Personal Online Journals=Inspired Classroom Tool

Personal Online Journals=Inspired Classroom Tool

The Article “Blog On”, introduces the idea of utilizing Blogs in a school setting. As stated by the author; typically blogs are seen as personal online journals which elicit commentary and responses on the topic in which the writer writes about. Blogging is a great way to infuse technology into the realm of Language Arts. It encourages critical thinking and expression from students, teachers and parents.

In older grades individual  blogging is seen to be most effective. While in the k-8 grades classrooms blog pages seem to work best. This article focuses on that age group. Teacher Catherine Poling notes that this type of collaborative blogging ties in nicely with the analysis of books the children read. Classroom blogs put the teacher in the back seat and allows students to comment on other students communicated ideas and thought processes. The student then learn from one another and then get inspired to generate great pieces of online works at the same time learning digital citizenship as they comment on these works. She also states that collaborative blogs wherein different classrooms interact with each other prove to be beneficial as well. For example; a 4^th grade classroom can be paired with a high school classroom. The older students act as mentors to the younger ones through a productive online discussion based setting. In Ms. Polings school they utilized a combination of face to face interaction with the collaborative blogging wherein 2^nd graders were paired up with 3^rd grade classes from the same school. The feedback she received from her students was that their excitement in idea sharing grew higher each time a new set of children were injected into their blog system.

She as well touched on staff development blogging. During the day most teachers are segregated from one another and their communication between one another is left to face to face interaction in the lounge or staff development meetings. She states that in her experience teachers express that this communication just isn’t enough to encourage ongoing staff cohesiveness and development. Setting up staff blogging networks allowed the teachers to share ideas and inspire one another in a consistent yet convenient manner.

The background of Ms. Polling is based on her experience as an elementary teacher. These experiences led her to focus on the k-8 levels specifically with limited noting on the high school level. I would have like to have seen more expansion on the topic of older grades and younger grades and how their collaborative blogging helped the older students. Did it increase their sense of responsibility in their online prowess? Did engaging and mentoring of the older students increase their school work and their enthusiasm? I plan on teaching high school and despite the focus on this article being from an lower grade perspective, I took several positive ideas from the piece.

I really love the idea of pairing up children from different age groups and schools. Perhaps at the high school level districts could reach out to local community colleges and inject them as blogging mentors to the high school students. This indeed could encourage many whom never thought of going to college to do so based on their positive online mentoring experiences. I as well like the idea she shared with high school grades being paired with lower grades. This could be very effective for middle school grades. Many middle school students see high school as a potentially scary step. Blogging with high schools could personalize the high school population and put many middle school students at ease. Moreover, it will give high school students a greater sense of responsibility to the world around them by inspiring and connecting with others. 

Beyond the emotional quotient aspect to these blogs, I as well see a valid academic use for the older grades as well. Most high school students roam in cliques. They rarely step outside their circle of friends unless there is an assigned group project. Online blogging would allow virtual sharing of ideas and connecting with other students they normally would never talk to. This opens up and encourages academic ability diversity. They would learn from one another and teach one another. Strong writers would be able to set good examples to those who are less captivated by expressing their thoughts in writing. This in turn I believe will in turn increase critical thinking as well as writing skills. In some cases these blogs could bring about respectful online debates. Academically this will prepare high school students for the emergence of online classes at the college level. These blogs will fine tune their communication ability and create a skill set that will allow them to be very effective in online class settings.

The idea that crossed my mind when reading this is perhaps for the older grades these blogs be opened up to the parents as well? I think it would be great for parents to see what their children have created and how their thought process works. In essence it may allow them a window into what their child is learning and how they are growing mentally. Also I think it would be very cool to connect a United States high school class with one from a different country. They could blog, respond and debate topics that affect everyone in the world. They could learn from one another greatly.

In closing, I very much enjoyed this article and it gave me many ideas in how I can utilize the art of blogging in my future classroom. As a reference to my fellow future and current teachers; here is a great resource worth checking out:http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech217.shtml

Reference:
Polling, C. (2005, March). Blog On. Learning and Leading withTechnology [Electronic version]. International Society for Technology Education, 32(6), 12-15.