Shy students rarely will speak up in class voluntarily to answer a teacher’s question or make a comment, but studies show that they will voice their opinions and participate in blogging, because it is a more impersonal way of interacting. With blogging, they do not need to actually hear the other children laughing at a remark they may have said in seriousness (thereby avoiding possible embarrassment). They feel free to say what they mean and know, if they are "saying" it to a computer rather than directly to a person or group of people.


• Helps each class member get to know all the other class members more easily. For example, if they can’t remember someone’s name in the class, they can always look for them in the blog if the blog contains pictures of the class members. This increased online interaction has definitely been shown to increase offline interaction among members of the class during school hours.


• Helps students with their reading and writing skills. Research has shown that this occurs even without direct intervention on the teacher’s part in helping students with writing to the blog at all levels of education. Partly this is because the students read each other’s blog entries and absorb a lot of grammar and spelling knowledge without necessarily even realizing it.


• Helps teach students about group behaviour, both the good side and the bad side. They will see that a group can accomplish more than an individual, but only if all members of the group are participating as they should. As with any group project, there may be one or more students who do not "hold up their end" in the blog and participate infrequently, at the absolute minimum they have to, or those few who may not participate at all, even if it is a group assignment. This can help correct the behaviour of those students who were assigned a task and do not complete it, knowing that the alpha leader of the group will in the end come through and do the task so they will get a good grade. With blogging, the teacher can easily identify those who are trying to use this tactic and with luck, stop them from doing so and perhaps even enlighten them so that they do not act this way in group activities other than blogging.


• Helps build self-confidence - blogging in the classroom does build self-confidence in every student who participates. Especially in earlier grade levels (about grades 5-7), students are thrilled with seeing things they have written on the Internet and will proudly show them to their families.

Cons:

• Privacy issues -- some parents and/or students may not be comfortable being identified in such a public manner. If you are considering adding blogging to a course for your students using one of the free online programs such as Blogger (offered by Google), the blog will be online for the entire world to see, so parents may have privacy issues with this. Be sure to get a legally binding release form from each student’s parent/guardian, especially if you are dealing with very young children. We all wish the world was a perfectly safe place for our children, but the fact remains that there are dangers inherent in putting personal information on the Internet and children are often the targets of Internet predators and ill doers.
  
• Shy students may not come around - it may work out that it does not help all shy students to express themselves more often in classroom, but some teachers find that after blogging for awhile, shy students do start to talk more in class, as they now have experienced voicing their opinion in what may seem to them as a "safer" environment versus the classroom itself.
  
• Policing is still needed - the teacher still has to keep an eye on the blog to make sure each student is using it appropriately. Of course, if a student posts something inappropriate, it will be easy to find out who the offender is, and remove the post, but you still have to enforce some level of discipline and watchdog behavior.
  
• Different levels of computer skill - the students in any given class are going to be at different levels of computer skill, by virtue of their previous schooling and their home environment. As a teacher, you must be aware of this and keep blogging as easy and simple as possible. If you still have a student who is floundering with the technology, you may need to reconsider the use of blogging or put in some extra time to bring that student up to the skill level technologically speaking so that they can participate to the best of their intellectual ability.
  
• Age level can be problematic - although older students may take to blogging easily, those going through the typically awkward phase of adolescence may not be too willing to blog about anything other than class assignments of a non-personal nature. This is a time in a young person’s life where many are unwilling to speak informally about themselves, and the teacher should respect this stage of psychological development and not use blogging inappropriately in adolescents going through a difficult phase.

In the blogosphere overall, teachers and students are flocking to this form of expression and teaching. When used with care, it can be a powerful tool for both students and teachers, but it must be used wisely as well, precisely because of its public nature. When blogging comes into the classroom, the walls of the classroom disappear and whatever is put in the blog is there for the entire world to see. Note: Google does offer ways to keep content from being indexed, but doesn’t address the topic of how to keep blogs specifically off the index. See http://www.google.com/remove.html for Google’s content removal instructions for information on how to keep your content away from their automatic indexing. About the AuthorNo author information available.

Technorati Tags: Blogging School, University Environment, Classroom, Psycological, Different Levels, Age Level