2. Authentic Audiences:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In the traditional classroom, the only audience for student work was the teacher and sometimes classmates and parents. Blogs provide a much larger audience for student work and an avenue for feedback and self-improvement through commenting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found that students took particular pride when publishing work for our blog and often wanted to do their best for their impending audience. When we establish an authentic audience for our students we help them connect their classwork to the real world. After all, isn’t that what education is supposed to be about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Literacy Skills:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
With a class or individual blog, students are reading and writing for a purpose and genuine audience. Unlike other approaches to teaching literacy, where you may study a genre or style for a few weeks, blogging can be an ongoing<\/em> occurrence in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When high standards are set, and explicit teaching is embedded, a blogging program can be a powerful catalyst to improved literacy skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we want our students to be motivated to use their emerging writing skills, we have to make writing purposeful, challenging, and real-to-life. Blogging offers this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Traditional literacy skills are also no longer enough for our students. As innovative educator Silvia Tolisano points out,<\/a> there are now many types of 21st literacies including: digital, media, visual and global literacies. A classroom blogging program can help integrate these literacies into your classroom seamlessly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Creating a class blog requires teamwork and collaboration. Students and teachers can learn and share together. The Edublogs’ student <\/a>and teacher challenges<\/a> can be a great place to start this learning process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A real sense of classroom community can be developed through blogging and establishing a class identity. Even if teachers are initially writing posts, students can take on roles and responsibilities such as capturing images, creating multimedia or replying to comments. A class blog mascot<\/a> can also be a fun way to represent your classroom community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teaching students to be safe and responsible online is an increasingly important issue. Effective internet safety education does not involve one off lessons. This is a notion supported by the experts at Connect Safely <\/a>who say internet safety concepts should be woven into the curriculum. They point out that students don’t distinguish between their digital lives and their personal lives, and there is a lot of power in using ‘teachable moments’ just as you would with any subject matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A classroom blogging program offers ongoing opportunities to discuss internet safety and appropriate online behaviours in an authentic setting. Blogging is an excellent way to learn about being a responsible member of an online community, digital footprints, netiquette, making safe choices and more. As Connect Safely identify, the key messages educators need to teach are: ‘think before you post’ and ‘be kind and respectful’. There is amazing potential to use blogging to promote these exact messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using a platform like Edublogs offers you a lot of freedom to select the privacy settings<\/a> that you and your community are comfortable with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It can be easy to assume that students are ‘digital natives’ and come to school already equipped with a broad range of ICT skills. A review paper<\/a> published in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education<\/em> found that \u201cinformation-savvy digital natives do not exist\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Becoming an effective and fluent user of information technology requires explicit teaching and practice. Through blogging, many skills are able to be discussed and practised, often incidentally. These can range from keyboard shortcuts, coding, Creative Commons, research skills, using multimedia, troubleshooting and a lot more. Again, these learnings are all for an authentic purpose rather than through skill and drill exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have found this to be one of the most exciting benefits of blogging for both teachers and students. Blogging can help flatten classroom walls like no other tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over my years of blogging, my students and I got to know many classes across the world who we called our ‘blogging buddies’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The benefits of global connections are priceless. A sense of understanding and tolerance develops and students can learn a lot about the world in which they live. Blogging partnerships allowed my students to learn from<\/em> and with<\/em> their global classmates about topics such as geography, cultures, time zones, seasons, language, internet safety and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When blogging is established in your classroom, there is also the possibility to organise or join in structured global projects. The opportunities and potential outcomes are endless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And from a teacher’s perspective, once you become involved in blogging, your professional learning network can rapidly expand to be a lot larger than your school staffroom. You never know who you will meet and what wonderful relationships you can form!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The process of blogging allows a lot of scope for personal development, for both students and teachers. Blogging offers reinforcement and feedback through comments beyond the immediate classroom community. This can drive self-esteem, personal reflection and growth, as well as confidence. Students and\/or teachers may realize they have something important to say, and blogging may encourage individuals to speak their mind, reflect deeply and share their understandings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blogging is also a fantastic creative outlet. Whether it’s writing, designing your blog layout, or using photography, video, podcasts or other multimedia tools, blogs offer so much scope for creativity and fun. Blogs can also be used to showcase creative pursuits in art, music, sport, science or any other field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A blogging program can also help to foster individual talents and passions while driving creativity and personal growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blogging can be an excellent meta-cognitive process and avenue for reflection. The process of creating blog posts, allows you to ‘think about what you think’ and put those thoughts into words. Through delving into my thoughts on topics, and writing about what was happening in my classroom, I often came up with new ideas and strategies to use in my teaching. Additionally, when others offer thoughts and opinions on blog posts, you can be introduced to new perspectives that drive further reflection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Effective teaching and learning does not occur in a vacuum, and establishing a broad network of global educators is priceless. It’s hard to believe that the majority of teachers are still relying on the insights of their immediate team or school when there are billions of people out there who can broaden their horizons!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever position we are in, we must take advantage of the tools we now have for connecting beyond our immediate surrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is a blog? It’s anything you want it to be really. It’s like asking ‘what is a classroom?’ We all know a classroom can be indoors, outdoors, in rows, in circles, big, small or even flipped. A blog is merely a website that can be customized to meet your individual requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blogs offer you the versatility to create a unique online space to represent yourself and\/or your students and community. Unlike some online tools, blogging is completely free yet the potential uses and advantages are incomparable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You may be convinced, but what about your school leadership team or community? This post may help you to persuade them that it would be doing your students a disservice to not expose them to all the advantages that blogging offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Be sure to check out the infographic summary of this post too! If you’re ready to start setting up a blog, click here<\/a>. If the Edublogs team can help with any other questions about blogging, simply leave a comment or contact us on our help and support <\/a>page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here are ten reasons why you should integrate blogging into your classroom or professional practice. 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Classroom Community:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
5. Internet Safety:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
6. ICT Skills:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
7.Global Connections:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
8. Personal Development:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
9. Lifelong Learning:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
10. Blogging is versatile … and free!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n![\"Ten](\"https:\/\/www.theedublogger.com\/files\/2017\/08\/10-Reasons-to-Start-Blogging-Infographic-K-Morris-218tzb5-106zfn4.png\")
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