I was pleasantly surprised to find out how easy blogging is. Perhaps this is my millennial generation attitude (in which computers and breathing seem to be on the same level) but in just a few clicks I had a blog! I can see how this could be a great addition to my teaching arsenal. For instance, in one of my previous classes I was required to write a weekly journal in a bulky notebook, which hopefully I could remember to bring to class each week. Now comparing that to simply being able to type my journal into a blog, I would DEFINITELY choose the blog. Let’s face it; students today are constantly hooked into technology. Why shouldn’t we, as teachers, use this to our advantage? Instead of carrying around bulky stacks of journals, read their weekly blogs! Instead of wasting 5 or 10 minutes with announcements, post them on the class blog! To involve even the shyest students in class discussions, post a question or controversial statement on the blog each day, and make it a requirement for students to post a set number of responses every week.
A really great resource for how to use blogging in Academia is http://edtech.tennessee.edu/set/2005/set31/. This site highlights the idea of using blogs as a research journal. Being that my field is science, in particular biology, this would be a great way for students to record their methods for experiments, report results, and hopefully begin to see the benefits of recording their methods as they do them, instead of trying to remember all the details when they sit down to write the report! One of the major goals throughout my teaching is that I want my students to learn good scientific writing. A blog would be a great place for my students to post potential hypothesis, try their hand at writing abstracts and correct and re-write examples of bad writing.
In my opinion, using technology (like blogging) in our teaching may just be the catalyst needed to get students to start activity learning and participating! Remember, I informed you thusly :D.
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