Journal 3

“Five Don’ts of Classroom Blogging” by Julie Sturgeon
T-H-E Journal, February 2008

This article points out five suggestions to avoid common problems with classroom blogging that, if followed, would yield many rewards including alternate and improved methods of learning. First, the author and the blogging experts interviewed suggest, “don’t just dive in,” but rather set up guidelines and objectives, agree upon a code of conduct to avoid bullying, slander, and use of foul language, and invest time showing students the purpose and benefits and potential pitfalls of blogging. She further suggests that the rules and guidelines be copied to the parents for reinforcement. Second, the author says, “don’t confuse blogging with social networking,” i.e. blogging is about achieving academic goals through collaboration with peers, not about socializing with peers. Third, “don’t leap at the freebies.” The article explains that many free sites offer options to students that are difficult for teachers to control, while open source software, an inexpensive alternative, is still too technical for most users in the education field. It suggests using Class Blogmeister which offers few templates and ample control by the teacher. Fourth, “don’t force a sequential style,” i.e. it makes more sense to students and is more beneficial to their learning to organize the entries on the blog by topic as opposed to by time. And finally, “don’t leave the blogging to the students,” but instead, lead by way, by creating, for example, a blog that solicits and encourages feedback, offers hyperlinks, and shows how a blogging community is created.

Explain these five “Don’ts” in order of importance as they pertain to you in the classroom.

As someone who is both new to teaching as well as to blogging, I found the “don’t force a sequential style” to be most valuable as it allow the student to associate relevant works with each other rather than sorting them by due dates. “Don’t just dive in” and “don’t confuse blogging with social networking” are of equal importance to me since the latter could be grouped in as one of the guidelines and objectives of blogging, i.e. academic achievement, not socializing. “Don’t leave the blogging to the students” would be the next piece of advice I could use since I am still learning how to use electronic tools for educational purposes and need to be nudged to lead the way! “Don’t leap at the freebies” is valuable advice and reminds me of the saying: “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

Is there another “Don’t” you would like to see added to the list?

“Don’t get stuck in a (what I call) same-old-same-mold” would be my addition to the list. Once someone new to the profession like me gets to know how to use a new tool, it’s likely to get overused at the expense of ignoring other more appropriate tools. So I would suggest explaining and emphasizing when blogging is most useful, while distinguishing when chatting, discussion forums, and so on would be more productive than blogging to enhancing learning.