Weblogs in Education

Weblogs in Education

Blogging in education circles has been around for a surprising amount of time. Although many people think educators are not necessarily the most up-to-date on the latest trends in electronic applications, there are many teachers who do stay on top of the industry and use online applications and material extensively in their classrooms and classroom material. Traditional uses of electronic media in education mainly consist of online courses, primarily designed so that students who do not live in the immediate area of the school can attend classes and/or receive assignments, marks, etc. Some classes though are taught completely online even if the students live close by.

In addition, some teachers use learning objects (applets or even just a graphic that is placed in an online repository for other teachers to access), or use the Internet as a way to send and receive assignments, marks, or to register for classes. In other words, educational uses are pretty traditional adaptations of older methods to this new means of distributing education.

Blogging, on the other hand, does not really have a traditional educational precedent, and in general is a relatively new trend among most teachers that is just beginning to be used and understood. Some teachers have used blogging for a number of reasons in their classes for a number of years, but the vast majority still do not even know the term, much less its possible educational uses. With educational uses of blogging, there is a definite distinction between using blogging in the regular class environment versus the use of blogging by educators themselves. The two arenas are entirely different in so many ways, but the primary difference is that educators who blog are using it for their own professional career development, not as another online application for teaching purposes.

This type of educational blogging normally is only used by college/university level educators, since they are usually involved in the old "publish or perish" conundrum, which is not something that teachers in the earlier grade levels normally need worry about. So let’s discuss the two types of educational environments and blogging separately, beginning with blogging by teachers in the classroom and then blogging by educators for their own academic reasons About the Author No author information available.

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