BP1_2009101_Educational Uses for Blogs

There are so many examples of how blogs are used in education you can spend years exploring them all. If you do see a blog that addresses your educational needs, just start one, it is as simple as that. The educational uses for blogs are only limited to your Imagination. Instructors can use blogs to start discussions on discipline specific topics, instructional tips for students, class administration information, and as a method of providing links to other important information. Students may use blogs as eportfolios as well as a tool for group discussions, coordinating activities, course-based journals for assessment, personal reflective journaling and a knowledge management tool for their own learning and studies. Also, teachers and students can subscribe to RSS blog feeds to stay current with information concerning specific topics. http://www.edtechpost.ca/wordpress/2003/10/09/Matrix-of-some-uses-of-blogs-in-education/

One thing that should be pointed out concerning blogging, as an educational tool is that blogging is not just a fashionable buzzword to fit the times. The development of discussion boards and web blogs are a result of modern technology applications and is based in part on the theory of Social Constructivism. “… only through communications can human life hold meaning. The teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thoughts on them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication”. (Freire 1970)

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/farmer.html.

This quote by Paulo Freire is an example of the importance that is place on the social experience in education. Lev Vygotsky is given credit for providing the basics for Social Constructivism through his theory of the Zone of Proximal Development. One aspect of this theory accretes that student, with help from adults and other students who are more advanced, master concepts and ideas that they cannot understand on their own. Technology provides essential tools to support teaching and learning goals in the context of a social constructivist classroom. These tools include telecommunication tools (blogs) that provide for a means of dialog, discussion, and debate. Students can interactively communicate with their peers, teachers, and other professionals in other parts of the country or the world. This type of collaboration can provide learners with meaningful real world learning experiences.

http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~ichen/ebook/et-it/social.htm

Despite the potential benefits of the potential benefits of using blogs as a tool to enhance the educational experience many school systems and parents do not support blogging especially at the elementary and middle school level. Parents and school officials are concerned about Internet safety. Never the less there are blogging sites that cater specifically to the k-12 environment. An alternate solution could be to set up a blog portal on the school server. In this way school officials can control access and content of the blog site. If educators are to begin to use technology to a greater degree to enhance learning then greater efforts must be undertaken to make available technology accessible with the appropriate safegards.