The Use of Blogs in Education
Hi everyone and welcome to my blog!
I'm a third year joint honours student and I'm studying the possible uses for blogs in education as part of am 'Education and the New Technologies' module. I'm really interested in what people think about blogging and the benfits and pitfalls of using such a technology in the world of education.
Personally, I think blogs are an exciting development for education for two main reasons, firstly they can provide a link to users who may be isolated from learning through using traditional teaching methods through location, ability or even preference. Secondly, I think a blog is a useful method for the reflection of learning, enabling the student to revisit work posts they have made and reflect on them.
What do you think?
- Are you an educational institution that uses a blog as part of a particular lesson?
- Do you write a non-educational blog but have some ideas on how blogs could be used in education?
- Do you think blogs should be banned from the classroom?
4 comments:
i think 'blogs' could be a very useful resource in education also, enabling and encouraging people to communicate their thoughts and ideas can only improve their learning experience.
From what I understand weblogs can be a most useful tool for educators today if used in a constructive manner, such as a resource to store and develop ideas. However if they are not monitored, misuse will soon follow so wouldn’t this subsequently cause additional work for teachers?
As I teacher I worry that this would increase our workload - I'm also concerned that that comments could get posted that could be potentially harmful or derogatory to the children or the school. I just worry if the benefits of using such a technology outweigh the potential dangers and extra workload for teachers.
In practice these concerns are unfounded so long as the project has a clear structure and purpose. We have found that a shared username and password by 260 students posting over several weeks on 90 different blogs on that account has not been abused once. Students are too interested in their project and doing a good job to be bothered with misusing it.
these are sixth formers but they are very mixed ability and by no means all angels. I would be interested in more attempts to do this at secondary and primary to see if there are similar outcomes.
pete
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