ADVANTAGES OF USING BLOGS IN CLASS
This article will cover a few advantages of teaching with a Blog. Teachers can use this tool when publishing assignments, uploading resources in order to help students access to content of certain topics and improve their writing skills. Therefore, there are several aspects of blogs that boost students' learning, such as, creativity, technology, collaborative skills, effective learning and critical thinking.
In a study that evaluates the use of blogs in English Language Learning, the students had different perceptions about its impact. All the participants of the survey agreed that blogs were an important way of developing writing skills and a medium of self presentation. However, there were some things that went against the use of blogs like the connection, the computer equipment and the misunderstanding of some instructions.
CREATIVITY
TECHNOLOGY
Another important aspect is access to technology, the fundamental base of an online blog. Since they are easy to find at the click of a link, teachers have the chance to spread it throughout the internet and students have almost permanent access to it, it does not matter the physical place to be. “Weblogs. features (linking, replying, and tracking) make easier sharing knowledge and information.”(Sergio Luján-Mora, 2022)
“Technology is everywhere in education: Public schools in the United States now provide at least one computer for every five students. They spend more than $3 billion per year on digital content” (Herold, 2016)
EFFECTIVE LEARNING
A third advantage is that students achieve effective learning by the use of technology. Nowadays, there is a main current technological age, students are completely immersed in technology and the use of it. By the use of blogs, teachers may insert themselves in this world surrounding students, reducing the affective filter, and at the same time motivating and giving feedback outside class to students, thus the learning and teacher guidance continues.
Gurleen Ahluwalia (2011) states:
“Students in language courses would be more likely to engage in blogging if they felt that maintaining a regular target language blog could enhance their language proficiency or that improved blog-based performance could improve their course grade.”
COLLABORATION SKILLS
A fourth advantage is collaboration skills. They enable you to work well with others. Most work environments require collaboration, so these skills are essential. They include understanding a variety of perspectives, managing priorities from everyone in the group, and meeting expectations as a reliable member of a team.
Successful collaboration requires a cooperative spirit and mutual respect. Employers typically seek employees that function effectively as part of a team and are willing to balance personal achievement with group goals.
CRITICAL THINKING
The last advantage from learning by blogs is the use of critical thinking. Critical thinking involves three parts. First, critical thinking involves asking questions that need to be asked, questions that go at the heart of the matter. It also involves noticing that there are questions that need to be adressed.Second, critical thinking involves trying to answer those questions by reasoning them out. Reasoning out answers to questions is different from other ways of answering questions. It is different from giving an answer we have always taken for granted but never thought about.
Third, critical thinking involves believing the results of our reasoning. Critical thinking is different from just engaging in a mental exercise. When we think through an issue critically, we internalize the results. We don’t give merely verbal agreement: we actually believe the results because we have done our best to reason the issue.
Source: DestinationImagination
CONCLUSIONS
Blogs are spaces of communication and creativity that allow students to express themselves adapting to conditions, ways of expression and thoughts.
Blogs allow an effective learning of the students ,they have perennial access to the class taught, besides having the chance of receiving feedback from the teacher and peers.
The facility in the creation of a blog allows the process of learning to be significant and is used as bedrock of the new needed skills acquired in society and its predominant age of technology .
By interacting in a blog, you can improve various capabilities and 21st skills such as: critical thinking, collaborative skills, communication and creativity.
Luján-Mora, S. (n.d.). The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits
and Barriers - Education Blogs. Desarrollo Web. Retrieved January 27, 2022, from http://desarrolloweb.dlsi.ua.es/blogs/use-of-weblogs-in-higher-education-benefits-and-barriers
Herold, B. Technology in Education - Education Week. Desarrollo Web.
Retrieved January 16, 2016, from https://www.edweek.org/technology/technology-in-education-an-overview/2016/02
Ahluwalia, Gurleen, Gupta, Deepti, & Aggarwal, Deepak. (2011). The Use of
Blogs in English Language Learning: A Study of Student Perceptions. Profile Issues in Teachers` Professional Development, 13(2), 29-41. Retrieved January 27, 2022, from http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1657-07902011000200003&lng=en&tlng=en.
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