The Benefits of Blogs

The Benefits of Blogs: S.O.C.C.E.R.

Save the Trees!: Being paperless, the blogs save schools money and help the environment.

Options: Individualizing a page is one of the more fun elements of blogging. Sites like wordpress.com and blogspot.com have many fun tools, gadgets, and widgets that students can add to a page to make the page different from other weblogs out there. Many of these gadgets are educational, offering wordgames and historical facts. Students love to tweak and individualize the layout of pages. Students can add pictures and video easily, and can establish links to other blogs and sites they enjoy. The possibilities here are limitless, as thousands of these tools are available now and new gadgets are added every day. It’s also very easy to completely change the appearance of a blog by just changing templates.

Commentary: Students are encouraged, and sometimes even assigned, to comment on their peers’ writing. Students become genuinely interested in what their friends are reading and writing. Depending on the commentary settings, the comments can be seen instantly, hidden, or moderated. Some blog sites send an email to the site author whenever someone leaves a comment on the page, and the author has the option of approving the comment for all to see, or deleting it entirely.

Competition: Many students, once they figure out that some blogs track hits and comments, become very interested in accruing stats. I have observed Honors students continually trying to one-up each other when they check their stats. Since layout, linking, updating frequently, and effective communication are all essential to increasing hit and commentary count, the students’ competitiveness actually improves their writing. They can even learn some basic marketing and networking skills. In an all too “everyone gets a trophy” age, stimulating friendly competition among students can have very positive effects on learning.

Editing: I encourage my Essay Writing students to edit their writing because the blog is their cyberspace representation. A blog littered with communication errors is not fun to read and receives fewer “hits” than a blog that exhibits effective communication. When I read the blogs, if I see a grammatical error, it’s easy to copy and paste that error into the commentary window and instruct my student to fix it. I find this works best for common errors like punctuation, possessives, spelling, and awkward sentences or phrasings. These small grammatical lessons shine a light on individual student focus correction areas. Another benefit is that the student can make the correction very quickly, and it’s like the error never existed!

Record of Student Work: Blogs provide a record for student writing. In the past year of having students keep blogs, I have only encountered one day when the site was down. Many of my Essay Writing students’ blogs are still up, despite the fact that most have not been updated in several months. Since blogs are time-stamped, I have an accurate record of exactly when the assignment was finished and posted, which makes tracking late work very easy.