My First Classroom Blog Experience

Last Fall I forayed into the classroom blogging experience with my lower level environmental science class, you can find it here sshsenvscience.blogspot.com. I was doing a study to see if blogging had an effect on literacy. I really didn't know what to expect and some results were surprising. The students preferred blogging to pen and paper but their writing only improved marginally over the five required entries.
The assignment involved reading about an environmental issue online and developing an opinion to be published on a blog. They then commented on a couple of their peers blogs. I chimed in a few times in my blog and commented on several on the student's blogs.
The main conclusions I drew from the study were as follows:

• the short time frame was not enough to show conclusive evidence of improved verbal literacy
  
• the students learned how to blog effectively and increased their digital literacy


• students preferred blogging to traditional assignments


• the global posting of their entries caused them to put more effort into the assignments as they knew others would be reading it


• they did not enjoy commenting on others' blogs


• they did not like the research aspect of the assignment


• they would have preferred more choice in the topics


• they became more aware of environmental issues

In short, they had to read and write quite a bit and that can't hurt their verbal literacy. They were actively involved in researching and publishing a creative work using technology- constructivist principles galore! They learned content from the experience through online research and discussion. This graph shows their attitudes toward blogging:

And their perceptions on their learning:

Next time I will allow more choice in the assignments. I think the students will write with more passion with more choice. I inherently improved my blogging skills and will apply my learning the next time I try it.

Blogging is a worthwhile educational exercise and a medium that will grow quickly in the field.