2.  New Jersey High School Learns the ABCs
of Blogging
• The Prose of Blogging (and a Few Cons
Too)
• Supporting Learning by Activities Using
Group Blogs

3. • Summary
 Reflection
Article
Index

4.  English Literature Students – Hunterdon
Central Regional High in New Jersey
 Read The Secret Life of Bees and
created literary web-blogs
 Made study guides for the book
 Two years later, the site had over 2
million hits including 2300 word response
from the book‟s author Sue Monk Kidd

5.  Versatile Technology Tool
› 3 Cs
 Communicate
 Collaborate – considered the most compelling
aspect of blogging by many
 Construct in new ways
› Well suited for K-12
 Fast, Easy, Affordable
› Free sites
› Can be hosted locally if funding is available

6.  I did not realize that schools can host their
own sites; this may cost money, but would
be extremely useful for educators.
 Educational blogs aren‟t just for your
students; they will appear when other
students and educators search for your
topic on search engines such as Google or
Bing.
 This teacher created a blog space just for
parents; showing that blogging can go
beyond just the student-teacher
relationship.

7. • Summary
 Reflection
Article
Index

8.  West Caldwell Public Schools
 Teachers created blogs for their students to
use
› From 3rd graders to 11th graders
› 74% believed that blog posts helped them
articulate their ideas
› 60% thought blogging helped them begin
writing their papers for class
› Younger students used blogging to write papers
step-by-step and were excited to receive
feedback from peers, teachers, and college
students who volunteered to help

9.  “Blogging for the sake of blogging is
fine, what is the value added?”
 Write more, write better
› “Teen bloggers are far more prolific writers than
their non-blogging counterparts.”
› Unanticipated results: transferred knowledge
learned during blogging to other academic and
social aspects of the classroom and also learned
technology skills even though they didn‟t
receive specific instruction
 Experimentation is key for educators
› “It is imperative for teachers to develop their
own tech skills so they can bring technology‟s
academic benefits into the classroom.”

10.  The 3rd graders in the township worked with college
students; this must have created even more motivation
for the students to continue blogging, even outside
school!
 This article talks a lot about the importance of
educators educating themselves about the new
advances in technology. This is something that I had not
remembered to think about; if the teacher doesn‟t
know how to work the technology, the students won‟t
be able to benefit from it either!
 This article makes a very good point: the writing process
cannot be ignored when writing a blog. So many
students are used to writing in slang and in
abbreviations when they are online, so it is extremely
important to continually remind the students to write as
if they are turning in an assignment.

11. • Summary
 Reflection
Article
Index

12.  This paper presents a case study
conducted to observe the benefits of
educational blogging, specifically in
mathematics.
 The conductors of the case study
believed that, “Blogs combined with a
proper pedagogical approach such as
„learning by design‟ enable teachers to
offer high quality learning experiences to
their students.”

13.  Students participating in blogging have
opportunities to:
› Reflect on their texts
› Engage in writing for significant time intervals
› Trigger long dialogue with their readers leading to new writing cycles
 “Learning by Design”
› Specific Environments
› Stages
 Theme-question selection
 Design and first implementation of the artifact
 Pilot application of the artifact
 Feedback information gathering
 Reflection
 Design application
› Teacher‟s Roles: support students‟ efforts and guide students‟
interaction

14.  The fact that this study was centered
around mathematics was an “a-ha” for
me; this proves that blogging can be
used for more than just subjects similar to
English.
 Teachers are key players in a student‟s
blogging experience.
 This article stresses the importance of the
repetition of specific stages in the
“learning by design experience”, which
has never occurred to me before!

15.  Fessakis, G., Tatsis, K., & Dimitracopoulou, A.
(2008). Supporting “Learning by Design”
Activities Using Group Blogs. Educational
Technology & Society, 11 (4), 199–212.
 Ramaswami, R. (2008). The Prose of
Blogging (And a Few Cons, Too). THE
Journal. Retrieved from
http://thejournal.com.
 Richardson, W. (2005). New Jersey High
School Learns the ABCs of Blogging. THE
Journal. Retrieved from
http://thejournal.com.