Benefits of Blogging in the Classroom

After reading Gretta's blog , what struck me the most is how often we diverge in the things we notice in each assignment. This first observation points out one way in which teachers could utilize blogs in the classroom, by observing what each student notices in each assignment the teacher better understands what interests the student and what they ignore.

There is a little more freedom in blogs because there is no right or wrong answer necessarily, just how one responds to what is listened to or observed. As such, students with picking out specific details and instead looking at the assignment as a whole. I think that this is part of how Gretta and I diverged. Additionally, where topics must be selected rather than assigned, the students are allowed to pick something that interests them and they are therefore more inclined to do the assignment. I think giving the students some freedom in writing blogs would be very important to their success.

Yet, as has been observed in this classroom there are cons to writing blogs as well. Since blogs are discussed infrequently, students many times tend to forget about the assignment and fall behind, creating an environment where it becomes more and more tasking to catch up. Thus I think it would be more ideal to grade them throughout the semester rather than at the end to encourage students to maintain their blogs. Individual the blogs themselves are not difficult, but when 3 months of blogs begin to stack up then working on them becomes intimidating.

Overall I think that blogs would be a welcome addition to a classroom if students are able and willing to keep up with their blogs and use them to communicate their ideas effectively.