To Blog, or Not to Blog

The statistics on blogs are impressive. Technorati, the blog-tracking website, reports that they track more than 66 million blogs. There are 175,000 new blogs created every day, and 1.6 million posts are added to blogs daily. These numbers indicate that there is something to blogging that appeals to many people in a way that other forms of written communication do not. Here's what I think it is: Blogging lets you publish your ideas to the world (at least the world with Internet access) quickly, easily, and for free. One needs very little technical training to use blogging software. And once you have a computer and Internet connection, there's no additional cost. You can get on with the business of writing and let the technology take care of itself.

As educators, we can learn a lesson in technology from this. In K-12 technology education the emphasis shouldn't be about learning to use software and hardware (what used to be called computer literacy), it should be about learning how to use the software and hardware get something done. Technology as a tool, not as an end in itself.

The real essence of good education is not in the details of the individual courses and subjects that students take. For example, most of us (myself included) have little need for trigonometry in our daily lives, but I believe it is an important subject for students to study nonetheless. Why? Because by learning trigonometry, the history of World War II, physics, and all of the other subjects that a school offers, our students learn the "meta-skills" that are the core of a good education. Among these I'd include understanding the relationship of man to his environment, how the physical world works, how to organize and analyze information, and how to express oneself in writing.

This is where blogs come in. Any teacher who has student writing as part of the curriculum should consider blogging as an essential activity in the course. Of course there are other ways that students can write. Word processing is one example, but there are several drawbacks to word-processing that blogging overcomes.

First, most blogging software has a limited but powerful set of tools for formatting text. The key word here is "limited." Too often, students get bollixed up in all of the features of today's word-processing programs. (Consider the myriad options in MS Word in the Format/Paragraph menu as one example.) This makes it too easy for students to practice "work avoidance." They don't get on with the actual writing (the content of the assignment) because they are deciding on fonts, point sizes, and text colors. Fewer options mean that students can actually focus on their writing with fewer technological distractions.

A second advantage is that the act of publishing the blog post--making it available to other readers--raises the stakes. Students have a greater incentive to produce good work with proper spelling, punctuation, and all of the other characteristics of good writing because they know that someone else besides the teacher can and will read it.

Third, a word processing document is large, empty page--an invitation to writer's block. In comparison, a blog entry screen, like the one I'm using to write this blog, is a much smaller window. It holds about thirteen lines of text. Much less intimidating. A student can more easily write a paragraph, preview it, publish it, revise it. Other readers; e.g., students or the teacher, can read it immediately. They can post comments to which the original writer can then respond.

Blogging helps in other ways as well. It eliminates the problem of students' forgetting what the homework assignment is and not turning in work because it was lost or left at home. In my classes, I post the day's class notes to my blog including what the homework assignment or project specifications are. (You can see examples the blog for my grade 10 technology class here.)

Students can read the assignment during the class, after school, and at home from my blog. For most writing assignment I have my students post their writing to their blogs. I can read them, comment on them, and offer suggestions anywhere I have Internet access. (I don't put grades on the posts for obvious reasons, however.) In the event that the assignment requires a paper document, students can copy from the blog and paste to MS Word.

There are many blogging systems. You can read details on the web or from a number of excellent books such as dispatches from blogistan by Suzanne Stefanac. In the meantime, I'd recommend Google's Blogger. It's free, easy to use, has no advertisements, and has many advanced features that even powerusers will appreciate.

There is much more that I could say both in terms of specifics and general philosophy about blogging, but it won't make sense to you unless you've done some blogging with your students. So, get a free Blogger account (five minutes). Set up each student with a blog (15-20 minutes in class including time to make a trial post). And give blogging a try. I think you'll be surprised and impressed with how quickly you and your students take to blogging.

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