Blogging in the Classroom

Blogging is simply the publishing of a personal website or online journal that contains opinions,

reflections or comments about a specific topic or a range of topics. With millions of traditional blogs available online, and the popularity of many micro-blogging based social networking sites like Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram, there is a good chance that blogging, in one form or another, is something that your students are not only familiar with, but are already doing. It’s time we harness that energy in the classroom to facilitate learning, engage students, and provide an effective platform for self-reflection and collaboration among teachers. 

Blogging for Learning

Blogs provide an excellent outlet for students to demonstrate their understanding of course content and concepts. For example, students can post or link to digital research papers, current events, special interest topics, or additional resources, such as pictures and embedded or linked multimedia content. Those visual resources make blogs more appealing and help classmates with lower literacy skills.  

Blogs also lend themselves well to a divide and conquer (jigsawing) strategy of covering some topics.

Creating and maintaining a class blog over the course of the semester or year can provide a great way for students to review when it comes time for a unit test or year-end exam. Design a rotating schedule where each week, a few students are responsible for creating one or more blog posts that cover the important concepts, naturally written in kid-friendly language, learned that week. Over the course of the class, students will have easy access to a central location with all the important concepts learned throughout the course.

Blogging for Engagement

• Freedom with visual design encourages ownership.
• Student control over the content is an excellent way to get students excited about contributing to their blog.
• Allow students the opportunity to align their blogs according to their interests.
• It is a great outlet for outspoken students and the quieter ones as well.
• Kick it up a notch and have students visit, read and leave comments on each other’s blog posts. Feeling like no one is listening can kill blogging enthusiasm, but having a thoughtful comment from someone on a post can be a catalyst for sustained involvement and improved quality. 

Blogging for Teachers

Teachers can also benefit from blogging. At blogging’s fundamental core is journaling. Teachers can create blogs as a vehicle for self-reflection. They can be used to review effective (or ineffective) strategies and resources. When finished with a post, links can be easily forwarded to colleagues who may benefit from the information. Additionally, teachers can create and maintain blogs with multiple authors and each make their own unique contributions. At a time when teamwork and collaboration are highly valued and expected, blogs offer a powerful tool for teachers to utilize.

Important/Helpful Tips

• Blogger.com is the largest blogging site and since it is owned by Google; students within Asheboro City Schools already have access to it within their Google apps.
• Security is an important issue to be aware of when having students post content online. Require students to not publish any identifying information in their posts or comments. Additionally, blogs can be removed from the results of search engines, meaning the only people with access would be people provided with a direct link.
• Set expectations from the beginning about what is to be included and not included in each blog post and reply comment. Regularly check blogs and comments to verify compliance.
• It is important to make sure students fully understand how to navigate their blog dashboard before moving forward. Some students who don’t understand will inevitably create a different blog for each one of their posts.
• Have a central place open to all students where they can go to access their classmates’ blogs. The links provided should be to the student’s main blog page and not to a certain blog post.
• Be organized, especially if you are creating a class blog that will have lots of content and will likely require searching. Create tags to apply to each post so that posts are grouped together within categories and can be easily found. For example, a post on the trial of Socrates gets tagged “Ancient Greece”.
• I am not the top expert, but if you have questions, you may email me at jfaircloth@asheboro.k12.nc.us and I will do my best to help where I can. 
• For further study on blogging in the classroom, check out this post: "Blogging Beyond One Classroom" 

Josh Faircloth

AHS Social Studies Teacher 

AHS Literacy Leadership Team Member


Image credits: http://bizgovsoc2.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/blog.gif

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