Blogs in Education

Weblogs (or blogs) are easy to update online journals. To see how blogs have been used in education, I entered "education blogs" in several search engines. I found that educators have been using blogs in many different ways. These creative classroom uses have taken blogging beyond use as a personal journal; blogs are being used as tools for communication, instruction, and assessment.
No two classrooms are the same, but neither are any two blogs; blogs can be used in whatever way best suits the teacher’s needs. For example, blogs can be used to communicate with parents about what is happening in the classroom. Updating a blog is much simpler then creating and updating an entire website. Teachers can easily add postings without any knowledge of html, or expensive web publishing software; this makes the blog a powerful communication tool. Blogs also allow students to communicate with people that are not directly in their community. Students could even blog with experts that are on the other side of the world. The global nature of blogs makes them a great way for groups to work together at a distance. I think it would be really fun to share a blog with a classroom in another country; it could be the fast version of "pen pals". In addition to using blogs for communication, blogs can be used to engage students in instruction. Students can read about content information from the blogs of individuals in the field they are studying, which is much more authentic and timely then most textbooks. Also, students can post their work online and members of the online community can comment on their work. The idea that someone other then the teacher is reading their work can be a powerful motivator for students. Furthermore, students and teachers can use blogs as assessment tools, especially self-assessment. In fact, this blog is being used for assessment right now. Students can investigate a topic (like blogs in education) and then reflect on their learning in a blog (just like I am doing now!). Blogs also lend themselves to assessment through portfolios. Students can make postings throughout the term to demonstrate their ongoing learning. The best part of e-portfolios is that they will not get lost, or ruined. So, when a student wants to demonstrate the quality of their work, or a teacher wants to assess the learning of her/his students, they will have it all in one place. The versatility and simplicity of using a blog make it a great tool for any classroom.