After considering the ideas presented this week, I am starting to appreciate why blogging is becoming increasingly popular as a tool for language learning. Blogging can help to enhance several skills that are instrumental to the development of language competencies: Reading, Writing, Analysing, Reflecting, and Collaboration. Although there is a multitude of other ways for developing these skills, blogging represents a comprehensive approach that has the added benefit of resonating with distributed communities of technology-savvy 21st Century learners.
I find it very appropriate that our discussion about blogging happened immediately following our discussion about the importance of establishing clear guidelines for online learners. Although blogging is in many ways a self-directed activity, it seems to me that students communicating on a blog need clear direction (and frequent monitoring) from a teacher. Blogging assignments need to be accompanied by clear procedures and guidelines to ensure that they are aligned with learning objectives and are working toward fostering healthy learning communities. It is in this way that blogs, along with other e-learning tools (like email, asynchronous chat, and course management systems), can be leveraged by educators to promote and cultivate fundamental information literacy skills among students. Blogs open new doors for sharing and accessing information from around the globe. They provide new interaction and learning opportunities that extend out to wider learning communities. Anyone with access to the Internet can find, read and contribute to a blog. Because blogs are public by nature, it becomes essential that students develop fundamental information literacy skills (which includes forming key understandings around personal privacy). Establishing guidelines and rules with students provides a good starting place for developing "digital awareness" among students.
At this point, I’m thinking the best feature of blogs might be the archiving aspect. In a way, blogging is an enhanced version of traditional journaling – well known as an effective learning tool. Blogging, like journaling, allows students (and their teachers) to track learning over time. The advantage of blogging over traditional journaling stems from the distributed nature of blogs:
(1) Teacher and students do not have to be in the same place.
(2) Blogs are interactive in the sense that others can contribute.
(3) Blogs are portable and can be accessed anywhere there is an Internet connection.
(4) Blogs reach a wider audience (more expansive community of learners).
I will continue to reflect on the potential value of blogging as I use this technique in my own learning and professional development!
