Blogging in Education
What is a blog?
Why blog in education?
Finding educational blogs
Blogging with Students
How to read blogs
How to subscribe to a blog
To blog or not to blog
Finding a blog service
Starting your own blog
Writing a blog entry
Enhancing your blog
Creating quick entries
Acceptable Use Agreements
Blogging terms
Learning from others
Learning with others
What is a Blog?
A blog (short for "web log") is a web site which works as an online journal, with entries automatically organized by date. The writer may also add categories.
In education, blogs provide a new opportunity to organize, reflect on and share news, resources, projects and insights.
Why Blog in Education?
Blogs can serve many purposes for educators and students. Explore some of the great educational blogs out there to consider the kind of blogs you might like to read, or the kind of blog you might want to create yourself!
Blogs about Teaching
Keep track of inspirations, resources, ideas, lesson plans; Write a short description, add a link, and tag it with relevant keywords for later use. Connect with other educators around an area of common interest; Search for blogs that fit your interests. Subscribe to those blogs with RSS. Add those blogs to your blogroll. Blog about other blogs. Comment on others' blogs with a link back to your own. Soon you'll be part of an interconnected community.
Blogs Home-School Communication
Turn your class newsletter into a blog. Create an email feed so parents will receive an email each time you post. Post a message to your blog when you need volunteers or donations. Parents can reply to comments and you have a record of who can help out. Use your blog to inform families of special events, testing, holidays, etc. Post activities and assignments to your blog, and tag with "homework." Post handouts and links to useful web sites that facilitate your curriculum.
Blogging with Students
Keep a class journal or newsletter – students take turns posting a different entry each day. Parents (grandparents, too!) can subscribe to the blog to keep in touch with what the students are doing in class. Provide a platform for students to report on a project or exchange resources and ideas. Use blogs for writing prompts and dialog – post a quote, image or video and have students respond in the comments. Ask for student input on issues or activities. The dialog is open to all, and many students become increasingly motivated to write. Some educational blogging services allow a class blog to host individual student blogs as well.
For more inspiration, visit Ten Ways to Use Your Blog to Teach from Edublogs
What kind of blog that would be most helpful for your teaching practice?
How to Find Great Educational Blogs
Here are some quality blogs about teaching:
- Weblogg-ed - Will Richardson on 'the read/write web in the classroom' – a great source for information and reflections on the use of blogs, wikis and more in education
- David Warlick's 2 cents - David is an innovative thinker, synthesizing information, experiences and expertise to monitor and assess how today's children learn and how educators can adapt to the new technologies available for teaching and learning.
- Teaching Every Student – Karen Janowski's blog on innovative ways to teach with emerging assistive and educational technologies.
Blogging with Students
The best way to grasp how blogging can enhance your work with students, check out these two links. Then explore the classroom blogs posted below.
Bloggers Talk – from the blog of proximal development, a teacher talks about the ways her students converse while blogging.
In Their Own Words – from the Fisch Bowl at Arapaho High School, students and teachers talk about blogging in education. Two videos (8 min & 15 min).
And in a teacher's words:
There is one thing above all others that significantly impressed me with this experience: Students owning the learning, asking the important questions, and helping each other to learn. They showed an incredible willingness to contribute/share their ideas. – David Truss
How to Read Blogs
A standard web site is organized as a series of pages connected by links. A blog is organized differently, as a series of entries, also called posts, organized by date and by topic – also called categories or tags. Usually, links to the dates and topics will appear in the sidebar, making it easy to search for a specific topic or issue. Click on a date or topic, and all entries that match will appear. Sometimes the entries are summarized and you'd need to click a 'read more' link to view the remainder of longer entries.
If you stumble upon a blog entry via a web search, you can use the topic links in the sidebar to find more entries related to the topic you're interested in. Moreover, the dates for each entry help you quickly learn how fresh the information is.
If you want, you can subscribe to a blog, to be notified each time the blog is updated.
Blogs are not one-way streets. Most invite you to reply with comments, which then appear below the entry. On a busy or popular blog, the ensuing input and discussion can often be as interesting as the original entry itself.
How to subscribe to a blog
If you find a blog you like, you might want to keep up with new things the blogger has to say. Still, it's very time consuming to bookmark each blog and visit them all on your own, looking for new entries. Subscribing to a blog lets you be notified each time the blog is updated. All your subscriptions appear in the same place, allowing you to quickly scan entries for topics of interest.
Most blogs are also capable of providing an RSS feed. Readers subscribe to the feed to know when new entries are added. RSS feeds can also be used to generate automatic email newsletters or to "feed" certain blog entries to other parts of a web site. Using RSS, readers can choose among several ways to be notified of changes to your blog.
Before you begin
You need to choose a feed reader or aggregator, which is the software, web site or plug-in you'll use to organize all your subscriptions, or feeds.
When you find a blog you like
For some great explanations of RSS, feeds, etc. see:
To Blog or Not to Blog
Compare a blog to a standard web page or a wiki. Blogs are great for posting a lot of related content and keeping it organized by date and topic, and with commenting, for facilitating dialog. They are easy to add to, without the need for anything but a browser and an internet connection.
A conventional web site often works better for presenting material in a logical or pedagogical fashion, though a blog can have 'static pages' that work like a conventioanl web site, so some people will use a blog as their main site. Blogs do invite reader comments, but If you need a place to collaborate to create a unified project, you might try a wiki.
