Stephen Downes (2009) points out in his blog, Half an Hour, that it is a great tool for educators and teacher. In his post title Blogs in Education, Downes makes the following point “Begin simply. Most uses of blogs in the classroom began with the instructor using blogs to post class information such as lists of readings and assignment deadlines. This fosters in the teacher a familiarity with the technology and with students a habit of regularly checking the online resource.” (para. 13) This is a great idea and use of a blog. This way students, peer and parents can see what assignments are due or even past due. Another take away I received from reading Downes post was about leading by example and creating context. He writes, “Before requiring students to blog, instructors should lead by example, creating their own blogs…” (para. 14) I have always been a big believer in leading by example. As a corporate training I use take phone calls just like the students I so I knew what to expect when customers would call our phone lines. I really enjoyed taking the phone calls as well because it felt like a new learning experience for me.
As I did more research on blog in education I came across a great post by Will Richardson (2010) at Weblogg-ed. Richardson had a recent post titled “Teachers as Master Learners”. In this post Richardson writes about how teachers today need to be learners as well. Not just your run of the meal learner but master learners. He writes “What I want are master learners, not master teachers, learners who see my kids as their apprentices for learning.” (para. 2) This is where the web and today’s tools like blogs can be used by educators and students a like. I know teachers, trainers and educators are busy and have personal lives. But I buy into the idea of life long learning and I think these are the type of skills that could be passed on to other learners just like Richardson is saying. We as people are learners and we need to teach each other how to be Master Learners.
The last resource I would like to write about is a site I found from the Western Australian Government Department of Education. This site was appropriately title Bolgs in Education has a list of ideas that can be used by educators with links to samples and tools on how to apply these ideas. I think it is well worth checking out.
As I stated in the beginning, I think blogs are a great idea and can be great learning tools for the right learner. Even if they are not the right type of learners people in general can learn a lot from blogs and if the learner finds a blog they like to read, well they can be part of the community and start contributing as well by publishing their thoughts as comments or creating a blog of their own. That is if they like to write….
You can also give your students the option of doing some type of podcast or audio file. However, they need to understand that the audio file needs to be an organized piece and have documented resources if that is part of the assignment. If you would like to try this on a couple of your blog posts to see how it would work for both of us, contact me:) I am always open to trying new things that will work for a particular type of learner. Fantastic post, Nathaniel.
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