Module 2 - Blogs in K-12 Learning Spaces

Blogs

Stephen Downes' article "Blogs In Education" provides a great summary of the advantages of blogging, however as with any single tool, Blogging should not be regarded as an educational panacaea. One hundred reasons why educators should blog makes for good interesting reading

  Some options for educators' blogs:

1.Use as a website (needs no knowledge of html)

2.Noticeboard - current items of interest

3.Promotional - school or classes

4.Instructional - Introduce new skills or software

5.Collaborative - professional discourse, teacher/student/parent

6.Personal Reflection - (closed blog)

Before embarking on blogging or resting at any signpost on the Web 2.0 path, a visit to Paul Stewart's Terms of Service blog should be a requisite. It was created:

.......to inform users of social networks and web services about the terms of use of such services. The blog assumes no legal authority in this area and merely attempts to collect extracts regarding terms of use as a precursor to users exploring such terms in greater depth e.g. considering their implications. It’s not meant to scare teachers, but rather to empower them. I have selected extracts relating to user age and to content, as these seem to be the two areas that cause the most confusion, as well as provide the greatest risk to privacy and intellectual property. It’s not the answer but it’s a start, and if it leads to a school or two pausing to discuss how they can use such sites, maybe it will be time well spent... Paul Stewart, Global Teacher, Aug 10, 2010

An article at Webupon cautions potential bloggers to be prepared before diving into blogging using the Google Blogger platform.An example is quoted by Puckett using "Dooced" as a term coined by Heather Armstrong in 2002 who lost her job due to the content published on her blog, Dooce.com. "....Although she ultimately went on to turn her demise into success..." her experience is indicative of the ugly side of Web 2.0.

.......There are approximately 500,000,000 blogs on the Internet today. As much as 15% of this estimation could easily be abandoned blogs that are not being maintained. These blogs serve no purpose other than taking up bandwidth. It is my personal opinion that many of these abandoned blogs are as such simply because the blogger did not take the things into consideration that we are about to discuss here. They went into their blogs with no direction and no understanding of what it takes to establish a successful blog so they simply walk away from it.......by R.E.Puckett Tue, Aug 17, 2010

Before becoming a blogger " Read, read, read, blog after blog after blog" to establish sound practice, and appreciate the difference between a vacuous set of ramblings best left for individual reflection or something worthy of a global audience.

Lastly but judiciously, accept the fact that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it may just be a turkey !

A blogging apprentice for some time, I've spent oodles of 'time devouring' moments experimenting with fonts, layouts, colour schemes, titles, blogging platforms such as edublogs, globalteacher etc. etc. It has been a most frustrating experience at times being held captive by the instability of some templates and gadgets amongst other things, however this time around the blogging software seems a lot more reliable. Perhaps the fact that Google now owns Blogger has something to do with that. Additionally, its not until my second enrolment in this course that I've really focused on a purpose that I've found motivating, with the opportunity to be both 'product' and 'process' driven, hopefully finding a pleasing balance. The beauty of Web 2.0 for me is that it has facilitated access to a smorgasbord of great creative minds who generously share their thoughts and discoveries, making this medium truly habit forming for self generative learners.

A multimodal form of literacy, blogs require much forethought and planning before being introduced into the primary arena. I admit to perceiving greater application for this form of publishing and communication in the senior school, however, in the hands of an enthusiastic and informed educator happy to devote personal time outside of working hours I believe it could work most effectively within the primary arena as well. Sadly, I've seen technological applications launched upon students with no prior skilling. I consider it both reprehensible and dangerous to presuppose an existing level of ability in our students, classifying them all beneath the umbrella of being "Digital Natives", digitally experienced and comfortable multi tasking within the application driven environment. It takes a while to become 'blog literate', to navigate the pages, the posts, the sidebars,the feed buttons etc. and it would be the rare primary student who would learn these skills through osmosis.

Great advice for professional bloggers is given by Corinne Weisburger in her Slideshare presentation Starting A Blog

Another serendipitous discovery as a result of revisiting old blogging haunts was Edublog's "Top Ten Ways To Use Edublogs " ( why reinvent the wheel ? ) Blogging is but one means of engaging students and teachers in digitally delivered teaching and learning experiences, however, with respect to delivering in our commitment to our students creating a functional blog should not be mandatory however teaching students the skills required for blogging, wikiing and facebooking should be.