Blogging as part of the learning

ccoffa Blogs,

Any reader of this blog will know that I love blogging and often use it personally to ask questions and explore issues.  I have been lucky enough to introduce personal blogging to a group of 10 – 12 year olds and used the Student Blogging Challenge to launch this process. They very quickly applied new skills: adding widgets, commenting, navigating the dashboards and adding posts.  Most did only what was required while a few seemed to ‘click’ with the notion that their blogs could be an added tool in their learning.  The ‘showcase’ element of blogging is easy: create a product, publish it, get feedback (always positive).

Listening to and reading the work of Ideas Lab, I was keen to explore another facet of blogging.

Rethinking Transparency

Communicate the whole learning process not just student achievements.
Schools also need to reimagine what students publish. Rather than simply showcasing student achievements and reflections upon the process as a whole, students should be encouraged to share the entire learning process.
Schools should teach and encourage students to share their project ideas, their reflections, their progress and their achievements. School should also consider whether every student should have a blog, a journal where they have the freedom to plan, share and reflect.

http://www.ideaslab.edu.au  – Understanding-Virtual-Pedagogies

An opportunity arose recently when a student published his ‘unfinished’ narrative.  He put a note on the class Edmodo page,  explaining that it was not finished.  Having developed a wonderful PLN (including one author), I immediately thought, here was an opportunity for our young author to connect, to get feedback during the process.  I contacted an author (thanks Kelly) and within minutes, the student had a beautifully written commentary on his draft story.  Lovely feedback and constructive suggestions for improvement from a credible, experienced writer.
It remains to be seen, as this was only yesterday, how this translates directly to the piece of work in progress.  But I cannot see, how this intervention cannot have a positive effect on the young writer.  He knows he has an audience, he knows there are people with skills that can assist his growth and that they are not all in his classroom or school.

At a recent day with other educators including Alec Couros, we discussed how teachers can be the nodes for our students learning, how we can create a network around ourselves and consequently around our students.  This was a perfect opportunity to prove this concepts value.

How can we help our students to develop their own Personal Learning Networks?

3 thoughts on “Blogging as part of the learning”

  1. A thoughtful piece that highlights the power of digital writing. Perhaps to help students develop a PLN, you could think about flattening your classroom. I just read a good post by Cool Cat Teacher that might help.

  2. Your reflections also give rise to the question of how a teacher might respond to their student in this setting. Should the writer be left to work within his/her own PLN and be left to respond according to their personal motivation? Or might this be an opportunity to use an exciting situation for workshopping with a group of teachers and students in the classroom?

  3. Marg,
    I don’t believe there is a set of rules here. Much could be gained by many students taking time to review the authors comments. Also, our young students still need guidance as to the interpretation of the suggestions. I think I see it as another opportunity to work as a team and support the relationship.

    Sue,
    Thanks for you comment, I will look up the post you suggest.

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