What About Blogs? Are There Any Educational Advantages for Using Blogs?
I love technology! I love learning about advances in technology. I even teach application technology at a local high school in Jacksonville, Florida. I teach because I love that face -to-face interaction. Nothing pleases me more than to see those light bulbs turn on in the face of a high schooler when a technological application concept that I’m teaching finally is comprehended. What a rewarding feeling.
However, people are under the misconception that I spend every waking moment on my computer because I’m a computer instructor. Imagine that, me, a high school teacher, spending time on the computer aside from my job! Truth is, I don’t won’t to touch a computer after I’ve worked all day on it. When computers are your job, there comes a moment when you have to separate the two, from your personal and professional life and that’s just what I do when I get home.
In saying all of that, blogging is not my favorite past time. Though I follow a few blogs, my friends mostly, I had only started one blog for myself prior to working on my Master’s Degree program at Full Sail University in Education Media Design and Technology. I really felt that when I learned of blogging a few years back that I would give it an honest try and see if I would enjoy it as much as my friends and co-workers who had their own blogs. Needless to say, I didn’t get that much excitement from it as my friends did. I guess it was because I didn’t feel that face-to-face interaction with blogging that I needed to survive. Yes, I need people like I need oxygen and blogging did nothing at all to fulfill that need for me! Personally, I’d like to Skype, iChat, or video conference with a friend, colleague, or business associate on a particular subject than blogging online with them. Yet, if that is their preferred method then I accommodate them.
I have though, introduced blogging to my students. I feel that I need to expose them to as many technological advances available to increase their desire to become life long learners especially in the technology arena. Blogs definitely have a place in education although my school district block a lot of the Web 2.0 blogging sites from students. Blogs are useful teaching and learning tools because they provide a space for students to reflect and publish their thoughts and understanding (Ferdig & Trammell, 2004). I’d like to piggyback on what Ferdig and Trammell thought about blogging and add that blogging is also from my perspective, a time travel capsule for future students in that a blog spot becomes a library of powerful information that other students can learn from. Blogs have been used for all types of educational uses; to display art work, to record thought processes in Math, Science, and Social Studies, and I've used them in the past to have my students reflect on how they could use a software application like PowerPoint.
I might not care too much for blogging for myself but I do support blogging for students in particular. Even as long as I can remember, journaling in the classroom has been a part of education. I even remember my elementary to high school years having to keep an in class journal in one of the black and white composition notebooks that were and still is on every teacher’s supply list sent home by a student. Now, instead of using the composition notebooks to keep a daily in class journal (which can be very hard to read at times), we have online blog spots. Online journaling has many advantages; a state-of-the art format that appeals to students, an increase in quality and quantity of student output, and increased potential for teacher-mediated input and the potential for future extensions to include the addition of links to illustrative websites and other options offered by web-based learning (Philleo & Stiler, 2003).
Maybe by the time I complete my Master’s in Education Media Design & Technology, I may have develop a better disposition for blogging on a personal level. Nevertheless, I have always respected blogging, the bloggers, and the advantages of blogging. I look forward to incorporating more outside classroom blogging with my students in the near future since blogging sites are blocked by my school district. The challenge is to find a safe place free from inappropriate advertising for students to blog about educational projects. I think I may have found one; Ning! Ning is an online social network that allows many types of Web 2.0 platforms. Educational platforms that Ning are especially good for is that Ning allows a teacher to create an education platform free from commercials and they offer the removal of such commercials at no cost as long as it is used for educational purposes. Otherwise, it would cost close to $20.00 per month not to have commercials.
References
Ferdig, R.E., & Trammell, K.D. (2004). Content delivery in the 'blogosphere'.
THE Journal (Technological Horizons In Education), 31(7), 12-20.
Stiler, G.M., & Philleo, T. (2003). Blogging and blogspots: an alternative
format for encouraging reflective practice among preservice teachers. Education, 123(4), 789.
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