USING BLOGS IN THE CLASSROOM
I think that any student would love the idea of creating their own blog. A blog is much more special than a Word Document or a Google Doc because it can be personalized. Creative students will have a fun time making their page their own, and they will probably be more motivated to do well on their assignments if they know that anyone can see them. A blog may feel like social media to some kids, and they may be more willing to share their opinions and comment on other people’s pages because it is more familiar to them. Blogs are also great because they give students a chance to learn how to do more technologically advanced functions, which will help them tremendously in the long run. While they are creating a blog, they are learning how to embed a video, link a website, and publish their thoughts to a public domain. Blogs provide a great way for students to share their opinions, or also share with others a topic they have researched. Blogs also stay with students even after the class has ended. They can act as a sort of portfolio for them, so they can see what they did in the past and compare it to what they are doing now.
I could definitely see myself creating a blog for my future classroom, where I would post cool things going around in the Spanish-speaking community and also post extra credit opportunities or shout outs to students who chose to experience the Spanish culture in some way. This would be a fun way to bring the students together outside of the classroom, and would hopefully allow them to appreciate the Spanish language and culture in a new way.
I took a class in college where we had to volunteer with the Latino community and post several blog posts about our experiences. Every 2 weeks, we would share a post with our classmates and we would discuss what we had done. This was a great way to get involved with the community, and the blog made it easy for us to record our doings and share them with the class. This was the first time I had personally created a blog, and it was not nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be. I had a really fun time with that project, and I hope to do something similar with my future students.
The only constraint I would have with blogs would be the setup process. Setting up a blog, choosing a username, and selecting a theme may take a long time for a classroom of middle schoolers, and I don’t know how much time I would want to take to get things started. Also, I would want to make sure that the students had wifi outside of school so they could work on them at home as well. It wouldn’t be fair if some of the students didn’t, because they could so easily fall behind. These problems are not detrimental, and they definitely will not stop me from using a blog when I am a teacher, but they are still something to think about.
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