Is Blogging the future of Education?

Blogging has seen a huge resurgence in the last decade, and it is only growing from there. Today, people aren’t just making money from their blogs, but are also seeing other ways by which such online platforms can be used for our modern society. One of the most prominent examples, is education.

As education continues to grow and evolve to meet the need of new skill-sets and students everywhere, we have to wonder how it could benefit teachers and students as a whole. Today we will look at some reasons why blogging is indeed pushing education forward into its future.

3 Reasons Why Blogging is The Future of Education

Online education has been more prominent than ever before in recent years. A combination of technology and innovation has led to a present and a future where education doesn’t know the boundaries of a typical classroom. Instead, learning can happen anywhere.

That why, now a typical tuition agency can offer services anywhere in the world and reach students that they never could through normal means. Let’s take a look at how blogging is enhancing the future of education through various media.

1. Schools and Classrooms are Evolving

The TED-ED blog recently asked teachers to share their vision for the future of education, and the answers pointed to a future where blogging fits right into the daily activities of both students and teachers.

For starters, one of the big answers was a rise in creativity. Josefino Rivera Jr (@josefinor), an educator from Buenos Aires, told:

Education will be not just taking-in information and sharing it back, but also (be) figuring out what to do with that information in the real world.

Blogging gives students real-world experience with their education by interacting with other students and people online.

Furthermore, teachers are seeing the value in technology as a means of enhancing their message to students. Nicholas Provenzano, currently teaching in a school in the United States explains it perfectly:

Technologies like Evernote, Google, and Siri will be standard and will change what teachers value and test for. The role of teachers will be to guide students in the areas where they need guidance as innovators. How do you get kids to innovative? You let them. You get out of their way.

The best way for teachers to ‘get out of the way’, is to empower students by giving them the blank canvas that a blog offers.

2. Blogging Provides Valuable Experience

Blogging has huge potential for providing students with valuable experience. The most obvious example is their ability to apply real-world writing skills into their daily activities. Through this, they are able to sharpen their writing through the application of it on a daily basis.

Beyond this, students can also learn online etiquette by interacting with their fellow students online and in the comments of the classroom blog. These are valuable social skills that they can apply to their future.

3. Blogs Benefit Both Teachers and Students

For students, blogs represent a place to learn more about their chosen topic while also enhancing their writing skills. For teachers, blogs help them keep everything organized, while also offering tools for managing their classroom.

Teachers can assign blog posts as assignments, which gives the students a clear place to work and write down their thoughts. For teachers, this offers a place to find any drafts or ongoing work to critique and review as needed.

All of this contributes to an online classroom that has a cohesive feel and the ability to expand to other students from around the world.

How to Get Started With Classroom Blogging Today

Technology has always been a powerful tool for improving education. There’s no set date for the future or arrive. You can start now with some great tools and a few tips that will help you as a student or educator. Let’s start by looking at some of the top platforms for educational blogs:

Edublogs

Our first platform is the most popular free option for teachers and students. It has a great user interface with allows you to customize the design of your blog. You can add videos, podcasts, and photos as well to improve the overall quality and appearance of the content. This is a great option for teachers to quickly get started with a secured and free platform for their classroom blogs.

Kidblog.com

This platform is for grades k-12 and offers a free solution for teachers with up to 50 students per class. It has great features like no advertisements, privacy, password-protection, and the ability to get started without any personal information from students.

WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular and most powerful blogging platforms on the internet. It’s used by countless websites ranging from blogs, to news platforms, to stores, and everything in between. The flexibility and ease-of-use it offers make it a great choice for your classroom. It’s worth noting that there are two versions of WordPress. If you go to wordpress.com domain, you’ll be treated to the free option where you can quickly start a blog at no cost to you. The other option is a wordpress.org. This version is for people who want to have liberty by purchasing their own web-host and create their website from scratch.

In either case, you’ll be introduced to one of the finest blogging platforms in our modern internet era. Anyone with experience using word processors in the past will have no trouble understanding the tools and options it offers.

Growing in Control

Now that you’ve chosen a platform here are some tips to help you get the most out of your new classroom blog:

• Guidelines: Partner with your school leadership to establish set goals, guidelines, and expectations for the blog. That way everyone is on the same page and all the rules are properly followed in terms of permission and rules.
• Integrate Your Blog: You can use your blog in all aspects of your teaching. It’s a flexible and powerful tool for giving students hands-on experience with the subject at hand. Find ways to incorporate it into your daily lesson plans.
• Blogging Makes Better Writers: Practice makes perfect, and blogging is a great way for your students to get the practice in that they need to become better writers.
• Internet Etiquette: Too many people on the internet don’t realize that they’re talking to other human beings. With your classroom blog, you can teach the next generation of commenters the do’s and don’ts of commenting and discussion on the internet.
• Control of Image and Content Plagiarism: There’s another opportunity here as well, to show students how to properly source information and images. Too many users today are making mistakes by using images and content they don’t have permission to use.
• Get Social: All of today’s biggest blogs are on social media. Real interaction with fellow students and educators can bring about amazing change in the world of education. Bring your blog and your students on to Facebook, Twitter, and the like to give them opportunities to interact with other students in their field.

Final Thoughts

The future of education lies within the field of blogging and all it has to offer for both students and teachers. As technology continues to grow, so too will the boundaries of education. Do you utilize blogging in the classroom? Have you ever taken a class where a blog was incorporated into the lesson planning?
Let us know in the comments!