REFLECTION 1
WEEK 3: BLOGGING AS A CLASSROOM TOOL
It has been made clear just how useful and beneficial digital pedagogies are in secondary schooling and through my reflection of week 3, I now understand the positive role that blogs can play in students' schooling lives.
Blogs are a safe, customisable and easy platform that both educators and their learners can utilise to approach all aspects of learning. The effectiveness of blogs in the classroom is further backed up when applying the technology to the SAMR model, Blooms Taxonomy and made clear through the Explicit Teaching Model. This blog post aims to explain what blogs do, explore how they are used, important technical considerations and the protocols for proper legal, safe and ethical use of blogging. Finally, I will give some specific examples to how blogs can be used in the classroom and apply these examples to the frameworks mentioned above.
Blogs allow for posting and editing for a variety of information such as opinions, personal stories, reflections and more. Reader engagement is encouraged in blogging through the ability to comment and provide feedback and are updated frequently by authors, as opposed to the static nature of websites (Djuraskovic, 2018). As a reader of a blog, you are shown the most recent post first and this is because blogs are in reverse-chronological order (University of New South Wales, 2018) meaning blogs support and encourage author's frequent, often scheduled postings.
While blogs are usually designed for one author per-post, they can be utilised as a multi-user platform. Aforementioned is the ability to comment, this means that students are able to work collaboratively by both offering and using feedback to develop their own learning. This feature of blogs means that teachers are now not the only valuable source of feedback where students can work based on the highly beneficial peer-to-peer learning.
The customisable nature of blogs mean that the options in settings are abundant to ensure the author can produce a blog that suits its purpose. Students are given a more learner-centred approach where the way in which they can present their response to tasks on blogs are numerous. Blog settings usually allow change of user information and formatting of posts but more importantly for the classroom; privacy settings, mediation of comments and blocking of coarse language/adult content.
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| Side bar menu making navigation easy |
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| Search function - allowing quick access to specific posts |
Blogs are easy to use and navigate, meaning initial utilisation in the classroom won't take too much time with set-up and learning to use the technology. Most blogging platforms give easy to follow instructions (WPBeginner, 2019) so that students can set them up outside of the classroom and therefore not take away from fundamental learning time.
There are an abundance of platforms that can be used for blogging, such as:
Some basic computing skills are necessary such as word processing (use of bold, italics, general keyboard uses) and an understanding of the internet, but a large portion of the student generation come to the classroom already having these skills.
Other, more crucial, factors to consider are the legal, safe and ethical protocols of implementing blogging for classroom tasks. Prior to introducing any technology into the classroom, educators must lead a lesson that teaches safe practice. Blogging makes plagiarism easier where copy and pasting is faster than copying out information by hand and therefore legal and ethical practice around citing sources used needs to be taught. In terms of safety, while the ability to share types of media on blogs is educationally beneficial, students must understand the dangers of posting photos of themselves in their school uniform or out the front of their house, or more seriously, sharing inappropriate photos online. Lessons about online safety must also cover the dangers of disclosing personal information such as their full name, private email addresses, their living location or the school they go to.
Some great resources to use during these lessons:
Some further resources that might be interesting to educators considering using blogging in their classroom:
The SAMR model for educators by Dr. Ruben R. Puentedura highlights the ways in which technology can be used at school. The infographic shows how SAMR can be applied in conjunction with Blooms Taxonomy to ensure higher-order thinking skills are used within the classroom.
Some examples of how blogging can be applied to the SAMR model:
Substitution: The blog is only used by the teacher for sharing tasks and assignments instead of hard-copy handouts. The blog post only includes text.
This is an example of "I do" from the Explicit Teaching Model where the teacher is the sole source of information.
Augmentation: A blog is used by the teacher for sharing tasks and assignments instead of hard-copy handouts however how-to videos are embedded for students to watch or links are included for students to explore. This is can be an example of "I do" or "We do" from the Explicit Teaching Model, where the teacher is still the sole source of information regarding the specific task, however students are able to watch videos, click links and explore online resources that the teacher has linked.
Modification: Students post responses to tasks set and collaborate with one another through the use of commenting. After feedback is read, students can go back and modify their blog postings. This is an example of "We do" or "You do" from the Explicit Teaching Model where the students are still responding to specific teacher tasks that have been set, however they are free to explore other student's work and participate in peer-to-peer learning through comments and peer-feedback.
Redefinition: The blog posts are open to people across the globe where communities outside of the local area are able to connect and communicate. This opens up opportunity for a range of perspectives on the one concept or task. This is an example of "You do" from the Explicit Teaching Model where students are completely free to contribute their ideas and select what they learn based-on perspectives outside of the local community.
This video gives a brief but visual breakdown of the SAMR model.
As has been made clear, I would strongly suggest that all educators utilise blogging in their classrooms due to the technology's ability to have students completing tasks in a different, more collaborative way.
References
Djuraskovic, O. 2018. What is a blog - The definition of blog, blogging and blogger. Retrieved from https://firstsiteguide.com/what-is-blog/
Puentedura, R.R. 2019. Ruben R. Puentedura's blog. Retrieved from http://hippasus.com/blog/
University of New South Wales. 2018. Blog, wiki or forum - Which should you use?. Retreived from https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/assessment-blog-wiki-or-forum-which-should-you-use
WPBeginner. 2019. How to choose the best blogging platform in 2019 (Compared). Retrieved from https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-choose-the-best-blogging-platform/
Awesome blog Breanna! Its given me a few ideas to add to my blog! The theme you have used is classy and the formatting of your blog is clean and easy follow. You have provided numerous sources to add credibility to what you're saying. The only room for improvement might be to consider being more specific with your SAMR examples; however, its a super blog. I think there might be a typo/extra word in the 'Modification' paragraph where you say: "...are free to explore other student's work and give participate in peer-to-peer learning..." I'd delete the word 'give.' Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Brad! I really appreciate your thorough feedback (:
DeleteGreat post, Breanna! Your thought-out structure makes it easy to follow and your images are very engaging. I look forward to reading your posts in the future!
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