Blogging for Collaboration

Blogs are useful tools for teacher-student collaboration and peer-to-peer collaboration because it creates a space where people can freely reflect and share their ideas and opinions without any formal rules.  A blog post can be written in the style of the writer.  A student doesn’t have to adhere to any specific writing guidelines, or tense.  Blogs are very informal that way.  They also allow for other students (within the class or abroad) to comment on each blog post and share their perspectives as well.  Blog posts can be anonymous, or not.

According to escrapbooking,com, an online resource for creating educational scrapbooks, states that blogs are designed to “stimulate new questions, promote sharing of process, encourage alternative ideas and promote interaction” (Lamb & Johnson, 2011).  Student blogging also lends itself to other learning initiatives like exploring Web 2.0 technologies.  Students can research online content to put on the blog like streaming videos, audio, moving images and links to their favorite online websites. Students will enjoy the interaction they experience with adding their own favorite content for the world (and their peers) to see and comment on.  

Teacher collaborative blogs are also useful where teachers can share lesson plans, tips and ideas with other teachers.  There may be a slight learning curve and teaches may want to introduce student blogs slowly, with some parameters and tips for online safety.  But after the learning curve, it should be a fun, online learning experience.

References:

Lamb, A & Johnson, L. (2011). Escrapbooking.com. Retrieved September 21, 2012 from http://escrapbooking.com/index.html.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts. (pp. )Thousand Oaks: Corwin.