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Blogging: An Out-of-Class Online Experience

Several years ago, blogs came on the Internet scene as online diaries made public, a popular phenomenon that soon influenced commercial online publishing. Today blogs are pervasive in newspaper and magazine websites, with many articles inviting reader commentary (and typically published under editorial discretion for the sake of propriety). The Indianapolis Star, for example, features many columns and stories accompanied by reader remarks. Recently, ICS teachers turned to blogging as an interactive learning vehicle and extension of their classroom, exploring another avenue to increase student engagement.

During a staff professional development session earlier this year, ICS Technology Coordinator Jennifer Woo presented how blogs are being used as an out-of-school classroom instructional enhancement. Our 7th and 8th grade teachers took to the concept immediately, as did their 5th grade colleagues. Within a few days of the blogging in-service program, this cadre of teachers developed individual classroom blogs and commenced posting.

ICS teachers use blogs to post class notes, announcements, and homework. Their blogs also serve as online “polling stations,” where opinion questions are posted in the interest of promoting classroom discussion the following day. Mr. Clark, ICS Social Studies Teacher, uses his blog to post an online study session the night before a test. An enthusiastic blogger, he characterizes the efficacy of his classroom blog as “awesome.” He elaborates, “The kids are logging on regularly. Assignments are getting done, and they seem to be having fun with it. It is going better than I expected.” Mr. Clark mentions that parents are invited to post on his classroom blog – and have been doing so – to contribute to the daily classroom conversations revisited online.

Language Arts Teacher Mrs. Venekamp likes the fact that her students who have been absent or need to refresh their memories about a classroom lesson that day can turn to her class blog for the pertinent information that night. “I also try to give helpful hints and updates about different genres we are reading and writing,” she says. Near the end of last quarter, Mrs. Venekamp posted language arts activities and website addresses for her students to practice their reading and writing skills as they completed their quarter-long portfolio projects.

Occasionally Mrs. Venekamp’s students will send her a personal question through the blog, and for the sake of propriety and respecting their privacy she’ll answer them directly through email. Parents should be aware that teachers who host blogs act as editors by having the ability to review student communications sent to the classroom blogs offline and make a determination whether to make them public (post them) or not.

The teachers benefit, too, notably from the sense of organization their blogs provide, inherent in the very makeup of blogs. “My blog serves as a teaching diary for myself,” Mrs. Venekamp states. “I can see at a glance what I did each day with my classes, and the fact that it’s archived makes it very useful. My plans are a set of goals; the blogs represent the actual accomplishments.”

Ms. Jacobs, the ICS 7th and 8th grade Science Teacher, created her blog because she wanted her students to “feel more connected to class.” At the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year she set up a Twitter account to track class activities and homework. Once she saw a colleague’s classroom blog, she realized that Twitter’s limitation of 140 characters for describing classroom activities paled in comparison to the promise of blogging and its unlimited content space.

Like Mrs. Venekamp, Ms. Jacobs uses her blog to record daily classroom activities and post homework assignments in greater detail. “I can copy and paste articles, links to videos, homework questions, and more, so there is no excuse for students not to get caught up on their work,” Ms. Jacobs comments. In the future, she plans to incorporate student comments and chats on her blog. She adds, “The blog itself reinforces the idea that a good student is a resourceful student. It’s one more classroom resource that encourages students to be responsible about their work.” Meanwhile, Ms. Jacobs has observed that an increasing number of her students are turning in make-up work due to the readily accessible classroom information available on her blog. In fact, “I got it off the blog” is currently her favorite phrase!

And what are parents saying about the ICS classroom blogs? Although there has been a parent or two concerned that inappropriate material can be accessed from the ICS blogs – which is distinctly not the case – the response has overwhelmingly been, “What’s the address?”

The ICS classroom blog addresses are:

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