Blogs and their Potential Impact

Most of us regularly interact with social media in some way or another. We hold Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, and garner Instagram likes. However, the “blog,” for all its interconnectedness, may still remain a mystery to some of us educators.

So, what exactly constitutes a blog?

In form, blogs differ from discussion boards and a typical web pages in that they follow the editorial format. According to Dictionary.com, editorials consist of:

an article in a newspaper or other periodical or on a website presenting the opinion of the publisher,writer or editor. (2016).

Similarly serialized (in a digital format), blogs feature opinion pieces by an individual or group of editors and contributors. Variations on the blog format include (but are not limited to) glogs (“multimedia interactive posters”) and vlogs (blogs presented in video format).

Primary affordances of various blog hosting sites include the integration of social media, digital multimedia (video, images, live streaming, etc), mobile/remote access, networking opportunities, and resource linking. Depending on the blog site you use or choose to associate your personal webpage with, the services available to you may differ. Matt Banner, a blogger backed by Forbes and Entrepreneur, has created this infographic to assist you in you selecting a blog hosting site based on those features. As for myself, I've found Wix and Wordpress to be the most intuitive sites in terms of networking and design opportunities.

But how can we harness the power of blogs in the classroom? And are they really legitimate learning tools?

Blogs provide a powerful platform for observing a wide range of student work. One excellent example that comes to mind especially for High School students, would be to create a digital reading journal in blog format. However, instead of simply uploading a lesson template here, I'll be using the TPACK Model to identify each aspect of this suggested activity in order to assert the legitimacy of the blog as a tool for educators worldwide.

Reading Journal Blog

Content — In having students write their final draft of their reading journals in an individual blog format, they will be participating in the synthesis step of Blooms Revised Taxonomy. Students will create, design, and develop a holistic piece of work that categorizes and collects their individual writing entries. Before publishing their work students will write, revise, rearrange, and assemble their sites for their classmates, a specific blog reader community, and the general public.

Pedagogy — This approach is very loosely based on my own experiences using digital devices and software as well as the Reader's Theatre scaffold (as discussed by Dr. McCloud). In my own education, very seldom was I able to engage with texts and information on an equal level with my teachers. Even my English teachers disrupted my agency over my own learning by performing seemingly helpful tasks such as reading the selected books of our class aloud. However, in my Computer Skills courses (a requirement for graduation at my California-based high school) I was consistently empowered in that, often, even if I did not understand the particular details of an assignment, I was much more familiar with the physical presence of, and software on, those computers than my teachers. Thus, the presence of relatively new and developing technologies within classrooms proved a way to transform young students into immediate experts and equals when compared to their teacher's relative skill. Similarly, the use of blog technologies upholds this process which is so central to the oft-sought pedagogical stance of Paulo Freire's ideologies in increasingly modernized classrooms.

Technology — Fundamentally, this blog exercise adapts traditional reading journals from the technological Ages of Message Design (where content and form are the primary focus) into the Age of Learning Environments (ALE). This new process emphasis does not discard the traditional elements of content and form, however, ALE design incorporates personal/social interaction (e.g: social media, comment posting, self-publication) and highly developed environmental affordances (e.g: live digital formats). 

Simply put, the aforementioned affordances of social media integration, digital multimedia (video, images, live streaming, etc), mobile/remote access, networking opportunities, and resource linking within the blogger's world are skills many students are adept at. However, many may not have endeavored within these environmental elements for the purposes of scholarly work. Ultimately, this new application process links the student deeply and personally to their intended object of study in a novel and familiar way. Moreover, blogs may be used in classroom settings as a way to introduce other important communicative and networking skills that will be invaluable to students in the future (see: social media marketing, “netiquette”, etc). 

What are the projected advantages and disadvantages of this technology? 

Although, some might argue that students who are economically disadvantaged and/or residing in rural populations may have limited access to the “advanced” platforms suggested here: in my own research and personal experience, I have found the overwhelming majority of students have daily (if not constant) access to blog-ready devices (e.g: tablets, smartphones, computers, or laptops). Moreover, public libraries and schools themselves often offer computer services for little to no expense on the part of the student. Ultimately, there are two major benefits in the integration of blogs and similar digital technologies within the classroom. As Dr. McCloud suggests, student experience gain and comprehension could meet or exceed standards within a significantly reduced time. And, perhaps even more importantly, lesson plans centered around teaching technologies such as as these are not only intuitive to students, but they inspire pupils to take pride in content beyond the established (often narrow) structure of course objectives.

“Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information.”

                                 ― Paulo Freire