Blogs as Educational Tools

After reading Stephen Downes' article on blogs as educational tools I am excited and intrigued by the idea. I really see his point that blogging can be great for students but only if used properly. When I was first assigned to start a blog I thought I would have nothing important to say that would interest other people or inspire comments. Now I am beginning to understand how blogging can be very useful to students. I enjoy seeing what other people have to say about my posts and I love reading other people's posts and commenting. It is exciting to see a dialoge or even a debate develop as different people give their perspective on a topic. As an educational tool I think the first important element the students blogs must have is an appropriate audience. Though students in a class can blog and respond to each other I like Downes' idea of connecting with a class in a different area or state. This allows students to gain different perspectives they could not gain in face to face interaction within their own classroom. The second important element in successful student blogging is assigning topics. Though at first it is interesting to blog about each other's schools and lives and look for similarities and differences this soon becomes boring. To give student blogs real educational value they need to have specific topics to discuss and assignments to work on through their blogs. These of course must be age appropriate and relevant to both classes. Downes talked about setting up projects that the two classes could work together on through blogging. I think this is a great idea that would be interesting and fun for students. Perhaps students could design and administer some type of survey and then compare and analyze the results on their blogs. These surveys could be as simple as comparing what hobbies and activities are popular in different areas for younger students, or as involved as studying daily weather and climate for extended time periods in several different areas throughout the country with older students. Another idea for a project might be to have students work together through blogging to create a pamphlet for the community on environmental concerns. There are endless possibilities for effective educational blogging with students of all levels.