Lake

What is a blog?

“Blogging is the posting of journal-like pages to a website. While these pages can contain photos or media, they are primarily focused on the easy ability to post written thoughts to a website. The postings are organized chronologically. Typically, a blog “post” can be “commented” on by others, allowing for a dialogue on a the topic of the post. Teachers and educators have used blogs to allow for what is commonly called “peer review,” meaning that students can post writings or assignments to the web, and other students can respond or encourage through the comment feature.

“In a broader and more educational system, blogs are about communicating. You observe your experience, reflect on it, and then write about it. Other people read your reflections, respond from their perspectives by commenting or writing their own blog article. You read their perspectives, often learn something through their eyes, and write some more.

Reasons for Blogging

Blogging teaches writing for a public audience, how to cite and link and why, how to use the comment tool in pedagogical ways, how to read web materials more efficiently as well as explore other ways to consider pedagogical uses of blogs. Blogging requires us to teach students to critically engage media. Students need instruction on how to become efficient navigators in these digital spaces where they will be obtaining a majority of their information.
Blogging is educationally sound for teaching students because:

• Blogs provide a space for sharing opinions and learning in order to grow communities of discourse and knowledge — a space where students and teachers can learn from each other.

• Blogs help learners to see knowledge as interconnected as opposed to a set of discrete facts.

• Blogs can give students a totally new perspective on the meaning of voice. As students explore their own learning and thinking and their distinctive voices emerge. Student voices are essential to the conversations we need to have about learning.

• Blogs foster ownership and choice. They help lead us away from students trying to find what the teacher wants in terms of an answer.

• The worldwide audience provides recognition for students that can be quite profound. Students feel more compelled to write when they believe many others may read and respond. It gives them motivation to excel. Students need to be taught skills to foster a contributing audience on their blog.

• The archive feature of blogging records ongoing learning. It facilitates reflection and evaluation. One student told me that he could easily find his thoughts on a matter and he could see how his thinking had changed and why.

• The opportunity for collective and collaborative learning is enormous. Students have the opportunity to read their classmates’ blogs and those of others. This is not possible in a regular classroom setting.

• Blogging provides the possibility of connecting with experts on the topic students are writing.

• The interactive nature of blogging creates enthusiasm for writing and communication.

• Blogging engages students in conversation and learning.

• Blogging encourages global conversations about learning–conversations not previously possible in our classrooms.

• Blogging provides the opportunity for our students to learn to write for life-long learning.

• Blogging affords us the opportunity to teach responsible public writing. Students can learn about the power of the published word and the responsibilities involved with public writing.

Examples of working blogs:

http://room202.edublogs.org/

http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com

Well it seems to have worked. All I need now are the teachers and students to use this blog. It’s not about me! The Polish teachers will be arriving in a few weeks so I want something for them to read and take home to their students.

My blogging experience is only from when I was in India. I was away for the month of March and most evenings I found an internet cafe and wrote an on-line diary with pictures and information. Because I was alone I really enjoyed the challenge. It’s also a permenent record of my trip which I can access at any computer. On a practical level it stopped my friends and family from worrying about me because they virtually experienced the trip alongside me. They left comments and when I finally returned I didn’t have to repeat myself retelling all my experiences because all my closest friends already knew!

If anybody wants to check out my india blog click here

I used blogger.com for my India experience because it was so easy to set up but it is more static and readers can only leave comments. I have decided to use edublogs for educational purposes because it can easily be accessed by other users of your choice, which is excellent for a classroom scenario. I also have an RSS feed active to the edublog site so I can easily check for information and updates on classroom blogging. You can click through to the edublog site on the link on the right of this page.

The thing about blogging is you spend so much time trawling through the internet looking at other people’s, when it suddenly dawns on you you have to try and do it yourself.

The hours people spend doing this seems phenomenal to me. Where do they get the time?!!   I’ve got an RSS feed now to the edublog site, so let the joy and wonders of blogging commence.

Welcome to our brand new blog at Edublogs. I have created this blog to run alongside the Teachers’ Course at Lake from November 10th – 14th.

To get started, simply log in,

Edublogs has great supporting material too! You can view some helpful introductory videos, read through some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.

You can also subscribe to the free publication, The Edublogger, which is jammed with helpful tips, ideas and more.

And finally, if you like Edublogs but want to be able to simply create, administer, control and manage hundreds of student and teacher blogs at your school or college, check out Edublogs Campus… it’s like Edublogs in a box, all for you.