As I read a study yesterday about the effects of blogs on student writing, I came across a familiar name. Will Richardson, the author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, was referenced in the study, as in other articles I have recently reviewed. Although I read his book a couple of years ago for a class I was taking, I decided to re-read chapter two of his book, Weblogs: Pedagogy and Practice, to refresh my memory.
Richardson believes that blogs have great potential in education, as they allow students to publish easily on the web and provide them with an authentic audience. It is a “genre that engages students and adults in a process of thinking in words, not simply an accounting of the day’s events and feelings” (Richardson, 2006, p. 20). Blogs foster analytical reading and better writing in an online community of peers, teachers, and mentors. According to Richardson, blogs are a Constructivist tool that…
- Promote online collaboration
- Expand the walls of the classroom (learning continues outside of school)
- Archive learning (store students’ posts in an organized and searchable space)
- Support different learning styles
- Allow student to develop an area of expertise
- Teach new literacies that students will need in an increasingly technology-driven world
Blogs also facilitate “connective writing”, a form of writing whereby users are required to read carefully and critically, write clearly, engage a large audience, and link to sources related to the topic of the blog.
When I first read Richardson’s book, the topics he covered (blogs, wikis, and podcasts) were all new to me. I thought they were interesting at the time but didn’t really feel comfortable enough to introduce them in my classes. However, the more I read about blogs, the more excited I get about the prospect of using them with both my elementary and middle school students. Journal writing and an online book club are two possibilities for my third and fourth graders, while my middle school computer students can write about technology-related articles and share sites and software that they like and, thus, recommend. Do you have any other suggestions based on your experiences with blogging in the classroom?
Richardson, W (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
2 comments:
I don't have any experiences to draw from because blogging is new to me. What I would love to try is blogging as a response to literature circles. Instead of students each having a "role log" on paper they could blog instead.
I really liked your point about connective writing and how the blog requires the student pull together all the aspects when writing.
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