Creating a Blog - Reflection

My own learnings about blogs is that they can be an extremely useful tool that can be used in classrooms, with great success. Even though they are single author and students only have the chance to comment on the blog given they have give so many opportunities. A blog is something that has little limits on what you can post for your learners, so they can thrive in their own learning styles and opens the door to every learner being able to learn and not be left behind in the classroom. The thing I love most about a blog is that they can be based on any learning theory you wish. For example cognitivism can be using the process of getting a child to store the information in their long term memory, by using a range of different learning resources to get the information from sensory memory to the working memory and finally into the learner's long term memory. Another great learning style that can be used in a blog is connectivism, by posting links and encouraging students to comment with more links that they found allowing them in the process of their own learning. I can go on and on about the other learning styles but I will leave it at that. Blogs just have so much use in the teaching context, in my own ideal teaching environment I would use blogs with the a mix of cognitivism and connectivism and use a range of different links an information for the students on my own blog and have children to create their own for reflections and commenting their own ideas on my blog. I think the students would really enjoy the use of blogs and the way they are learner based. Basing them on their own styles and differences to make a great learning environment.

Furthermore to create this reflection I used the SWAT analysis which really helped put everything into place as I was extremely all over the place while trying to write this reflection. There are just so many points to consider and simply where do I start, but back to the reflection at hand as this is my reflection on Blogs not SWAT. Well basically overall there are many strengths in using blogs in the classroom and it is proven to be an effective way for children to learn. But in saying that you cannot ignore the fact that it is not allowed in classrooms and it is an extremely hard tool to use with the board of educations permission or even the principles permission for that matter. Because even though there are many positives such as; allowing students to connect with each other and to connect globally, opens learning opportunities, is proven to bring out creativeness out in students and this is just to name a few. There are also a lot of threats and negatives in the way of blogs and not having enough power to control the use with students, such as cyber bullying or the content children decide to post on their own blog.

Blogging is a great way that students could learn effectively, but the sad truth is with all the barriers is it is something that is extremely difficult to control and to even get permission to use.

Below I have my SWAT analysis because it is something I would like to include

Strengths:

Students going on line
students interests
opens learning opportunities with links etc
allow to communicate between students
connect globally
brings creativeness out in students
if student did not grasp teaching in class post other links to teaching for more of an understanding

Weaknesses:

cyberbullying
not all students have access to internet
not all information online is truthful and need to watch on what sites are used/posted

Opportunities:

connect globally
connect between students
help each other

Threats:

cyber bullying yet blogs and wikis are often not allowed or blocked in most schools
students being to shy to ask for help


Casey :)