Why teachers and students should blog

1. ARTICLES NEWS TRENDS HOW TO UPDATES TOOLS SOCIAL MEDIA ONLINE COLLEGE REPORT
ADVERTISEMENT
Never miss our best content.
Home / Articles / Why Teachers and Students Should Blog
Why Teachers and Students Should Blog
By Hanna Shekhter on May 30, 2015
Tweet 169 83Like 42
Blogs have the potential expand student creativity, not to mention their writing skills. Language
Arts and Reading specialists will love that, right? But how do I convince them that their students
are thirsty for the knowledge they want to share but not the same way that they themselves
obtained it? These kids are 21st century students and are adapting to a digital world that they are
eager to learn from.
Fortunately for teachers, blogs are surprisingly easy to use. They require minimum technical
knowledge and are quickly and easily created and maintained. Students will be able to pick up
how to use blogging platforms with minimal technical assistance and teachers will enjoy the ease
in the initial setup. Unlike many traditional Web sites, blogs are flexible in design and can be
changed relatively easily. Best of all, students and teachers will find them convenient and
accessible via any computer or mobile device.
Why Blogging is Great for Students
1. Blogs Allow for Multi-Faceted Learning
Educators need to teach important materials in several ways because each one of our students
learns differently. What’s more, we also need to provide students with multiple ways to engage
with assignments, based on their individual talents. Blogging is one technique for doing so, as it
can allow a quieter student, for example, to feel heard online. Those shy and quiet students feel
less pressure when they need to “speak” in their blog or when giving peer feedback, as they are
discussing the text on their own terms. Additionally, this journaling format works great with read­
and­write learners as well as visual learners.
2. Blogs Promote Literacy and Sharpen Writing Skills
Blogging gives students an opportunity to become published authors and showcase their writing
skills. In addition, blogs give students the ability to improve communication and collaboration
through the commenting feature. Peer review and feedback become an invaluable part of the
writing process. Students from other parts of the world can also comment and provide a new
cultural perspective to our own students’ thoughts and opinions. Students’ writing skills are vastly
improved through the blogging process, since they have to work harder to hold the readers’
attention. To do that, every word, phrase, sentence, and even punctuation mark must add
something to the posting.
3. Blogs Are Accessible and Engaging
With the availability of blog apps, blogging has become very simple and accessible to our
students. They can blog from anywhere about anything whenever they are in the mood to reflect.
They are not tied down to a desk and feel more free using this writing media. Also, in the age
where every person has a camera in their pocket, we have become a society that journals
through photography and video. Along with other multimedia artifacts, blogs become more
engaging and almost interactive for the readers.
4. Blogs Can Serve as a Classroom Management Tool
When used as an in­class assignment, blogs can keep your students on task and focused. The
more blogs students post, the more opportunities they have for others to comment on their blog.
It’s an exciting feeling for students to see proof of someone reading their published work, taking
6
Getting to the Roots of STEM
with the Radix Endeavor
The Long­Term Effects of
Skipping Your Reading
Homework
By Pamela DeLoatch
20 Education Administrator Blogs
8 Must­Have Google Chrome
Apps for Students
6 Videos To Use In Your Social
Justice Lessons
By Joy Nelson
Coding in the Classroom: 16 Top
Resources
MOST POPULAR
EDUDEMIC FAVORITES
HOME FEATURED THE TEACHER’S GUIDES FOR STUDENTS FOR TEACHERS Search

