Skip to main content

"6 Reasons Why Students Should Blog"

What is the ideal transformative learning activity for students to demonstrate and share their knowledge?  I say it's blogging, and here are six reasons why:


Graphic from Langwitches.org - Silvia Tolisano
  1. Blogging provides opportunities for students to demonstrate creativity and innovation.  They are able to express themselves individually or as a team. Students can identify trends, forecast possibilities, and communicate new ideas, products, or processes. (NETS-S #1) National Education Technology Standards
  2. Students can use blogs to communicate and collaborate with others. Blogs provide evidence of student learning and blogs support the learning of others. Blogs provide a means to interact with, and share, various forms of digital media. Blogs also connect and engage learners from different cultures. Blogs can be published solutions to problems, or summaries of completed projects. (NETS-S #2)
  3. Planning, research, ("Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media") and accuracy are necessary to publish blog posts that are respected and shared by a potential world-wide audience of learners.  Meaningful blogs illustrate the student's ability to process information and report sound conclusions.  (NETS-S #3)  
  4. Critical thinking and decision making are needed to plan, research, and manage projects, or solve problems.  These processes can be documented and shared in blogs.  Blogs provide a digital pathway for students to make informed decisions, compose diverse perspectives, discuss multiple processes, and suggest alternative solutions to problems.  (NETS-S #4)
  5. Blogs provide opportunities for supervised students to practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.  Blogs can help students model and promote digital citizenship, and demonstrate ethical use of web-based technologies.  Blogs can provide a platform to spark and support lifelong, connected learning.  (NETS-S #5)
  6. Blog writing helps students to understand technology concepts, systems, and operations.  Transferring existing knowledge to learning new applications can be demonstrated through blog writing.  Blogs help personalize learning for students. (NETS-S #6)  
In summary, blogs provide transformative learning opportunities for students by creating a platform for research, investigation, higher level thinking, decision-making, and reflection. As you can see, blogging helps to address NETS standards for students. This experience comes full circle as evidence of learning is shared with others. Students can assume increased responsibility for their learning as they write and connect with others who share their interests and passions.


Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay - Powerful Learning Practice, Shelley Wright

Teacher Checklist for Blogging Projects - Teaching the iGeneration, Solution Tree

Don't Hide Yourself Online - The Innovative Educator

Five Reasons Why Students Should Blog - +George Couros 

6 Positive Effects of Blogging in Kindergarten - Sharon E. Davison

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Teachers Can Learn From Effective Coaches

In my educational world teaching and coaching involve the same processes. The people that impacted my own learning most significantly were coaches. Could it be that great coaches were ahead of their time with respects to instructional best practices? Let's take a look at ten coaching practices that thankfully have found their way into the classroom. http://www.coachwooden.com/files/PyramidThinkingSuccess.jpg Standards-based Grading - coaches aren't concerned with arbitrary measures of success such as letter grades. Great coaches identify a requisite set of skills that are necessary for advancement and success. Promotion and achievement are based upon clearly identified levels of skill mastery.  Authentic assessment - coaches are looking for their athletes to demonstrate their skill mastery under game-like situations. The best coaches incorporate game simulations and competitive, game-like drills into their practices. Winning coaches will use the contests as assess...
Post a Comment
Read more

Self-Directed vs. Self-Determined Learning; What's the Difference?

"We need to move beyond the idea that an education is something that is provided for us, and toward the idea that an education is something that we create for ourselves." - Stephen Downes In this age of abundance of information, shifting classroom pedagogy isn't nearly enough to make learning in school more relevant and authentic for the learner. Self-directed learning ( andragogy ), and self-determined learning ( heutagogy ) are the ideals necessary in making students " future ready " to live and learn in a web-connected world. While original research applied these concepts to mature learners, it has become apparent that even young children have an abundant capacity for recognizing and directing their learning. Anyone who has observed toddlers learning how to walk and talk understand the motivation and skill development that quickly develops during these processes. Considered by some to be on a learning continuum, self-directed learning, and self-determined ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Board Games in the School Library: 3 Reasons Why It's a Winning Play

"Play is the highest form of research."  - Albert Einstein “Play is the work of the child.”  – Maria Montessori In our recently remodeled school media center, we have a space dedicated to active engagement in fun learning activities. Part maker space, part literacy lounge, board games are being incorporated to promote a culture of joyful learning. Whether it's a game of Rummy , Yahtzee , or Scrabble , family game night serves as a communication elixir and solidifies our domestic climate of togetherness. Shouldn't similar opportunities for interaction, challenge, and fun exist somewhere in our schools? Broken families, cultural fragmentation, and poverty are impacting opportunities for children to play. As we unpacked and tagged our new media center games, I was more disappointed than shocked by the number of students who had never played Monopoly , Boggle , or Sorry . One skeptical teacher commented, "Oh great, now we're letting students pl...
2 comments
Read more