About Blogging

I think blogging is a good way to get ideas out in the open without feeling uncomfortable. Talking about your own ideas in front of people is intimidating, but writing them in a blog is much less so. For a blog to be useful I think it needs to be done in a structured setting and not just a source for getting rid of boredom. By using a blog in an education setting, it needs to be directly related to the course in some way. For example, I had to use a blog in one of my English classes. Each week we had to post three entries about the readings we had done, and then comment on three other peoples' blogs on whether we agreed or disagreed with their evaluation of the work. It was much easier to talk about our own opinions on the pieces when we weren't being stared at. On the topic of wasting time, i think it depends on the student and the class. When we used it in my English class i think it worked very well because we were comfortable with the technology, but in other subjects such as math or science or history, i think it would be a waste, unless it was used specifically for student aid. It all depends on how the student and the teacher uses this tool.