2. Edudemic's news and features
delivered daily.
email...
Sign me up!
Powered by Education Dive
Online Colleges That Offer Laptops
30 Best Online Master's Degree Programs in
Special Education
time to reflect on it, and posting their opinion or question. Creating a classroom blog instead of
individual blogs fosters an online community for your students to extend the classroom beyond
the 4 walls. The learning continues wherever they go and their thoughts and conversations keep
going. Blogging is a great tool to create student portfolios, as it can be used both as a “learning
portfolio” and a “showcase portfolio”.
5 Tips That Will Make Blogging a Breeze
1. Use a simple blog application
Look for popular classroom blogging apps that have been tested in classrooms and made simple
even for early elementary students. Blogger is a Google app and is completely free. It is easy and
simple to use if you have a Google account you can set up your blog in minutes from a computer
or mobile device. Edublogs lets you easily create and manage student and teacher blogs,
customize designs and include videos, photos and podcasts. Kidblog provides teachers with the
tools to help students publish writing safely online. Students exercise digital citizenship within a
secure classroom blogging space and teachers can monitor all student activity. Other great
options include WordPress, Weebly, and Tumblr (for photoblogs).
2. Start with a specific writing prompt
If you’re beginning with a class rather than an individual blog, you’ll be responsible for those initial
posts, while the students will respond in comments. As students demonstrate both keenness and
responsibility, give them more freedom where they earn the right to write posts on the class blog
and/or get their own student blog. You can start with Sentence Starters like “Today was the best
day ever…” Image­based prompts that can also be incorporated into daily and/or creative writing
activities whether they are pictures you took or random ones from a web site or app. You can also
invite students to create prompts for the class and use these prompts whenever possible.
3. Create a rubric
Providing detailed explanations of an assignment using a rubric can help students in both
completing tasks and thinking about their performance. Be sure to include expectations for the
first post as well as for commenting on another student’s post.
4. Know your audience
The audience makes the work matter to students as they have an opportunity to showcase their
writing and respond to real feedback. Initially, the teacher and classroom peers are the major
audience that provide the feedback. However, you may want to consider sharing the blog details
with parents through the school website and newsletters to grow the audience to family members
and other parents. This can have unexpected practical use. For instance, if a student is writing a
piece on the topic of technology and one of the parents in the classroom is an engineer, that
student may be eager to produce quality work to get real feedback — and they may find
themselves a great interview source, too.
5. Make content concise
Tight, concise, easy­to­read pieces are ideal for most online readers. Long, complex, convoluted
ones are just confusing. Very often, the longer a piece is, the less the writer holds a reader’s
interest — all the more so on small screens. As such, your students would do well to get right to
the point — a skill they’ll find valuable as they continue up the academic ladder
Takeaways
Educators know that students write better when they have a real audience. But with blogging any
student can write for the world to see. Students have an authentic audience for their writing and
that has an impact on the quality of their posts and comments. Encouraging students to blog
about all sorts of topics helps them see connections among subjects and different aspects of their
life and realize that writing is a worthwhile skill in any field.
Want to learn more? Visit my blog here.
Editor’s note: This is an update to Hanna Shekter’s original post on this subject, which first ran on
January 5th, 2013. A lot has changed since then, so we invited Hanna back to update her
wonderful tips.
RELATED ITEMS BLOGGING CLASSROOM TOOLS EDUBLOGS
Affordable Online Colleges in America:
Rankings & Report
Edudemic Staff | July 23, 2014
At long last, online learning is maturing to the point
of being a viable option for many. Let's uncover the
truth about cheap online colleges and if they're
right...
ONLINE DEGREE ADVICE
MORE ADVICE
JOIN EDUDEMIC ON FACEBOOK!
USEFUL TOOLS TO CHECK OUT
4

3. 4 Steps to a Useable and Used
LMS
← Previous Story
The Best Ways to Use Google In
the Classroom
How to Get Free Classroom
Supplies and Teaching
Materials
How (and Why) To Use Student
Blogs
RECENT ARTICLES
Hanna Shekhter | May 30, 2015
Why Teachers and Students
Should Blog
Jon Butcher | May 29, 2015
4 Steps to a Useable and Used
LMS
Amanda Ronan | May 28, 2015
Edudemic’s Question of the
Month: March Recap
FEATURED ARTICLES
Sarah Muthler | May 15, 2015
Is Homework Worthwhile?
Amanda Ronan | May 4, 2015
6 Videos To Use In Your Social
Justice Lessons
Brittni Brown | May 1, 2015
Turn Your Students Into Data
Sleuths With Geographic
Information Systems
MOST POPULAR
Pamela DeLoatch | May 11, 2015
20 Education Administrator
Blogs
Jim Hinton | April 23, 2015
Getting to the Roots of STEM
with the Radix Endeavor
Pamela DeLoatch | April 14, 2015
The Long­Term Effects of
Skipping Your Reading
Homework
© Edudemic ­ Reproduction without explicit permission is prohibited. All Rights Reserved.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Name *
Email *
Website
Comment
Post Comment
The Best Ways to Use Google In
the Classroom
Coding in the Classroom: 16 Top
Resources
By Hanna Shekhter
Why Teachers and Students
Should Blog
About & Who We Are Contact Terms & Privacy Policy
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE...
LEAVE A REPLY