Blog Response

Based on the readings about blogs for this week, and my own research after exploring on the Internet, I feel that they have great potential in an educational setting. There were a variety of points made across the research, and one that I view extremely promising is the room for collaboration that is built into the format and main purpose of a blog. As Richardson points out, “Weblogs truly expand the walls of the classroom. the internet has always provided the possibility of connection students with others outside the classroom via e-mail and chat groups. But now that collaboration can be much more accessible and much more diverse…and learning to work with far-flung collaboratos is becoming an important literacy” (27).  In my own classroom, peer editing would no longer have to be in pairs, or in groups, or even be done IN class – students could post and comment on their peers’ writing. In addition, classmates can easily contribute their own ideas, thinking, and critiques with their classmates and their teacher. This way, students will help build each other’s education while learning how to effectively collaborate, a tool that will serve them well long after they leave my classroom. The great part about learning to collaborate using the blog, is that most students will be in familiar territory – on the Internet typing away. I think Blogs can create a viable way to bridge the gap between out-of-school literacies and in-school ones.

This bridge can be seen in one blog that I came across in my exploring. The blog is called “Write Out Loud” (http://writeoutloud.edublogs.org/) and serves as a host for a 7^th grade ELA classroom. The class has just begun reading The Outsiders and the teacher has posted a video of Stevie Wonder singing “Stay Gold” as well as several prompts for multiple writing assignments the students need to answer via post. Upon further investigation of the posts that students left, I found that students left very thoughtful, honest, and somewhat lengthy responses to the questions posed by the teacher. In addition to these assignments there are also comments of support to one another from student to student either in response to a post, or just in general. I found this to be interesting, that students would mix some of their school work collaboration with their personal lives. Overall, I found this to be a great example of a successful blog.

Another great point about blogs, made by Johnson (2010) discusses the role of blogs in introducing students to authors, perhaps at the beginning of a novel unit. My personal experience with students at the beginning of a novel unit is that they could care less about the person who wrote the book they are about to read. Many students come in with misconceptions that no matter who wrote it, the book will be boring, terrible, heartless drudgery, etc. However, as Johnson points out, blogs can help bring the authors into the classroom in a way that grabs students and forces them (quite pleasantly) to understand that authors have personalities and ideas and rationales for writing what they did, when they did. In this respect I could easily see a blog being useful in my classroom. Posting links to podcasts that the author has created, incorporating a back and forth correspondence with the author (if possible), utilizing videos and graphics are all great ways to get students engaged and interested. As a teacher, I will be attempting to “speak their language” while also staying true to my own lesson plans and my own piece of mind.