The Power of Blogging; Cultivating Learning Connections Through Comments

At this time, some educators have a growing awareness of, and experience with, the personalized learning benefits of blogging. Increased relevancy, digital literacy, and conscientious effort for authentic audiences, are just three of many learning advantages that blogging can provide. Among the most powerful reasons for blogging is the opportunity to engage with communities of learners through social networks.

Whether it's in the classroom, or as part of a learning community, cultivating relationships through social connection takes communication from merely the exchange of information to building empathy, understanding, and collaboration. One way to initiate and cultivate a learning relationship is by commenting on other educators' writing. Additionally, responding to comments is not only a nice thing to do, it also perpetuates the learning conversation and relationship.

Social media tools such as Twitter, Blogger, and Google+ form the foundation of my personal learning network (PLN). Digital tools, mobile technology, and connected networks are fueling my personal learning in ways I never imagined. Specifically, blogging has stretched time and distance with respects to my learning relationships. Here are just a few recent examples of how "Nocking the Arrow" has helped make my learning world quite a bit smaller.

After fifteen years, I was able to reconnect with Penny Potter, my mentor for National Board Certification. She had retired to a quite, private life in Missouri. It was through my posting of a tweet about a reflective blog post in which she was mentioned that we were able to reconnect and reminisce within the comments of the post.

I shared this same post to the Professional Development learning community in Schoology. The post caught the eye of Giuseppe Pelosi, an educator in Italy. We were able to compare teaching experiences through the comment section of the community post. I am looking forward to learning more about life in Italy with Giuseppe's guidance.

Several weeks ago, I was searching for information to help me build an argument for using blogs as digital portfolios. I didn't have to look much further than one of my favorite bloggers, Silvia Tolisano (Langwitches) who was describing her use of blogfolios (coined by Andrea Hernandez) with her students in Sao Paulo. I shared a compliment, and reached out to her for additional information. Silvia, Andrea, and I now connect regularly through blog comments and Twitter.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about a new term that I had picked up in my RSS feed. It was through this post about heutagogy that I was able to connect with Stewart Hase, an original contributor to research on this subject. After reading my post, Stewart graciously invited me to World Heutagogy Conference. Although I can't attend the event, Stewart recently contacted me from Australia about contributing to a collaborative writing project.

All of these opportunities to relate were made possible through the comments section of our blogs. Comments turn a transaction into a conversation. Once again, empathy, understanding, and collaboration enrich the learning process. A valuable way to engage with your personal learning network is to write comments on blogs that you find interesting or helpful. Respectfully disagreeing with the message is another way that learning can be shaped through written conversation.

Blogging can be a powerful learning activity, and as most bloggers will tell you, it is often that what follows in the comments section that provides the most value to the readers and to the writer. You can contribute to deeper and more meaningful learning, as well as, create powerful learning connections by posting comments to your favorite blog posts.

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

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

The Classroom Experiment - Strategies to Promote Engagement and Learning

Dylan Wiliam is a prominent educator in the United Kingdom. His ideas and strategies are consistently mentioned in education reform circles. On an uncharacteristically quiet evening at home, I stumbled across these BBC videos, The Classroom Experiment . Although it took nearly two hours to get through the videos, I came away thinking that the teacher is certainly the most important factor in student learning, and that student learning can be improved with persistence and a willingness to become better at failure. For those folks that feel that teachers can be replaced by technology, these videos suggest otherwise. The Classroom Experiment - part 1 (58:00) The Classroom Experiment - part 2 (59:00) Dylan Wiliam at The Schools Network Conference (38:00) Here is a summary of the strategies and changes that Dylan Wiliam instituted to increase student engagement and advance student learning. No raising of hands - use Popsicle sticks, or some other mechanism to randomize th

Unknown said…

Literally, we're on the same page! This is the power of the web. And, surely, I'm very curious about other school systems, because I think I can learn something from better systems, but also I can find out that mine is not always the worst... There could be something good also here in this strange country... And if we get very well the point of blogging comments between educators, we can also understand the potential of an international blog for students! Well, my pupils may be not so confident with their english, but... We can work it out! Thank you.

April 14, 2014 at 10:32 AM

Robert T. Schuetz said…

Thank you Giuseppe! This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping for. We have several classes of high school students that are interested in "quadblogging" internationally. I love your concept of an international student blog, and I think that there are enough resources out there to help us through the language challenges. This is very exciting! I will send you my contact information via a Twitter direct message. Let's keep this momentum going! Bob

April 14, 2014 at 10:56 AM

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