Educational use of blogs

Student statement:

"Blogging makes me write more and more often, and I see I'm getting better because I do it."

Blogging can be viewed as a digital copy of the old diary, but with many new opportunities. Bloggers often use the opportunity to publish what they have to say, in the form of images, texts, audios and videos. There are many services for blogging, and you can see some on the webpage: Web Free technology for teachers 


See how easy it is to create a blog 

Here are five reasons why schools should consider blogging. 
(This hyperlink takes you to the textsource).

1. They encourage higher order skills such as reflection and analysis but also encourage reading, writing and collaboration

2. Publishing commentary and entries can lead to peer learning, peer assessment and a sense of ownership, all of which are highly motivational

3. The technology involved is easy to use.

4. They easily support video, audio and other media and file types. Therefore blogs create a very dynamic learning experience and support various learning styles

5. Learning is extended to outside the school environment 

Creating a blog

In school context, blogging is a good way for various learning paths. It allows students to publish textwork, discuss each other's texts and point of view, communicate with teachers and others outside school. Read more about students text creation in the “Dokument om Elevtekster i digitale læringsomgivelser”.


The Swedish magazine “Dator i utbildingen” has an article on how the teacher Ruth Grutas Eiken use blogging in her teaching. She feels that students are challenged in a more active way through blogging.  
Read the article here:
"Verktyg för reflektion och textskapande i skolan" 
Read more about blog creation in the document:
"Å lage en design: Funksjon og form i eLogg". 

- This is an introduction in Norwegian,  its about how to use the blog in school

 
Blogging for everyone

A blog can be individual, set up for a limited group or for an entire class.  Most blogs have integrated tools for feedback, easy setup, automatic archiving, and effective methods to link content from various blogs to one another. This means that blogs are well suited to discuss and present academic content through the whole school year. At the same time blogging can make the students become more aware of the recipient groups.  

These communication solutions can be well suited for differentiated programs in schools, where participants can participate at various levels, and also have insight into what others students are doing. 


Blogging opportunities


In a class we can use blogging, among other things to create a newspaper where the students post text and photos of school activities. Blogging can also present student work in all subjects, and create literature circles where students and teachers can write about and discuss books.

  

        
The students can work more visible and also be responsible for their own personal opinions. When students know that the work they do will be visible to others, it could provide an extra motivation and    positive work on the student's text creation and writing pleasure. Readers can be both fellow students, teachers, parents and others who might be interested in the students work.

When students are using blogs it may well be combined with the wiki. Wiki can give their blog a flexible way to customize the online learning resources. Different parts can be easily linked together by hypertext links through a collective process. This also provides interesting possibilities for selecting of material and presentation of relevant learning materials.

See examples of school/class blogs here:

The Write Weblog  

Blog for 1IFC Bryne vgs07/08


I see blogging in school as a creative and exciting approach. 
Start using the magic tool in school :)