Blogging

Blogging Assignment This article summarizes the general definition of a blog; its educational benefits in the classroom setting; and the risks/concerns when initiating or preparing the use of blogs with students in the educational environment. A blog is a Web publishing tool that allows an individual to self publish multi-media. Blogs in the classroom can be used in a variety of ways - ie classroom management; collaboration; discussions; and student portfolios to name a few. Risks to be considered include: individual district guidelines (ie securing parental permission for display of any student work); student training on access, privacy, security, free expression, andu understanding that most content is an opinion and not always factual in nature. || This article summarized the discussion of colleagues who attended the JALT 2005 conference in Japan regarding the use of blogging with English teacher training students. Discussion included increasing reader participation, student access, perception of audience, types of blogs, and ethics involved with blogging. Another area discussed involved utilizing 2 different fundamental approaches - 1) quantitative evaluation and accountability or 2) qualitative evaluation and motivation. The first approach consists of giving students assignments at intervals and the teacher tracks the quantity of posts/blogs and the assesses the quality of the reading and writing component. This however does not encourage students to enjoy or see the value in blogging as that is secondary to the educator goals. The second approach the teacher encourages the students to write about their interests and to use social networking tools to enhance their motivation to the use of blogging. The student has free reign to create the blog without restriction and the teacher becomes more a facilitator. The discussion continued and participants felt that the optimal scenario would be most likely somewhere in between the two approaches and the ultimate goal is that the student owns the tools, the content and their online identity in a creative and responsible manner. || This was by far the most interesting and informative article of the three. It reviewed the early utilization of the blog dating back to 2004. They were defined at that time as a web application which contained periodic time-stamped posts on a commom webpage. Blogs now are accessible to a global audience and generally allow readers to post comments. Blogs are revolutionary in that they allow any Internet use - regardless of age, experience or access to publish. In the 1990's much more peripheral web application/programming was needed (ie FTP software; HTML knowledge; website account, etc), however now in order to be a global publisher one only needs a computer with Internet access and a myriad of free blogging websites (and of course the ability to remember their user name and ID!!!) Blog reading tools that permit blog readers to quickly browse those areas of interest rather than each individually were discussed. Some examples of these were: Firefox; Internet Explorer - "live bookmarks", Newsreader software, etc. Various aspects of blog utilization including the following; blog publishing tools; blog management; publishing student work; student safety and privacy concerns; and blog publishing liability were addressed. Blogging in the classroom enables both teachers and students to post their own ideas online. There are two types - 1) server based 2)software based - the most common being server based such as [|www.blogger.com]. Software based tools usually have additional requirements that server types do not.. Examples include Thingamablog. Server based do allow blog authors to prohibit anonymous comments, thereby enabling the author to delete a posted comment but also ban known users from further inappropriate comments. Blogs change the writing process for many students as it redefines the audience of one (ie a teacher) to many (potentially peers, parents, community,etc. Due to this revolutionary new aspect to publishing of student work student safety and privacy concerns must be addressed by all involved. Guidelines were suggested - ie using pseudonyms instead of student's real names; password protected weblog to limit public access; formal orientation sessions with student and parents re: online safety; review of district policy. As safety and privacy concerns were addressed so were general recommendations for liability protections - ie protect your user ID and password and change it periodically; and make sure password is composed of numbers and letters that are not familiar or recognizable. Varied web sites were included to assist educators wanting to get started using weblogs. ||
 * [|Using Blogs to Integrate Technology in the Classroom]
 * [|Classroom Blogging: two fundamental approaches]
 * [|Classroom Blogging: two fundamental approaches]
 * [|Tools for the Teks: Integrating Technology in the Classroom]
 * [|Tools for the Teks: Integrating Technology in the Classroom]