Blogs and Their Potential in the Classroom

The ‘global’ and ‘far reaching’ attributes of the internet now allow students to participate in an exciting and engaging learning environment. Whinch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl and Holliday (2010) state that the integration of internet into the curriculum is an important step in which teachers should take in order for students to develop skills in areas such as literacy. Blogs are ‘web pages’ in which contain ‘diary-like entries’ and are displayed in reverse sequential order. I personally believe that Blogs offer great potential in getting students to engage, collaborate and participate in a deep learning experience.  

So let’s have a comprehensive look at the positives, negatives and implications of integrating the use of a blog in teaching primary school students. The following strategy of a PMI (Pluses, Minuses and Implications) will be implemented so that a warranted resolution can be drawn.

Plus (Positives)	Minus (Negatives)	Implications (Potential outcomes whether positive or negative)
An up to date learning tool	You must have internet access (for any at home activities and regional schools?)	Uses many forms of multimedia, video, images and web pages
You are the author	You must be computer literate	Informal and non-traditional way of learning
You decide on a topic that interests you as a learner	Comments on blogs can be negative or inappropriate	Allows feedback from other students and the teacher
Global social practice	Chance of ‘bullying’ or internet misconduct	Heightens and encourages collaboration of students
Engaging activity	Time consuming	Greater chance that students will learn more efficiently due to the consideration and application of all learning styles. E.g. More visual, linguistic or interpersonal attributes of different blogs will appeal to students with similar learning styles
Share  ideas and knowledge		Allows reflection to occur which requires the student to engage in complex processing skills. For this to occur, the student must have good skills in analysis, evaluation and synthesis.
Easy access to others perspectives and ideas
Teacher is able to carefully scaffold (behind the scenes structure exactly what they want as learning outcomes)

For further information on PMI Charts click here!

By evaluating the above table we can see that the positives of using Blogs as learning facilitators literally out way the negatives. It is important to note that Blogs must be learner-centred and this is achieved by the guidance of activities by the teacher. By using thinking tools or deliberately structured questions, the teacher is able to shape student’s thinking and guide them through the required learning experience. Very sneaky! It can be concluded that Blogs would be excellent in the higher year levels of primary school students, and can be implemented as tools in which creative writing, assessment tasks and group work can be based on.

References:

Fasso, W (2012). EDED20491 - ICT's for Learning Design: Study Guide. Rockhampton, Qld: CQUniversity, Australia.

Winch, G., Johnston, R., March, p., Ljungdahl, L., Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy (4 ed.). Oxford, South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press