Blogs are a Web 2.0 digital tool and online space which allows students to personalise their work and gain ownership of their work. Within a blog you can share content and connect with other students to evaluate and analyse works. It is an online space which can cater for the new literacies of the 21st Century, image, sound, text and film. It is a flexible space which is chronologically set out so others can easily identify the works and refer to the time in which they were made. They are interactive forums. Blogs are easy to use and allow for a range of content to be uploaded and for students to collaborate and communicate their ideas and comment on each others ideas for self-assessing. This tool is wonderful for demonstrating metacognitive skills and giving students the opportunity to reflect on their learning, where they can continually edit and revise their thoughts.
SWOT analysis on BLOGS in my Teaching Context
Strengths | Weaknesses |
· Motivates students to write more · The world can see it rather than the immediate group · Easy to access information, deadlines and internet links relating to a topic – all in one blog · Immediacy · Student feels apart of events and the learning process · Chronological · Connection – link with others to write and analyse · Equity – for the shy and the loud students to voice an opinion · Cost effective · Caters for the new literacies or as some say the revisiting visual and aural literacy · Linking to other websites · Great online space for a learning journey to occur and reflections to be prompted · Save work on the web, if personal computer is stolen or fails. It backs up information. | · Privacy of work · Use as a personal social networking site where shallow, personal comments and observations are made rather than critical thinking. (My job would be to have scaffolding techniques in place to promote critical thinking around topic of discussion). · Negative comments of other students and teachers · Students unable to express true reflections and portrayals of work due to censorship of the traditional school setting · Teachers instigate the use of blogs rather than students piloting their development within blogs |
Opportunities | Threats |
· New set of skills and attitudes towards learning · In class discussions · Can be used over the period of ones life. A constant medium for ideas and thoughts that cannot be changed by other authors but can be commented on · Encouragement to write · Assessments and assignments | · Copyright law · Negative representation of students · Entire world can see it, privacy rights · Cyberbulling · Profiles being misused · Harmful material used like violence, pornography and use of inappropriate language |
Smartcopying recognised blogs as an asset for teachers to “display student works, provide commentary on class activities and upload material for students to access during class or at home for homework tasks” (Australian Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, 2008, para. 3). Blogs give students the opportunity to obtain feedback from an academic expert and it is accessible to the world. I like the style of a journal blog because it is informal and not all in academic style which gives my fellow peers’ a quick and easy read, blogging resembles more and more a conversation but still engages the main ideas and concepts of the theories.
I also, found that using a journal style blog has been very rewarding in the fact that I can read others and make sure that I am on the right track with my own work. I can critique what others thought worked and what didn’t work for them.
The use of a blog in my teaching context will be a prosperous pedagogical advantage due to the fact that students can use them as journals and keep ideas and information in the one place which is easy to access and is formatted in an organised style which other students can comment on. Students can critically reflect, sustain topics over a period of time and engage in conversation which leads to further writing and complex thinking.
However “herein lies the dilemma for educators. What happens when a free-flowing medium such as blogging interacts with the more restrictive domains of the educational system? What happens when the necessary rules and boundaries of the system are imposed on students who are writing blogs, when grades are assigned in order to get students to write at all, and when posts are monitored to ensure that they don’t say the wrong things?” (Downes, 2004, para. 45). These questions are poignant and need to be developed because as Richardson notes that “I can’t let them do it passionately due to the inherent censorship that a high school served Weblog carries with it”34 (Downes, 2004, para. 47).
This quote from Jay Cross summed up blogging for me “that 90 percent of our learning is informal, this is the sort of thing they mean: that the lessons we might expect to find in the classroom work their way, through alternative means, into our day-to-day activities … the process of reading online, engaging a community, and reflecting it online is a process of bringing life into learning” (Downes, 2004, para. 55).
References
Australian Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth
Affairs. (2008). Smartcopying: The official guide to copyright issues for Australian schools and TAFE. Retrieved 5 April 2011 from: http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/scw/go/pid/945
Downes, S. (2004). Educational Blogging. Retrieved 5 April 2011 from:
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