Blogging in the 21st-Century Classroom

Ever since I started blogging, I find that it is a great way to practise writing. Hence, I strongly believe that introducing blogging to students can instil writing interest in them and help them to improve their writing.

From my brief blogging experience, I do have a little sense of achievement when I see the rising of the page view statistics of my blog and the occasional reader comments raised. My interest in maintaining and writing this blog naturally grows as I receive more of such positive responses.

As I browse through educational website, Edutopia on this subject, I realised that classroom blogging is indeed used by a High School teacher, Ms Michelle Lampinen, NBCT  in one of her classes and has achieved amazing results too!

Below are the reasons cited by Ms Michelle Lampinen:

Blogging Gives Students an Audience

It is often a real challenge to get young students to sit down and write - an activity most youngsters dread as it's a 'no-fun' activity, boring and to a certain extent, mind-blogging. Primary school students are at the age where they really need authentic reasons to write as they really need motivation. A blog is a way to see work in print and have a truly authentic purpose. It means that people other than their teacher will be reading their work. When they realised that their writing can attract comments from strangers online, they got the incentive to revise their work before they can post them online.

When the articles written by these children are reviewed in class, an atmosphere of excitement is created and everyone is propel to "join in the fun", thereby developing an interest for blog writing naturally and their writing skills improved unconsciously.

The most rewarding part of blogging is seeing the page view statistics rising and positive comments pouring in to show their appreciation of the writing piece. Knowing that someone out there has been reading your writing and liked it is the greatest motivation ever!
 

Skill and Enthusiasm

The real power of blogging, the greatest benefit in writing for a blog, goes not to the audience but rather to the writer. It is in the very act of writing, the preparation of the content you are going to share, that the benefit is found.

Writing is a reflective process, and the creation of content you're going to share causes you to work hard to make your thinking clear. An audience creates anxiety, and appropriate levels of anxiety support our best efforts. And the best writing calls for our best thinking.

In the process of formulating my blog post, I have figured out the real value of what I really believe about the topic of universal blogging. I have a better understanding of my own thinking because I have stopped moving, thought, written, revised, thought, written, revised, and finally edited.

Would I have taken the time and put out the effort to do this if I was not writing for my blog? Let's be honest. Probably not. The blog is the taskmaster, the responsibility that not only provides the audience but also asks for my input.

Through classroom blogging, student writing has improved by leaps and bounds. When she read her students' blogs (which, by the way, are mature, insightful, funny and engaging), she does not find herself pulling her hair out over the careless mistakes they make in formal papers. Not every post is perfect, but the majority are well written and free of grammar and usage issues that are familiar with seeing in their other work. If they become sloppy, all she needs to do is to politely comment about it on their blog, and the mistakes never appear again!

Their improved skills transfer to formal work. Integrating quotations in literary papers has become simple now that we have so much practice with smoothly embedding hyperlinks. Additionally, student response to texts has improved; some of the posts they must write are based on stimulus texts of their choice.

Students' persuasive writing is improving, too. A mini-lesson and quick in-class prompt has resulted not only in well-argued blog posts but also in students excitedly telling how they can use that technique to perform a persuasive task.

Benefits extend beyond the classroom. Introverted students tend to share more online than they do in person; blogging is an invaluable way to get to know them better as people and students. It's also great to see reserved students garnering attention from their peers. Furthermore, students understand the importance of hearing many voices. One recently noted that she enjoys the blogs because "some of the quieter folks during discussion can talk about their opinions too, so we finally get to hear them."

Less Agonizing Pain

It’s no secret that students value an authentic audience for their writing. Some of the favourable feedback are as follows:

• "It forces me to write. I usually try to write a couple times a month on my own but that is pushed to the side when I have too much homework."
• "It is a good way to have us write without it being formal or full of pressure. I also like the fact that I have control over what I write about, and that definitely makes the assignment easier."
• (my personal favourite) "I don't like any assignments in general. However, I feel like the loose nature of the structure of the assignment makes it less agonizingly painful to do than most other assignments."

Hence, I believe that encouraging students to blog about topics from other classes helps them see connections among subjects and realize that writing is a worthwhile skill in any field.