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Educational Blogging: THE PROS OF BLOGGING IN EDUCATION

 * Blogging refers to personal journals and reflections on specific topics. The word blog comes from the word ‘web blog’.  Blogging is a simple part of cyberspace that has been around for almost fifteen years and has been popular for almost the same amount of time.  Blogs are similar to ‘diary entries’ that are regarding any topic that can inform and entertain a person.  It can focus on one narrow subject or about a whole range of subjects.  Blogs are usually written in chronological order and displayed in reverse chronological order.    Anyone can write about anything that they want; there are billions of topics to talk about.  People who blog do not have to be great writers, they just need to have to be able to understand and how to communicate.   Anyone has the ability to blog; the key is to find a catchy topic that will cause people to become a fan of your blog.  Blogs are created in a variety of different layouts, designs, formats, colors, and settings.  All of these should be considered when setting up a blog depending on the focus of the blog.

HOW TO BE A SUCCSSFUL WRITER WHEN BLOGGING:

 * In order to be a successful blogger and have other people continue to view your page, some important information should be taken into consideration before beginning the process of blogging. To begin, a person must want to blog for a specific purpose.  A person who wants to start blogging must ask themselves, “What do I want to inform the world about?”  Once that question is answered, then the blogging process can begin.  A blogger must be passionate about the topic which is being blogged about.  Secondly, a person cannot and should not post blog entries if their grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure is not adequate—it is unprofessional and will most likely steer people away from the blog.  People want to read professional and well written blogs, not sloppy blogs.   They should be dedicated to their blog in order to achieve success.  Without passion, it will be boring and not written to the best of the blogger’s ability.  Thirdly, a blogger must research must of what is being written about.  Research always gives opportunities for the blog to be more interesting because instead of solely based opinions, facts will be included.  Lastly, bloggers must have a personally!  Just like having a passion, is personality is not shown in the blog, it will be uninteresting.  Humor and honestly should be in blogs as well, because that is what most people prefer.

WHAT BLOGS ARE USED FOR:

 * Blogs are typically used to rant about various topics, inform, and put out new ideas, opinions, or thoughts. Businesses have been beginning to blog, for example, media.  The news media post their stories and readers subscribe so that they can get up to date news feed.  College professors use blogging as a way to teach and interact with students.  Political figures use blogs to inform and update people on their moves.

BENEFITS OF WEB BLOGGING IN EDUCATION:

 * There are many benefits to consider when blogging and reading blogs.  Throughout the years, blogging has created educational benefits all over the world.  Now that this generation consists of such new technologies, learning is now more expanded and convenient.  First off, blogging can promote logical and decisive thinking, creative thinking, and can promote social interaction. Simplicity and helpfulness are two important aspects that are needed in order to learn efficiently.  Blogging in education is exactly that: simple and helpful.


 * Using blogs can make learning independent of time and space. The instructor is able to teach anywhere at any time.  All the student needs to do is to access to the blog.  Blogging causes and promotes participation and causes education to be demand oriented.  There usually is a rise in participation when using blogging as an educational tool because not all students are self driven.  When teaching through a blog is the only way to learn, the students who need drive to learn will be forced to learn through the blog or else it will result in a failing grade.  When blogging is used for education, self learning is the key.  It is up to the student to log on to the blogs, read, learn, and interact.  “The key to the popularity of blogs, it seems, is the scope for interactivity (Williams, 2).”   Learning through blogs is a way to encourage learners to be active and participate throughout the course.  This can always backfire, though.  Some learners prefer to be taught lecture style by voice output in an actual classroom.  Also, if students have access to other student’s blogs, the student can simply copy and paste information to their blog, which is plagiarism, but can be done.


 * Using blogs helps students with their writing abilities. As they say, practice makes perfect.  The more assignments a person has to blog about, the better he or she will become at writing.  Also, by reading other student’s and teacher’s blogs, the writing can be used as a model for efficient writing.  Reflections and expression through writing is a great way for students to practice writing.


 * Using a blog for educational purposes can cause a person to rethink their ideas and/or opinions. Usually, blogs for classes for links to all of the other students in the class.  Everyone has their own ideas which can cause change for another person.  Open-mindedness is always a great thing this day in age and in the work world.  “In the course of writing entries and responding to feedback, that reflects the personal character of the blog's creator (Williams, 2)."


 * Using a blog invites people to collaborate ideas and opinions. “…that the capacity to engage people in collaborative activity, knowledge sharing, reflection and debate, where complex and expensive technology has failed (Williams, 1).” Also, when students are working in groups, it is much easier and time efficient to blog discussions and collaborative work instead of meeting up with the whole group. Today, student’s lives are so busy; there is not much time to meet up other than via internet.  Also, some people are very shy face to face and more outgoing through blogging.  Blogging is able to bring true personalities out in people; in education, honesty is important, especially if an assignment contains opinions.


 * When using blogs, it reduces costs for the education institution and for students. If a course is simply blogs and online, then money on rooms, paper, pencils and pens, and transportation can be avoided.

CASE STUDY:

 * A student reported information and feedback about web blogging as an educational tool. He/she had two classes which that contained the use of blogs.  After each class, the professor posted the important points of the lecture, posted an assignment to do in description, and posted assignments on the blog.  There were various handouts on the blog, as well.  Instead of buying books, the class used the links on the blog to read out material.  If the class had questions, they easily posted on the blog.  The class was able to see what everyone else said about homework questions because the professor hasd all classmates’ blogs posted.  If a person had to miss class for a particular reason, then all the student had to do was read the blog.  This person thought that web blogging was a very useful technique in educational teaching.

BENEFITS:

 * Blogging can be done by anyone about anything, anytime. As long as there is a focus, a passion, knowledge, appropriate language skills, and a personality, then the blog should be great. Not only is blogging great for anyone, but specifically for education purposes because it expands the possibilities of student’s knowledge and information of specific courses.