The term "blog" is derived from the contraction of the words web log. Blogs are discussion or informational websites that contain individual posts created by one or multiple authors. Blogs typically focus on a niche topic and are geared toward a particular audience. Blogs are interactive in that readers can write comments to individual posts, and blog authors can, in turn, reply to those comments. A typical blog combines text, images, links to other blogs and websites, and other media related to its topic. One of the distinct advantages of blogging is that it lowers the entry barrier to web publishing for non-technical people. Blog authors need to know little to no web coding, such as HTML, to maintain professional looking and content rich websites.
The following is a list of common uses for blogs:
The following is a list of common uses for blogs:
Let's focus in on the last bullet point - using blogs in education. There are countless ways that a teacher could effectively and quickly use blogs to augment or enhance their teaching. Blogs are really useful tools for sharing resources and information in the classroom, and web publishing tools such as Blogger and Wordpress allow you to manage your blog and its content with easy to use interface tools that take care of the web coding for you. They can be used as a makeshift Learning Management System (LMS) if your school does not subscribe to a service such as Schoology, Whipple Hill, or Moodle. Maybe the most important uses of blogs in the classroom are giving students the ability to share their own work, particularly writing, and teaching them how to appropriately reflect on others work and interact with people in an online setting.
The following is a list of common uses for educational blogs, but it is by no means a comprehensive or complete list:
The following is a list of common uses for educational blogs, but it is by no means a comprehensive or complete list:
- learning journal
- parent contact/resources
- posting and collecting homework assignments
- showcasing student work
- message board for responsive conversations
- classroom resources
- learning management system (LMS)
- class website
- digital portfolios
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