Blog Basics

Blogging is a useful ICT tool that can be employed in the primary classroom to communicate, foster student engagement and achieve a variety of learning outcomes across a broad range of curriculum areas.  Oravec (2002) has defined weblogs as a genre in which individuals or groups can write personal reflections and critiques of web materials.  Similar to a journal, entries (or posts) are written periodically and filed according to date.  This information is hosted online, and can be made accessible to anyone.  Student’s today are digital natives, and having grown up with technology are said to learn best under certain conditions  (Prensky, 2001).  These include the opportunity for instant gratification, frequent rewards, multi-tasking and networking (Prensky, 2001).  The interactive nature of blogs via the comment function and the visibility of all posts, allows each of these conditions to be met.  In addition, research has shown that the use of new media in the classroom is intrinsically motivating for students, and blogs are no exception (Ellison & Wu, 2008).  Furthermore, blogging tasks can be designed to allow for student-directed learning (Davis & McGrail, 2009) and greater autonomy.