There are a lot of potential ways in which blogs can be used in the classroom. Solomon and Schrum (2007) said, “Blogs promote open dialogue and encourage community building in which both the bloggers and commenters exchange opinions, ideas, and attitudes” (p. 55). They listed several examples of ways that blogs can be used in education. Blogs give educators a way to share their ideas and present examples of what they’re doing in the classroom. Teachers can create blogs to communicate with students and parents about their class. (My action research is focusing on improving communication between school and home. This is something that I am trying!) Students can post their writing in blogs and then comment on each other’s work as a form of peer review.
Pennay (2009) noted that students are writing every day, on Twitter, Facebook, and in text messages (p. 18). Teachers can use this fact to engage students in their classroom writing as well. Pennay stated that the advantages of using a blog include both the fact that it allows students to do more writing at home and it gives parents the opportunity to read what their sons or daughters are writing and provide feedback (p. 19). He argued that blogging helps students’ writing because it expands their sense of audience, their comments to one another provide examples of good writing, and it allows all students a chance to participate—even those who might be hesitant to speak up during class.
Duplichen (2009) also provided a number of ways that blogs can be used in the classroom, specifically in science. Some of these include: posting a summary of a current event, posting a question for another classmate to answer, answering “what if” questions, debates, posting lab results, and giving study tips to one another. Blogs provide students with the opportunity to collaborate with one another.
Personally, I do not assign much writing in my orchestra class. I am excited to use my own blog to keep parents and students updated on what’s happening in orchestra class, however. A blog makes much more sense than simply updating a web page, because instead of parents having to check the website to see if it’s been updated, they can simply subscribe to the blog and have the updates automatically sent to them. I’d also like to start initiating online discussions with my students. A blog would be a great way to do this. I have some very large classes, and discussions can get a bit unwieldy. I always feel badly that some students may not have a turn to share their thoughts or may not feel comfortable speaking in front of the whole class. I’m excited to hear what these students have to say in an online setting.
References
Duplichan, S. (2009). Using web logs in the science classroom.
Science Scope, 33(1), 33-37. Retrieved from Education
Research Complete database.
Pennay, A. (2009). Techno-literacy: A boon for writing
instruction in the classroom California English,
15(1), 18-20. Retrieved from Education Research
Complete database.
Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New
tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International
Society for Technology in Education.
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