Saturday, February 5, 2011

Enriching Our Classrooms Through Blogging


We live in an interconnected world where we receive instant information from just about anywhere and anyone.  It is a type of world where we can voice our opinions about modern revolutions, like in Egypt, while sitting in the comfort of our home.  It’s absolutely incredible and blogging is part of this interconnected world.  As I write people are writing about everything from education to politics to what happened on the Jersey Shore this week!  Blogging helps give a voice to billions of people all over the globe making our world just a little bit smaller. 

Teachers across the country have been using blogs in their classroom from elementary to high school in numerous ways.  Some teachers use blogs to inform parents what is happening in their children’s classroom, where other teachers are making their students contributors to the blog to voice their opinions about what they are learning.  Blogging has the potential to change the traditional classroom into a classroom in the 21st century. Research has proven that students are more likely to engage in school when they feel they are actively contributing to the classroom and blogging provides that opportunity. Instead of having students who are normally too shy to speak in class, they can use blogs to share their opinions and reveal another side of themselves. 

When I was student teaching, I created a blog for my 11th grade United States History students.  At that point I was fairly new to the blogging world, therefore I solely created my blog to provide further information on the topics we were learning in the classroom.  Often times I would post interactive websites for my students to check out and extra credit opportunities. To see what I created, please take a look at my United States History and Government Blog!  In the future I would use a blog as an extension of the classroom, very similar to what Ms. Baker did in the Extreme Biology Blog.  In the blog, Ms. Baker and her students’ posted articles related to biology or something they are learning in class.  Blogging helps bring alive the material students are learning in class and in essence it should be an enriching tool in the classroom.  

1 comment:

  1. Hello Stephanie,

    What a wonderful U.S. History Blog! I love seeing the uses of blogging in other subjects besides English. Weren't you just so impressed by Ms. Baker's Biology blog?! I think it can bring even more depth and breadth to student's knowledge of these subjects! It is so great you have had the practice in the classroom with blogging and I'd be excited to hear how it goes in your classroom one day!

    Thanks,
    Sean

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