Blogs: A Versatile, Powerful Tool for Teachers

When used effectively as key tasks, blogs are amazing tools for teachers to use with their students. Blogs are versatile like Swiss army knives. They allow students to practice a variety of skills while learning about and questioning course content. Blogs are also like power tools because they amp up what students are exposed to in the course of the discussion. Good teachers, who want to allow students the opportunity for personal expression while interacting with others, will find that blogs can be used to assess content knowledge, in addition to providing additional educational benefits. Blogs are a powerful, multipurpose tool for educators to use with their students.

Theodore Bernstein once said, “If writing must be a precise form of communication, it should be treated like a precision instrument. It should be sharpened, and it should not be used carelessly.” What place will require one to write precisely? The Internet, where anyone in the world can read what has been written. Words need to be chosen carefully in order to convey the intended meaning. The act of blogging will give students the opportunity to sharpen their writing skills. If their thoughts are not conveyed accurately, then a reader is likely to question them in order to gain understanding. Students' writing will require more precision in order to get their points across. Blogs give students the opportunity to practice becoming good writers.

Blogs also allow students to read the opinions of others and to learn about a variety of perspectives. Students will think about and question what has been said, sharpening their critical thinking skills.

Students can connect with people anywhere in the world through their blogs. The teachers are no longer the sole purveyors of information on a topic. Experts may join in a discussion to give insights about their work. The experience from such interactions will motivate many students to want to learn more because the topics take on relevance that may not be apparent within the classroom walls.

All students have the chance to participate and collaborate in the discussion when teachers include blogs in their assignments. The inherently shy students will have equal opportunities to share their ideas ensuring that there is total participation in the activity.

So blogs are a tool that allow students to practice and hone their writing skills, to think critically about the opinions of others, to interact with people with a range of expertise, to gain understanding of the relevance of the subject matter and to participate equally in the discussion.

Contrast the benefits of blogs to assessing students with ScanTron multiple-choice tests or even writing short responses to questions that only you will read. Which tool will you use benefit your students? What's in your teaching toolbox?

Blogger Works for Me!

I chose Blogger as my Blogging platform because it is part of the Google package. I have had an iGoogle desktop for a while now and enjoy the gadgets and theme I have selected. I've used a number of the tools that Google provides such as Google Docs. In order to simplify my life, and not have to learn more passwords, I thought I would give this blogging tool a try. The associated aggregator, Google Reader, was another incentive to use Blogger. The tools work synergistically making use easier. Blogger was also endorsed by Doug Spicher, a tech guru I know.

In today's complicated world, I try to streamline what I do.

Less is More

and

Keep
It
Simple

are my mantras!

Conversational Style Rules!

I know that I will enjoy blogging because I enjoy typing my thoughts. For whatever reason, my brain works better when I write, than when I speak.

This week has held numerous learning curves for the students in the cohort. We've been learning about content in the form of CLT and about applications like del.icio.us, Blogger, and Google Reader.

What struck me this week was the stark contrast between the blogsite:
Creating Passionate Users: Crash Course in Learning Theory by Kathy Sierra and Dan Russell
and the article
Cognitive Load Theory and Instructional Design: Recent Developments by Fred Paas

I completed reading the thirteen pages on the blogsite and thought there is a lot here, I may want to reread this when time permits. There were numerous sections, that if read in the chunks, would be a series of terrific “how tos.” It was a bit much to absorb reading it straight through, but there were visuals, great examples, the text width was manageable and it was written in a conversational style. The information flowed.

Then, I opened the five-page PDF article, which was dense in its appearance. I felt like I was looking at an article written by a professor who was adding to his article quota in order to remain on staff at a doctoral university. The juxtaposition of the two “writings” made the comment in the aforementioned blog absolutely hit home. The blogger said, “Use conversational language. Conversational writing kicks formal writing’s ass.” If it’s true for me, at midlife (or just beyond midlife, yikes) then it must be true for young people who have grown up with the Internet and social writing. The PDF of the article was enough to make me ill, just based on appearance. The fact that the appearance and the academic language contradicted the message of the article is a story for another day. The blogsite was attractive, colorful and written in the conversational style that encouraged me to keep reading.

Lesson learned.