Find a Blog Service
To start a blog, you need to sign up for a blogging service. Some services are aimed especially at educators and offer premium features for free. Other blogging services are free because they generate revenue for the provider through advertising. Another consideration is whether or not the service you choose allows teachers to provide blogs to students. Here are just a few of the many blog hosting options available:
- Edublogs - a free blogging service for educators, using Word Press
- Learnerblogs - a free blogging service especially for students
- Class Blogmeister - David Warlick's blogging tool, especially for teachers and classroom blogs
- Blogger - a popular free blogging service; works well with many other web 2.0 services; also, you can start blogging right away (no confirmation email)
- Vox - another free service, with lots of multimedia features
How to Start Your Own Blog
- Know your purpose and the scope of your blog
- Develop some categories or tags that you think you'll use (you can always add or edit them later, but this initial structure is important)
- Sign up for a blog, using a blogging service
How to Write a Blog
Open a web browser and enter your blog's URL (address). Log in to your blog with your user name and password. You'll arrive at the admin page or dashboard. Click the Write link, and you'll get a window that looks a bit like your word processor:
For ideas on how to write quality blog entries,
read Ten Habits of Bloggers That
Win! from the Cool Cat Teacher Blog
Enhance Your Blog
There are several ways to make blogging easier or to add features to your blog, change its appearance, and more.
- Add Static Pages - In addition to blog entries, static pages allow you to post permanent content on your blog, much like a regular web site.
- ScribeFire - If you use Firefox, try out this essential for bloggers! A split-screen window allows you to instantly post items to your blog(s) and even assign categories. Quick and simple!
- Assign Categories - Use the options for tags or categories to organize your blog and make it easy for your readers to search for content.
- Comments - Invite readers to comment on your blog entries. This turns blogging into a two-way dialog.
- Feeds - Look into using services like FeedBlitz to share your blog via RSS.
How to Create Quick Entries
There are a number of tools or browser add-ons – even cell phone strategies – that make it easier to quickly add new entries to your blog.
ScribeFire – this Firefox browser add-on lets you blog directly from any web page you are visiting. My personal favorite.
Blog This buttons – most blogging services provide you with a button to add to your bookmarks bar that will take you directly to your blog entry form.
Blogging Terms
... under
construction ... more to come ...
acceptable use policy - a
written agreement, usually for students, on what
they may or may not do with technology for
educational
purposes.
aggregator
- a piece of software or a browser plug-in that
organizes feeds into a readable format.
Asikimet - one of the more
popular spam blockers for bloggers
blog - a 'web log' or online journal
containing a number of posts, searchable by date
or category, and editable in any web browser.
blogger - the author(s) of a
blog
blogroll - a list of links to
other blogs or sites the blogger likes. Blogrolls
help people find and build a virtual community
around a topic of common interest.
browser - software used to view
web pages of all kinds. Examples: Firefox,
Safari, Netscape (old), Internet Explorer
comments - in a blog, readers
can add comments to each entry to respond or
reply to what the blogger has posted.
CSS - Cascading style sheets,
which allow web designers to format the style of
a web page separately from the content.
dashboard - the starting page
for editing your blog
entry - the basic building block
of every blog, also called a post. Entries are
automatically given dates
feed - the URL/address and code that
provides subscribers with new entries from a blog
feed reader - see aggregator
permalink - the link address for
a given blog entry that is not tied to the date
it was published. Use the permalink when
bookmarking a blog entry; otherwise, you may link
back to the most recent entry instead.
php - a dynamic, database type
of web coding that drives blogs or other flexible
content on the web
plugin - tools to add on to your
browser or blog to give it more features or
functions
post - a blog entry, the basic
building block of every blog; see also 'entry.'
As a verb, it means to add an entry or post to
your blog.
RSS - 'really simple
syndication' - a way to provide a feed, or
automatic listing of new entries on a blog
spam - unwanted email or blog
comments that often include inappropriate content
and/or are auto-generated; you can block spam on
your blog with a plugin by Askimet
template - the look or feel of
your blog. Blogs (and many newer web sites)
separate content from style, so it's easy to
change the look of your blog without going back
to reformat every page or entry.
username - the name you use,
along with your password, to sign into your blog
so you can edit it; may be your email address or
a short name of only letters and numbers
widget - tools to add on to
pages, sidebar or posts on your blog to add
features such as calendars, rss feeds, image
browsers, small games, chat windows and more
xml - a dynamic, database type
of web coding that drives blog feeds or other
flexible content on the web
For more web and blogging terms, see:
Learning from Others
These web sites offer additional tips on blogging:
- Support Blogging - provides information about blogging in general and educational blogging in particular
- Eduwikis on Blogging - more information on blogging in education
- 200+ Articles for Bloggers - from the Writer's Resource Center
- Top 10 Things Educators should know about blogs, from Learning Technologies Centre
- Blogging in Plain English - a short video on blogging from Common Craft
- blogsforlearning.msu.edu/tutorials/ - tutorials for blogger, word press and blogging in general
Learn with Others
Use our blogging wiki to discuss advantages and disadvantages of blogs in the classroom, ways you might use blogs, bloggging resources, and potential abuses of blogs.
(A wiki is a web site that you can collaboratively write and edit online, using a regular browser and internet connection. Our blogging wiki is public so anyone can add their questions, suggestions, re