Culminating Summary – Blogs in K-6 Education
People use blogs worldwide to share their thoughts, opinions, knowledge and experiences, they are an online platform for individual expression, they are becoming increasingly popular in today’s society. So, I wondered, if Blogs are increasingly been seen as a social networking tool, and our society is becoming more technologically savvy, isn’t it important to teach and encourage our students to blog?
As Johanna Riddle pointed out in her blog, social networking sites such as facebook and myspace are popular with all ages and children are using these sites in their free time. Social networking over the internet has become a new form of social practice and a skill that most children now possess. If children are enjoying using these tools, then it makes sense to introduce blogging to the classroom with an educational perspective, as not only will students enjoy it, but as Atkinson and Suppes noted, our society is becoming increasingly technological, so in order for our students to function within that society we need to help them develop their technological skills.
Using blogs can open up a range of opinions and experiences for students. As Sarah Fallon pointed out, they provide the opportunity for students to communicate in an international online forum, communicating with their peers from all over the globe, an opportunity that would not exist in an ordinary classroom lesson. It also allows for students to share their knowledge and work online, which encourages students to share their work, and provides them with an opportunity to showcase their development and successes.
However, blogging does not simply mean students are given the freedom to go online and blog in classroom time. Julie Sturgeon provides 5 simple “don’ts” of classroom blogging, to guide teachers through the experience, and as with any classroom practice it is evident that there need to be guidelines and rules for blogging to ensure that there is educational value and safety in the experience.
Finally, as Allanah King demonstrated, it is important to become familiar with the software and technologies you use before you use it with your students to ensure that the learning is meaningful. Many of us are afraid to use technology, but due to the society we live in we need to get over that fear and explore the possibilities of technology.
I hope to be able to use blogs in future my classroom as I feel they are a great way of getting students to share work and opinions not only amongst the class and school but also globally. However, all this research has definitely taught me two implications for my own teaching. That I will have to constantly be trying new programs and resources to use in my classroom, so that I can use them with my class, and that I will have to learn to adapt to a constantly changing technological environment. That is to say, that in ten years time blogging may and most likely would be completely different and possibly even more interactive than how we know it to be today. So as a teacher I will need to be prepared for what technology in the future throws at me.
