BP1_2009101_EducationalUsesForBlogs

"I think it’s the most beautiful tool of the world and it allows us the most magic thing..."

—Florence Dassylva-Simard, fifth-grade student (Downes, 2004)

Conveniently enough, I have been doing a bit of research on blogging because my AR project is dealing with how blogs affect student collaboration and student progress in learning. So far, the best article I’ve found was by Zawilinski (2009) and dealt with how to use blogs to promote higher-order thinking. Zawilinski noted that blogging “forces students to go through Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking” (p.3). Although journaling may provide similar opportunities for higher-order thinking, the fact that blogging incorporates open discussion sets it apart.

A concept I hadn’t considered much is the fact that blogging asks the blogger to write for a “world” audience. This may foster new attitudes about writing, as the student is no longer writing solely for the teacher’s eyes (Downes, 2004).

I am excited to see the growth in communication between students through blogging. Emotional growth is often a neglected part of traditional schooling, and technology (prior to Web. 2.0) often gets a bad wrap for isolating the user. Downes interviewed teachers at a Canadian school who have used blogging in their classes. One teacher stated “The students get to know each other better by visiting and reading blogs from other students. They discover, in a non-threatening way, their similarities and differences” (2004). I also appreciate that blogging allows students of both inter- and intrapersonal natures to state their opinions and share their work on the same stage. As one teacher noted, “It puts students in a situation of equity" (Downes, 2004).

I was surprised to read that Professor Richard Long of St. Louis Community College stated that assigned blogging (where there is a prompt) is “contrived” (Downes, 2004). While I understand the concept of freedom in blogging, at what point do we leave our students stranded without structure if we do not offer prompts? Sadly, I don’t believe that most of my school’s population has been taught to think well enough on their own to blog without prompts. Unfortunately, I also don’t believe that we are alone in this. Would Long find it more acceptable to offer a prompt for lower-level students while still allowing higher-level thinkers to write without prompts? I agree with Downes that group blogging is, in essence, a conversation, and I am excited to see the development of my students’ growth through conversation. This concept of growth-by-conversation is also demonstrated by Solomon & Schrum (2007) in the Class Blogmeister tutorial (chart, p. 203).

If we as teachers are charged with the accountability to teach young people to think, it seems only right to put the learning back into the students hands (or in the case of blogging, fingertips) and encourage them to write and connect with one another.

Downes, S. (2004). EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5): 14–26. Retrieved September

29, 2009 from www.educause.edu.

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. International

Eugene, OR: Society for Technology in Education.

Zawilinski, L. (2009, May 1). HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote

Higher Order Thinking. Reading Teacher, 62(8), 650-661. (ERIC Document

Reproduction Service No. EJ839762) Retrieved September 22, 2009, from

ERIC database.