Ways to Improve: Blogging

Ughhhhhh.  That’s the audible groan that most students can be heard making when a teacher mentions a writing assignment.  “My hand hurts.” “I don’t know what to write.” “This is so boring.”  These statements and more tend to come out at one point or another during the school year involving the writing process.  So the question begs, how do we get students to like writing?  Enter blogging.  Blogging is everywhere on the Internet these days, it seems only fitting that students try their hand at it as well.

There are many benefits of student blogging in the classroom.  Blogging encourages dialogue between students, creates a sense of ownership and enthusiasm about their personal work, teaches responsibility, connects students, and oftentimes creates experts according to the subject matter the student blogs on. (Adams).  In an article for Edutopia, high school teacher Michelle Lampinen, incorporated blogs into her classroom with great success.  She noticed the students’ writing improve by “leaps and bounds.”  Lampinen noticed fewer errors and more quotations from stories and sources that even translated into formal writing in the classroom.  Lampinen also points out the added benefit of increased class participation for her more introverted students. Some of Lampinen’s students were even quoted as saying that blogging “is a good way to have us write without it being formal or full of pressure. I also like the fact that I have control over what I write about, and that definitely makes the assignment easier." As you can see, blogging can have a great impact on student learning and would be a great way to incorporate technology into the writing curriculum.

Up Next:  The Flipped Classroom…

Resources:

Adams, M. (n.d.). The Benefits of Student Blogging – Marisa Adams | Lumos Learning. The Benefits of Student Blogging – Marisa Adams | Lumos Learning. Retrieved October 2, 2014, from http://lumoslearning.com/llwp/teachers-speak/the-benefits-of-student-blogging-marisa-adams.html

Lampinen, M. (2014, April 13). Blogging in the 21st-Century Classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved October 2, 2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/blogging-in-21st-century-classroom-michelle-lampinen