Using Blogs in Education - an overview

Benefits

I believe the key idea behind using blogs in education is that they offer students and teachers an

AUTHENTIC WRITING EXPERIENCE

Last year I attended an ALEA Conference at which the wonderful Mem Fox spoke about how to get students interested in writing; she felt that students need to know that they have a genuine audience for their writing as well as a genuine purpose.  Writing a short story or essay for your teacher counts for neither!

Blogging, on the other hand, is one of the amazing new opportunities available to every Tom, Dick and Harry to be published.  Clearly that's not always a great thing, but it helps to remember that blogging has the potential to reach out to people who have exactly the same interest in foods beginning with the letter 'C' as you do.... Isn't the idea that we've all got a story in us?  We just need an audience to hear us out.  And we know for sure that our kids have plenty of opinions to offer!

So that, to my mind, is the most exciting reason to use blogs in the classroom.  Here are a few more great reasons:

• They give students the opportunity to communicate and collaborate with people outside their usual sphere (including beyond geographical borders)
• They improve student motivation for writing
• They give students opportunity for feedback outside of the classroom (you know how they don't always listen to what you have to say?)
• They facilitate all of those 21st century skills that we're trying to build: collaboration; media literacy; technology skills; constructive critiquing; digital citizenship;personal reflection.....

How To...

Just sign in to Blogger like I did!  I didn't read any instructions; I just keep mucking around with it and see what I can come up with.  But for a bit of information:

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