In this session we started by discussing the preparation reading on the impact of educational blogs on pupil’s writing. The main point I took from the general discussion with my peers was how important the setting up and managing the blog is to make children want to use it regularly. Because of the openness of blogging, I can understand how beneficial it can be to allow children to write more.
School blogs can share children’s work and even give news all online. Originally, children would write a blog post and have only the children in their class comment and read each other’s. But the invention of Quadblogging eliminated the pitfall that could be noticeable regarding the number of comments on children’s posts. By linking schools together, it could be argued children were more engaged with their posts as they knew it would be more likely their peers would be reading one another’s and commenting. It allows for more learning than just the work that is set as children are able to converse with other countries and cultures.
As discovered from the report in the preparation reading, there are many children who wished to write creatively more. The 100 Word Challenge was created by a retired education practitioner to accommodate children in their wish. Similarly to school blog posts, children could feel more engaged with their writing when they know others will read it. A lot of the time with children writing in schools it can stay in their books and only be seen by teachers. The use of the internet and the web results in children’s work being recognised on a much larger scale to a bigger audience.
To finish, we then investigated the use of educational badges and how they could be used in the classroom. Mozilla Badges launched in 2011 and originally was for the use of adults applying for jobs to support their CV. However, our group considered if they could be used in the classroom by teachers. As a method of getting to know the children better, children could display their achievements, hobbies and interests for teachers and others to see. I believe this is great knowledge to have in the back of our minds as teachers when planning lessons when considering how work could be presented and carried out by specific children in the classroom.
I felt like Badges was too much upheaval for what you get out of it. The set up and accounts and making your own. Maybe it’s just that I’ve yet to see anywhere or anyone using it for real. Have you?
I think at the moment there may not be a valid use for them in the VLE assignment, however in future during the building stage I might change my mind.
Might there be any negatives to blogging in the classroom?
I think blogging can only be as beneficial as possible to your class once you know your class. The teacher’s input and effort to encourage blogging is arguably the hard part, but keeping up with managing and maintaining the blog is again another thing teachers would have to do in a day that only has 24 hours. Teachers are expected to do a lot and for some whom are not as competent on a computer, I could see blogging not fulfilling its potential in classrooms.