Well.... Cambridge Dictionary states that a blog is "a diary (= regular record of your thoughts, opinions and experiences) that you put on the Internet for others to read and which often contains links (= words or pictures that connect to other places on the Internet)". I fully agree with this. Whether people blog for educational purposes (like myself) or whether they want to share what they have been upto, it is all a way of sharing things on the internet with other people.
We learn from others, but this does not necessarily mean that we have to be face to face with people to learn from them. We can learn from their thoughts, opinions and perhaps research that they place online. BBC reported 3 years ago that blogging was starting to be used for academic purposes. It is another communication tool between lecturers and students, but I feel this can be used within a classroom as well. A blog can be set up by the teacher that directs perhaps tasks or homework that the pupils are to feedback usign comments. The only issue I see with this, is that they do not use it in the correct way. A lesson would be needed to teach the pupils what is meant to go in a blog and perhaps how the class is using it, if in a different way from others. I would make the pupils aware that anyone can see this, and in this case I would tell them not to put their name on their posts. Although pages can be made private, I would prefer to not have an issue arising.
Although I would use blogging for educational purposes, I think pupils would need to be aware that blogging can be used for personal purposes also. Pupils need to be taught how to do this safely and that this should be shared with parents. I feel that blogging should be shared with parents, both for academic and personal purposes. Parents should be able to be a part of the child's learning.
At university, we communicate with our tutor/lecturers in a variety of ways. (Email, Blogger.com, facebook, blackboard etc. ) Email is good for communicating quickly but I feel that blogger is much better for giving my views and opinions about education.
I believe blogging is good both educationally and personally, and is a good tool for both reflecting and learning from.
5 comments:
A well written post with good links to further information related to blogging.
I completely agree with everything you have said as blogging has many advantages. I think that blogging makes people more aware of their own opinions (as you have said) and will help us to be "reflective pracitioners"! I think children would enjoy blogging but also feel that they would have to be taught how to use it educationally and personally.I love the picture of little Tommy blogging at such an early age! Haha
Hello Rebecca,
Firstly well done! Love your picture visual stimuli, great idea!
*Your knowledge is extensive and it is obvious you have researched.
*You give your own point of view which allows readers to see where you believe the benefits are of blogging.
Nice overall piece :)
This is a very good reflective blog, you have suggested ways in which you would use blogger in the classroom. Links have also been given to provide readers with further information, well done.. keep up the good work!
Your discussion on blogging is good.You make the case for allowing parents to access their children's blog. Parental involvement is high on the education agenda, see the Parentsl Involvement Act 2006.
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