I first heard about blogging last year. I learned that it was a way to share your ideas electronically. People could post their reflections and opinions on the web for others to view. It was an interesting idea, but one I was definitely not eagerly prepared to try. My first attempt to blog was kept private. I posted only one entry that I never did decide to share with others. I did start to consult other people’s blogs, however. What a discovery! If I wanted to know other’s opinions about a new product all I needed to do was Google and lo and behold there was someone to answer my query. How would I use this in the classroom? I had no idea.
Almost a year later, and I’m ready to embrace the blog. I am now willing to share my ideas with others with my own posts and comments to others. I can imagine that online journaling would be a great way to encourage my students to write. Many ideas are keeping me awake at night, as I ponder the uses of this technology. Will it help my students though become better writers, or is it just a new tool to learn? The purpose of this paper is to help me answer this question. With much searching I have been able to find more than one opinion about the blog and its value as a writing tool.
Gleaves, Walker, and Grey conducted a study comparing digital and paper diaries that were created daily by higher education students. The researchers knew that the journal was important way to show growth of reflection, creative writing, and critical thinking. They wanted to compare how different types of diary were used and for what specific learning purposes. With that aim in mind, they had one group of undergraduates use a Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to contribute to a blog daily. The second group wrote their reflections in hard covered paper diary. They found that the students who wrote digitally typically wrote shorter entries, but they were more diligent at posting every day. The pen and paper group tended to write longer journals, that were more pensive and more polished than their counterparts. They did not always remember to write daily, however, and there was no way to ensure that they didn’t write several entries in one day (the digital entries were date stamped so this wasn’t possible) . Some of the discrepancies between the groups were due to technology isssues. They PDA’s would sometimes drop their internet connection and therefore the students would write quickly so as not to lose their posts. This wouldn’t give them enough time to polish their diary. In summary, does this study show that the blog is way to improve student writing? Not in so far as becoming a more polished author perhaps, but it does encourage them to write more often.
A second article that I read, entitled “U R What U Write” examined the way students often use shortcuts or “Netspeak” when writing blogs and other electronic entries. Nelson and Feinstein wanted to discover how this would effect student writing when completing school assignments digitally. It became apparent that although the participants in the study could adjust their writing style when writing for the “teacher”, those who did not regularly communicate with their peers electronically had stronger grammar and punctuation skills. Teachers had hoped that by editing their work the students would gain more practice and improve the quality of their writing. Unfortunately, they didn’t take into account all of the ‘practice’ students were already getting when creating their new form of communicating with their friends daily. Without a lot of further instruction, students did not know how to adjust their language from social writing to academic writing. The study noticed that overall knowledge of writing conventions had diminished from what students once knew in the past before electronic communication had become so prevalent. This does not mean that children cannot learn to become stronger writers. It tells us, that as educators we have to work harder to ensure that our students know how to use the appropriate conventions. Blogging by itself is not going to make a stronger writer, especially if the child is already a prolific social writer electronically.
“Collaborative Literacy: Blogs and Internet Projects” by Boling, Castek, Zawilinski, Barton, and Nierlich demonstrated many positive aspects of blogging in the elementary classroom. Students created a variety of written projects that were shared online with their peers. All of the children mentioned in this article were very excited about writing. By sharing their work on blogs and wikis with an audience of their classmates, they were determined to edit and revise their writing until it would be very clear to their online partners. Unlike the first article mentioned in my paper, this group spent a lot of time polishing their work. In fact, they were much more engaged in their writing than they had been when only use pen and paper. The children found blogging empowering as they shared their ideas with others. Teachers found that students who were more computer literate, but sometimes poor readers, were asked to help others and share their expertise with others. This was a good way to increase their literacy engagement and proficiency. Overall the children in this study were excited about their learning and were more engaged. In this case, blogging helped students become stronger writers.
After writing this position paper, I think I need to be careful when approaching blogging with the classes that I teach. The younger students, who are less apt to already know how to communicate electronically will possibly benefit the most from using this technology. The older classes will need more monitoring to ensure that they are using academic language instead of “Netspeak”. In the elementary school, this will be a smaller problem. I believe that using a blog can be a very powerful tool as long as it is open to a wider audience than just the teacher (as with Gleaves, Walker, and Grey). I am looking forward to giving it a try and keeping an open mind.
Bibliography
Boling E, Castek J, Zawilinski L, Barton K, Nierlich T. Collaborative Literacy: Blogs and Internet Projects. Reading Teacher [serial online]. March 01, 2008;61(6):504. Available from: ERIC, Ipswich, MA. Accessed July 3, 2008.
Gleaves A, Walker C, Grey J. Using Digital and Paper Diaries for Learning and Assessment Purposes in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Feasibility and Reliability. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education [serial online]. December 01, 2007;32(6):631. Available from: ERIC, Ipswich, MA. Accessed July 3, 2008.
Nelson L, Feinstein S. Research on Writing Conventions: U R What U Write. Online Submission [serial online]. January 01, 2007. Available from: ERIC, Ipswich, MA. Accessed July 3, 2008.
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