Blogging in Education: Read It!

I read this interesting article in Educause Review … really a nice overview of the state and origins of blogging in education. As you can see, this is really an early adopter in education trend — one that I hope we can make successful. Take a look at the article and please post your comments. What do you think about the idea? Do you have recommendations for making this work better? Remember, this a grand experiment here, so help me figure it out–>

22 thoughts on “Blogging in Education: Read It!

  1. Super webpage, man. I couldn’t fit this onto my schedule for the Fall semester. Hopefully I’ll be able to get into it in the future!

  2. This seems to be a great idea in theory. However, I think that the 5th and 6th graders are better subjects since they tend to have less to do. College students generally work and have at least 15 credits a semester. This takes up a lot of time and a blog just would not be on my mind after a long day. Bottom line for me is: This is a great idea, but I can’t see myself using this very often. Maybe I’m one of the persons who have not yet learned to make a meaningful impact on society.

  3. I think this gives kids a great opportunity to work with technology and have a wonderful resource at their fingertips. By displaying their work on the World Wide Web, they have an unlimited amount of feedback possible for their work. Hopefully more schools will be able to afford this type of technology and help to their students!

  4. I agree with how this could be very useful for 5th and 6th graders. I’ve been blogging for awhile now, and while I mainly use my blog as an online journal, I still can see how even that sort of use by younger kids could be beneficial. It’s an easy way to spark interaction between people who might not interact as well in person. I will be very interested to see how this works for this course compared to how it worked for the kids in the article.

  5. I am hoping we can all find a way to integrate blogging into this class in a meaningful way. I know the article seems to focus efforts at the 5th & 6th grade leves, but are we really that different? How can this be used effectively in our class?

  6. I’m with some of the other people who have posted comments in regards to the article so far. I think it would be helpful to a class to have something like a blog outside of the class where you can post anything about the class that anyone else can read. It saves sending tons of emails about a class that some people might even delete and not look at altogether. I think having a blog is a good out-of-class resource.

  7. The idea of blogging is new to me. It seems it’s more of a personal/journal setting which may not be the best way to publish work. In my opinion, message boards would be much better suited for the academic atmoshpere. They seem to be much more organized, less personal, and more professional. For instance, boards are usually broken up into catagories. Such catagories could include meeting times, publishing work, brain storming, and class schedules. So, a student or teacher could easily find whatever they are looking for. Although, like I said, I’m partial towards boards because I’ve used them more. It will be interesting to use a new web tool in the classroom.

  8. I think a blog might be a useful tool. A lot of students do not have much experience with critical thinking/writing and this could help them. Also, someone might be more inclined to write on a blog rather than than speak during class time where they might more reluctant to speak out.

  9. I think blogging is a great way for students to communicate with one another. I have blogged a little bit in the past, mainly using it as an online journal with friends. But I’m curious to see how it’ll work in our class compared to that of the 5th and 6th graders.

  10. Blogging seems to be a wonderful way for teachers and students to communicate. It allows the students the ability to feel free to express their thoughts and ideas, especially if they are too shy to express them in the classroom. Given the right guidelines, students will be able to learn more about topics that they are learning about it class and express their ideas with other people that they might never have communicated with. Blogging also helps students to learn more about technology and computer usage earlier on in their schooling. I think that more and more schools will want to try blogging for their students.

  11. The idea of blogging in education was new to me last winter. I taught a Java programming course (http://sc-frontier.surrey.sfu.ca/about) last year and before making the final decision to use a blog I only found a few resources and examples of blogs in education. It looks like educational blogs are fast becoming popular in the classroom.

    We used our blog to post notes, schedules and other information that typically sits on a course management system. The institution we were teaching in does have a cms but it was not flexible so we experimented with a blog–which worked quite well. The only major problem is that a hardware problem erupted on the server and we could not populate the newly installed blog with the backup data. We were using Manila, which worked really well otherwise. Students generally asked questions about assignments, exams, and other administrative items, but a rich discussion did not happen. Perhaps it was the nature of the topic. We posted some helpful links and students made use of that. We also encouraged them to sign up as a member so that they would get important postings from the instructors–there were four of us who essentially taught the course together although we had different sections.

    I would like to see this blog be an exciting place for students (and others) to visit and share their ideas.

  12. I can say that I now have a clear definition of what a blog is (which I am very excited about). It seems to me they originated actually from personal journals but now incorporate links to support personal opinions/comments along with critical opinions on things as world news/issues. I find that extremely interesting for myself having an online journal dated way back to February 10 of this year. It contains several links to topics I discuss throughout my entries but it is nowhere near a blog as we all now know of. “Blogs are, in their purest form, the core of what has come to be called personal publishing.”
    Stephen Downes

  13. Blogging is relatively new to me, but after reading the article, I understand it more. I know people who have used the LiveJournals and I’ve seen them occasionally. They’re a really good way to communicate with others and, as someone else said in an earlier post, to speak up if you’re afraid to in a classroom setting.

  14. I feel like blogging has its beneficial qualities with due to education, but its negative effects far outweigh the beneficial qualities. The lack of social interaction at a young age, moreover at a highly developmental time in the children’s life could lead to a life social awkwardness. While that is a very general comment, making pen pals with boys and girls in Argentina is all well and good but when you’re a pen pal with your peers you haven’t the chance to develop precious life skills. Blogging could result into children becoming ‘that guy’ the rest of their life. Wouldn’t that be tragic?

  15. I have used something close to a blog before in an online class, but the only other time Ive seen anything real similiar is my friends online journals or daily posts. I am interested to see how it works in class and contributes to it. I think itll be real benefitial.

  16. I think blogging can be very beneficial. It help out with getting ideas and discussions in class underway. It is remarkable how younger kids use it. Its sort of a livejournal kind of thing, but more educational. I guess we’ll see how it works

  17. Who is blog, and where is his origin. I think blogging would be a very interesting sport. Interacting online is a great way for communication, especially since we can share our blog with those outside of our class. Although many problems occur when there are people who aren’t very involved with their computer, there is still a great possibility for success, especially in a class similar to IST110.

  18. I think that blogging can be a great communication tool that will allow students to feel comfortable with each other and the teacher. When blogging, everyone is the same. The shy student and the loud student have the same chance to voice their opinion. As well, it’s interesting how blogging can help stimulate a student’s mind long after they left the classroom.

  19. I think I’m going to agree with everybody else. Blogging can be a very benificial teaching tool. Maybe over time, we will see more teaching and education related fields using blogs to help with school work. I don’t know if I personally will pick up on the whole idea, but I guess I’ll find out throughout the the course of this semester.

  20. I’m not sold on the “classroom” use of the blogs. There seems to be a lot of unstructured posts. Just like attendance in class – there is a compulsion to be seen, but this student need leads to repetitive posts.

    Good points, and seemingly a good alternate to email and more importantly, opening and reading email: are a quick way for an instructor or TAs to update course content, make schedule changes, and suggest readings. Polling or Voting. A personal plus – like all blogs or chats you seem to read and build a connection to those that have posted.

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