BP2_2010011_EduUses4Blogs

The first time I was introduced to blogs and read my friend’s Xanga posts, I thought it was great a great tool for writing journals online. I was not teaching yet and so I did not think about the educational uses for blogs. Then, a year or two later, Myspace.com added blogs as a gadget for their users. I was a Myspace.com user and I knew many of my students had Myspace.com accounts, so I use to try and post homework on my blogs for my students. But, that failed because most students did not use their accounts for that purpose. They just tried to add me as a friend and boost their popularity and friend counts.

A couple of years after that, our district adopted Schoolloop.com. We use Schoolloop.com for homework posting, event posting, announcements, discussion boards, emailing, etc. Even though Schoolloop.com provides all these great features, there are many short coming as well. For example, the discussion boards can get very messy with the way the threads are listed. (See picture to the below.)

What Schoolloop.com lack is blogs for students and educators. So, here is where I find my Blogger account useful for education. For examples, I can use my blog to post pictures or video of problem examples I use for teaching Geometry. I notice that many of my students are shy and are sometime embarrassed to ask questions during class. So, if I post the examples that I solved in class on my blog, students can post comments and ask questions anonymously without fear. Besides allowing students to post comments, I can invite other teachers and professionals to help answer student questions and create a learning community that way. By allowing my students to post comments anonymously, I am allowing “learners, under the guidance of teachers, to explore the internet in a safe way” (Davies & Merchant, 2009, p. 33).



Davies, J. & Merchant, G. (2009). Web 2.0 for schools: Learning and social participation. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.