Blogging has become an integral part of communication with in the use of the Internet. Duffy and Bruns (2006) state, “… social networking adaptive technologies like blogs, wikis and the RSS process involve students in situations that require them to employ a growing assortment of cognitive skills in order to perform and solve problems in these digital environments” (p. 31). This is how Ray (2006) describes blogging, “A blog can be thought of as an electronic bulletin board that is as easy to create and use as an e-mail board that is as easy to create and use as an e-mail account” (p. 176) Here are several ways in which blogging can be utilized by educators in the classroom. They can be used to communicate, as instructional resources, collaborative tools, and to showcase student projects. According to Bartlett-Bragg, there are a variety of ways to use blogging in education (2003). Group blogs are used to allow multiple students to contribute to a discussion or topic. Blogs can be used to publish student writing. They can be used to create field notes or journals of practical experiences or summary of what they had learned during an activity. Blogs can also be used to present a personal opinion about a subject. Kadjer and Bull (2003) provide an article that describes ways to use blogs to help students who struggle with reading and writing to be more successful. They suggest using blogs for literary activities such as character journals, grammar and revision activities, as well as reinvented activities, such as photoblogs and storyblogs. Glogoff’s article on “Instructional Blogging: Promoting Interactivity, Student-Centered Learning, and Peer Input” (2005) describes how the author has used blogging in his class and provides suggestions on how others can use blogging and technology in their courses. He states that there are three ways in which blogging can be used as an instructional tool. First it can be used as a receptive learning tool for “ … class assignments, reflections and journal entries to extend discussion and foster collaboration” (Glogoff 2005, Receptive Learning section, para. 2). It can be used as a directive learning tool to provide equal access to information and to provide students with information and links of where to find more information on a topic. Finally blogs can be used to guide student discovery on a particular topic. In general all of these articles provide insight into the use of blogging with in education. As demonstrated above, blogging can have a variety of uses with in education and in all content areas.
References
Bartlett-Bragg, A. Blogging to learn. Retrieved July 11, 2009 from the Knowledge Tree website: http://knowledgetree.flexiblelearning.net.au/edition04/pdf/Blogging_to_Learn.pdf
Duffy, P. & Bruns, A. (2006). The use of blogs, wikis and RSS in education: a conversation of possibilities In Proceedings Online Learning and Teachin Conference 2006, pages pp. 31- 38, Brisbane. Retrieved July 11, 2009 from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/5398/1/5398.pdf
Glogoff, S. 2005. Instructional blogging: Promoting interactivity, student-centered learning, and peer input. Innovate 1(5). Retrieved July 11, 2009 from http://studentcenteredlearning.pbworks.com/ f/Instructional+Blogging.pdf
Kajder, S. & Bull, G. (2003). Scaffolding for struggling students: reading and writing with blogs. Learning and Leading with Technology, 31(2), 32-35. Retrieved July 11, 2009 from http://heartlandaeatoc.pbworks.com/f/Scaffolding+for+Struggling+Students+Using+Blogs+and+Wikis.pdf
Ray, J. (Summer 2006). Blogosphere: the educational use of blogs (aka edublogs). Retrieved July 11, 2009 from Kappa Phi Delta Record website: http://eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2 sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/28/f8/de.pdf
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