BP1_2009101_Educational Uses of Blogs

The use of blogs in education is becoming more common and more widely accepted as a valid educational activity for students and teachers. In my own school district, our district servers host class blogs that teachers can post to and students can comment on. (We don't yet allow students to create their own individual blogs on the district servers.)

Blogs provide an easy access point to publishing on the web, even for those who are not technology experts (Flierl & Fowler, 2007). Blogs offer more of a sense of ownership to the author compared to other methods of posting content online, such as forums or discussion boards. (Hong, 2008, p.34).

The nature of blogs allows for several different types of applications in education, primarily blogs by the teacher and blogs by the student. Teacher blogs could be used to provide course materials or supplemental information to students. Student blogs could be used to share information with the teacher, such as replying to an assigned writing prompt or reflection topic, or keeping track of progress on a long-term assignment. Student blogs could also be used to share information with other students, such as collaborating on a group project or getting peer feedback on assignments.

The following articles from EBSCOhost contained interesting information about the educational use of blogs, some of which is cited above.

Lierl, R., & Fowler, H. (2007). Educational Uses of Blogs and Wikis. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(3), C3. http://search.ebscohost.com

Hong, W. (2008). Exploring Educational Use of Blogs in U.S. Education. Online Submission, http://search.ebscohost.com

Ray, J. (2006). Welcome to the Blogoshere: The Educational Use of Blogs (aka Edublogs). Kappa Delta Pi Record, 42(4), 175-177. http://search.ebscohost.com