Thursday 16th March 2012 – The influence of classroom blogging on elementary student writing

Reflection

In today’s tutorial, my group and I had to present our group research based upon the reading within our Literature Circles. Our reading “The influence of classroom blogging on elementary student writing” was our main focus in terms of working within a group. The team members were Sophie, Rebecca and I. It was a great experience where each of us came up with our own question which made us research futher for the answer and share it with the class. In order to assist us with the presentation, we had designed a powerpoint presentation. Rebecca displayed her response with a mindmap listing the 5 influences of classroom blogging on student writing. She had asked the class to share their responses as she listed them on the whiteboard. Sophie had shared her answers that she had researched and then asked for opinions in terms of the change of audience of the students blogging and the improvement according reading, writing and social skills. Finally it was my turn to present my response. My response was a reflective repsonse which allowed the class to reflect on why blogging was an important factor in their personal lives and how it had helped them. Many people had responded that it was important to keep up to date, allowed them to gain confidence, helped them learn in many aspects.
Throughout the rest of the remaining class time, we worked in pairs on our assignment which involves the making of a 3-5 minute movie.

Class Notes

Week 3: The influence of classroom blogging on elementary student writing.

• Blogs in the classroom represent a new way to teach writing.
• Student bloggers became mindful of and connected to the audience, community  blogger and learned to take ownership of the writing process and the writers’ craft.
• Enables students to concentrate on writing, which they filled with humour, expression and playfulness as they learn to think their concepts of writing and its meaning in life.
• Blogs facilitate literacy development through storytelling  and dialogue (self-expression), and recounting personal experiences/events.
• Blogging is about sharing items of interest, news and personal information.
• Academic blogging- modelling and developing literacy processes, critical thinking, reflection, questioning and social practices.
• Wrters develop and refine ideas/ blogging is a place to develop and nourish the community.

Question 1: What are the 5 influences of classroom blogging on student writing?

• Blogging
• Grammar and spelling
• Education
• Literacy and writing
• Motivation=Practice= Confidence
• Technology= Interactive and Engaging
• Mindful of and connected to the audience

Question 2: The change of audience of the student’s blogging (from teacher to student), how has this helped students to improve their writing, reading and social skills?

• Motivation
• Engagement
• Communication of ideas and thoughts
• Students who are shy, open up.
• feedback’s provided

Question 3: Why do you beleive that blogging is an important factor and how does this assist us?

• Keeps us organised
• Encourages us to relate to the community in terms of communication and feedback.
• Ideas/ feelings that facilitate the individual learning.
• Self-centred learning and self expressed learning.

Reference

Davis, A., & McGrail, E. (2011). The influence of classroom blogging on elementary  student writing. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 25(4) 415-437.

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