I have already discovered a lot of benefits in using blogs in education. In our last class, our team had the pleasure of presenting the discussion approach to instruction. In this instruction approach, a discussion platform is used to facilitate learning. The teacher presents a topic and provides media assets that the students respond to. The students post their responses in a blog format on some type of shared discussion platform. In this environment, students get to speak their minds and attempt to persuade their classmates to see their point of view and to agree with them. Of course in this discussion platform, there exists rules and regulations students have to follow, so they can't say whatever they want. However, participating in this type of education environment is a form of blogging and shares many of the same advantages of blogging (Reigeluth and Carr-Chellman, 2009). I will definitely incorporate this type of learning into my lesson plans.
Renee Flierl and Heather Fowler (2007) provide numerous examples of educators that are integrating wikis and blogs in their lesson plans and offer several websites for educators to use as resources. They discuss the importance of incorporating wikis and blogs in education, but as I said above, I'm already sold on the idea and I am anxious to start fusing these Web tools as part of my instruction. My favorite site that Flierl and Fowler examine as a resource to educators is edublogs.org. This is a site that enables teachers and students to easily begin their own blogs.
Although blogging and wikis are a new concept to many educators, I truly believe that it is just a matter of time before it is the norm and a regular classroom practice. The benefits are far too great for educators to pass up.
References
Flierl, R., & Fowler, H. (2007). Educational Uses of Blogs and Wikis. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(3), C3. Retrieved from Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts database.
Reigeluth, C., & Carr-Chellman, A. (2009). Instructional-design theories and models: Building a common knowledge base Volume III. New York: Taylor and Francis.
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