Within my professional learning community, my colleagues and I have been having a lively discussion about the purpose and value of blogs. So I was looking over my blog here, which I inaugurated on November 18, 2012. In the little over two years since I first started my blog, I have published nearly 300 posts. To date, I have attracted over 24,889 page views. I've been told this is pretty impressive, so I thank all my readers! I love to write about great teachers, and I hope that my posts and books will inspire respect for educators, and also reinforce a passion for the profession from current practitioners.
Even though my favorite thing to write about is remarkable teachers, it seems that the posts that garner the most response are the ones that offer tips and hints about how teachers can build upon their own practice. So this post is an offering in that vein.
Almost everyone is already aware that the use of blogs for personal, professional, and educational purposes has exploded in recent years. In 2015, 6.7 million people published blogs on blogging sites, and 12 million people blogged via some sort of social network. Today, 31% more individuals are blogging than were publishing three years ago. It has been noted that approximately 70% of American students under the age of 18 are writing blogs. If you would like to read more statistics about blogs, click on this article: 10 Interesting Key Facts and Figures about Blogging.
As you can expect from teachers, most of the conversations I've had with my colleagues have revolved around how blogs can be used productively in the classroom. There are so many possibilities to use blogs as an effective instructional tool! Some of the purposes we discussed include providing opportunities for educators to personally reflect on teaching experiences, to provide tips and strategies to other teachers, to record lesson plans and other curricular materials, and to explore issues and topics important to the profession. You can use the platform to keep parents informed of your instructional program. You can create an online book club for your students, or post assignments, writing prompts, or online readings for students to react to. You could showcase your students' writing, art, and projects. You could build a class newsletter and record your students' activities, posting photographs and videos of them in action. Using blogs, students can express opinions about class readings or current events, complete class writing assignments, put together an online portfolio of their work, or showcase products of their project-based learning, all for a pre-determined audience: just the members of the class and their parents, groups of students in other schools, or even the world at large. This real-world application of the technology falls in line very nicely with Common Core State Standards---which is a genuine benefit. To read a first-hand account of a teacher successfully employing this strategy in her classroom, click: Blogging in the the 21st Century Classroom.
I've included here a ten-minute YouTube video to help you further explore the practice of classroom blogging. I selected this particular video because it was concise and relatively short, offering a brief overview of the history of blogs, the uses of blogs in general, how blogs can be used in the classroom, and examples of some blogs that are relevant to professional educators. I also liked it because it is a more polished and professional production than something created in an individual's bedroom.
Blogging---and other social networking tools---are becoming one of the most powerful tools a teacher can employ in their instructional program. But why is this the case? I can say from personal experience that part of the lure of blogging is the idea that people out there are interested in reading my thoughts and ideas. When I published my first blog post, I was excited by the idea that my online "voice" would be read by others, and that they would respond with comments of their own. I was pretty disappointed when, the first month or so, I had no readers at all, and zero responses. Writing is hard work, and blogging on a daily basis is an immense commitment! But I continued to plug away at it, and gradually my daily readership grew. It has come to the point now that I feel an obligation to my readers to publish at least once or twice a week. I can't let them down! Imagine how excited your students will be when they publish their classwork and projects online---they have a built-in audience ready and waiting: the other members of your class---and the feedback from their peers will quickly pile up. Furthermore, experts say that one of the best aspects of blogging is that the relative anonymity of online publishing gives a voice to the student who might not otherwise contribute to the academic conversation. How exciting would it be if your students came to feel motivated to write for their audiences daily or even weekly, just like I did?
Blogging is just one of the social media tools that can be used to enhance learning. Experts agree that the teacher who recognizes and employs blogging and other social networking strategies is tapping into extremely potent implements for learning. In the seven-minute video below, educator Don Olcott, Chief Executive of the Observatory of Borderless Higher Education in London, England, discusses the efficacy of social networking tools to facilitate learning in the classroom:
Finally, a really great resource to consult for more information about this topic is a nifty little book called Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson (Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Publishing, 2010).
If you are not yet using blogs in your instructional program, I hope that now you will feel motivated and confident enough to give it a try!
Sources:
Anurag. "10 Interesting Key Facts and Figures About Blogging." Quickrpost. February 5, 2015.
http://www.quikrpost.com/4487/10-interesting-key-facts-and-figures-about-blogging-bloggers-should-know/
Keller, Lee, and Cavenaugh, Kim. "Blogs in Education." Palm Breeze Cafe. January 20, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7XiCg_wpzE
Lampinen, Michelle. "Blogging in the 21st-Century Classroom." Edutopia. April 8, 2013. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/blogging-in-21st-century-classroom-michelle-lampinen
Olcott, Don. "Facilitate Learning Between Students." Penn State World Campus. August 16, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO0FE4125ak&list=PL10135682177CBD2D&index=51
Richardson, Will. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Publishing, 2010.
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