Blogging: A New Classroom Teaching Strategy

The school is said to be the child’s second home and in that sense, classroom activities are expected to be within the students’ realm of experience. They have to feel comfortable and at home while in the class. But how could that be possible? The thrust of teachers is to make learning an enjoyable one. Every day, teacher seeks to come up with effective classroom strategy so as to foster the interaction in the class between the teacher and students. Teachers have gone out beyond their resources and try to find new ways to enhance the teaching – learning process in the class. Thus, with the advent of ICT and technology itself, one strategy that has become very known for classroom interaction is blogging.

What is Blogging? This sounds a new-fangled craze among traditional teachers in the teaching arena. For the new generation teachers however, blogging is not a new thing. When internet became very popular, blogging has also become one of the users’ forms of communicating and airing out their sides, ideas and opinions. There have been many descriptions for what blogging is and means. In its simplest form a weblog or blog is a web site where its content is authored by an individual or group of individuals. Commonly, a blog is a website where an individual writes about his topics of interest. So in its very fundamental form, blogging is a legroom where people can easily create topics on the web. Users need not know HTML code or any other code to post content on a blog. Blogging software is based on a server, but once it is set up people can create an account and then add their own content. One way to think of a blog is a two way street between the content creator, and their audience.

With Blogging, as with other technologies, the questions posed by those who found blogging a hard task and additional burden for teachers seem to be: “Why should we be doing this?” or “What makes blogging an effective way to teach students today?”
There are quite a few reasons why we may want to engage our students in using a blog or similar tools. Some teachers are using blogs to build learning communities, improve interest in their content areas and enhance learning.

The very nature of blogging lends itself to students becoming engaged in reading and writing. Blogging is not simply an online diary; it can be structured around activities that lend itself to using a blog. Personally, I have been using “blogging” in my Reading, Speech, Language and Literature classes for about two years now and I find it fascinating both for me and my students. I post readings or literary pieces, if not links, where questions are also provided. All they have to do is post their comments or answers then search for links that would justify, help and support their answers.

Browsing and surfing the net as the “in” thing in this generation plus the accessibility of Wi-Fi almost everywhere make school tasks, activities and assignments easier as these classroom stuffs can actually be done and catered online. Teachers nowadays have a better option of making their students write their assignments. These can also be done in other subjects like Science, Math, Filipino and other subjects as well. So basically, these situations allow students to begin connecting what they are doing in separate classrooms, thus allowing them to begin to see the interconnections between different disciplines.

Blogging can also be used for a reflecting purpose. Since blogs can be organized by date and subject students can see how their ways of thinking have changed over time. Looking out on the web we will see some people that use their blog strictly for this purpose. Sure some of them may be computer geeks, but our students are now becoming more and more comfortable with computers, so the sense of blogging being geeky may only be for the older crowd.

Student portfolios have been around for a long time. In fact, most teachers nowadays, if not all, require students to submit a portfolio that is, a collection of their work while in the class which is of course to their own advantage. By doing so, students are trained to make their own personalized portfolios where they would put all their accomplishments, achievements, experiences and learning process. This undertaking is very useful for their future. However, again, with the advent of technology companies no longer simply want a paper copy of a portfolio that they can look at during one’s interview. In today's world, employers want to have a website of an applicant’s work. So with blogging, this gives students an advantage of being able to show their work and progress as students, as well as giving them the ability to create a site of their own in the future is an indispensable skill. As a teacher imagine being able to see what a student, that is now sitting in your classroom on the first day of school, has done in prior classes. This could have a real impact on what it is we are truly teaching students.

Accordingly, blogs which people create for communication and journaling can be used effectively as a teaching tool to reach and react with a target audience. They are changing teaching and allowing different learning practices. Here are pointers taken from a blog site which suggests 5 ways a blog can be used as an effective teaching tool in everyday classes.

The first advantage of teaching using blog is that its location and timing of learning itself. When using a blog to post links to resources, assignments and communications to students, students will not be tied to location or a time schedule for learning. This advantage allows students who are busy with work, sports and other commitments to read and understand content that they respond to outside of the physical classroom. This is a new way of thinking for teachers who are used to time and course restraints. The learner becomes much more independent. Teachers are also not dependent on technology that might malfunction during a set time period. If a computer or audio system is down, learning or posting can be done at a different time.

Another advantage of blogging is that learners become content suppliers or input providers. Learners become participants in deciding the content. Teachers are used to being the suppliers of content. By using a blog, students can direct what they want to learn. If peers are blogging with each other and experts, they may find links or information that they are interested in learning about, that goes beyond what the curriculum defines as the requirements. Learning will be more demand-oriented.

Instead of the teacher being the only presenter of content, the teacher can use experts or people who are closer to a situation to deliver content. Since there are millions of blogs for gaining information, there can be many views provided. There may be a new or personal perspective that you can't gain from history books. Students might want to know how people feel presently about the past wars.

Thirdly, blogging increases learning motivation. Blogging allows for students to be more motivated learners. On the pyramid of effective teaching styles, lecturing or talking is the least effective method of student learning. People learn by engaging in a topic, reviewing a topic, or teaching about a topic. If teachers want to show a video, demonstrate a hands-on experiment or show a virtual field trip, they can do this on a blog that a student can view at their own time. Students can teach others. A student will have a chance to reflect on the presentation before they respond. The reflection time may produce a more complete understanding of content.

Next, blogging increases communication competencies. Students will learn to communicate clearly because of the medium for posting responses. By practicing phrasing questions and comments clearly, the students will develop effective styles of communication. Students will need to post questions such as "what keywords would I use to search about..." rather than "what does that mean?" Journal writing is one form of writing. Expressing yourself without face to face contact means you must have good grammar and punctuation to make your message clear. Students will get practice using skills they'll use regularly in our world of text communication.

Teachers who want to teach effective communication and achieve clarity can direct students to resources. They could provide links to sites such as how to write bibliographies, and sites with clear definitions or effective podcasts. Teachers will have to demonstrate effective communication themselves to be role models. Clarifying what is required, posing clear questions, and responding quickly will be necessary for teachers and students.

And fifth, blogging promotes collaborative learning. Collaboration will become more common. Teachers will rely on others to present accurate content and links. Experts such as professional artists, writers, scientists, journalists will have different perspectives on a topic and could provide a more complete lesson than the teacher alone. Peers will rely on each other for advice and information. "Where did you get that?" or "send me that link" would be common messages posted.

Teachers will be able to collaborate with other teachers in education who can provide current, better or more unique materials for teaching and learning. They can add lists of blogs that they are following to their blog. Collaborative content is exemplified in sites like Wikipedia where definitions are provided by many and updated as more information is obtained. Students will see that insights and information change over time and does not remain static.
This and other teaching strategies would foster dynamic interaction between teacher and students, as well as live up to the expectations of the new trend of teaching in the 21st century classroom, a more learner-centered, interactive and dynamic teaching – learning process.
So, let’s blog!

Source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1644306/blogging_five_advantages_of_teaching_pg3.html?cat=4