BP2_2010051_EducationalBlogging

Blogs are much more than a way to post your favorite cake recipe.  They are being seen as a legitimate tool for educators to use with students.  Blogs can be an extension of writing in the classroom, that combined with the technology component could be seen as a key to learning in a science classroom (Sawmiller, 2010).

There are four areas that I would like to bring out in this post today.  The web has evolved from being a "reference library to today's social, interactive online world" (Duplichan, 2009).  What we have today is a tool that can be used to make our student's learning more meaningful and real. 

Expanding the Classroom-We are no longer confined by the walls of our classroom, there is a world out there that students are eager to engage with.  Teachers may feel confined by standards and assessments to a point where they are afraid to venture forth and explore.  One example of the adventure was written about by Sandy Davey, a Year 7 teacher, from Austrailia that had her students collaborate with students from an American university (Davey, Merrill & Smith, 2009).  

Write to Learn-I have been wondering lately if is that students are just going through the motions to get a grade and have nothing invested in the work they do for classes.  Sawmiller points out in her article that by just posting a blog to the web that they have already expanded their audience from only the teacher to a great possibility of readers.  That someone other than the teacher may be looking at their work takes the stakes up a bit and may get more investment from students.  The caution I would have about this is that there should be expectation setting with the students about the steps they take before posting their writing.  

Collaboration-Whether students are in active collaboration with other students around the world or with students in their classroom, there is now more reason to collaborate.  The collaboration could be as they are writing and editing their post before publishing it to the web.  It could be by reading and responding to comments left by other students.   

Differentiation-Is there a more obvious way for a teacher to differentiate than by letting students create the blog in such a way that fits their learning style.  Figure 1, below, shows various ways that blogs could be used in a science classroom (Duplichan, 2009).  I was excited as I read through the table and its accompanying article, these are fabulous ideas I wished I had come up with.  Differentiation while maintaining the rigor in a classroom is sometimes a challenge, but now I can see that you don't have to give away rigor to differentiate for students.

References: 

Davey, S., Merrill, C. & Smith, W. S., (2009, October). Internationalizing
     technology teaching with blogs and bananas. The Technology Teacher, 22-26.
     Retrieved from ERIC.

Duplichan, S.C. (2009, September). Using web logs in the science classroom.  
     Science Scope, 33-37. Retrieved from ERIC.

Sawmiller, A. (2010). Classroom blogging: what is the role in science learning?.  
     The Clearing House, 83, 44-48. DOI: 10.1080/00098650903505456.