Blogs can be used for a variety of things and can have many benefits for students. According to the article Benefits of Blogging in Education by the Learning and Educational Center of NSU Florida, blogging can promote self-expression, develop analytical thinking, and exercise students' creativity. Blogging can also encourage students and teachers to share their resources amongst one another. It allows for students' to be able to find their voice while writing and allows them to be thoughtful about what they are writing about. Creating blog posts allows students to have creative expression. They are able to design it to their liking.
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| A desk with a test and an answer sheet. |
While reading Marisa Chapman's blog Elementary Education in Miss C's Classroom, I was able to see her view on standardized testing in elementary schools. She brings up the idea that standardized testing can cause conflict within school systems. This is something I wholeheartedly agree with. She also mentions that one of the reasons for this conflict are that, "These tests do not measure students' natural abilities though, and should not be used as an indicator of intelligence level". I agree with this in that in many instances, standardized testing is not able to evaluate a child's entire intelligence. It is mostly conformed to what school systems think children are supposed to know and leaves out other forms of intelligences that children may have. I was also able to learn what the Whole Child Approach is while reading Haylie Daugherty's blog Educational Thoughts with Haylie. The Whole Child Approach is something I have never heard of before in education, but I am all for it. This approach basically means that we as educators have the responsibility of thinking of our students beyond their academic skills in the classroom. We are to understand that our students have, "their own unique experiences mentally, physically, social-emotionally, cognitively, and academically". We must think of the child of having their own identity first, "Teaching to the whole child means you get to know the children so that as a teacher you can create curriculum to fit each child's needs based on current and past experiences". I think this is such an important topic in education and is something I support. I think that many students, no matter the age range, can benefit from this approach. Haylie mentions some benefits of this approach in her blog such as the children feeling more open and safe, that it allows teachers to teach in a developmentally appropriate way, and it helps build the relationship between teacher and student. Lastly, I was able to read about classroom management from Saylor Johnson's blog Ms. Johnson's Blog. Saylor states that classroom management keeps students organized, attentive, and actively productive in class. I agree with this because I think that students need to have structure in their classrooms and with efficient classroom management it can only benefit the child. Saylor also mentions that good classroom management ties in with being a good role model for your students. I agree with this statement, especially for teachers teaching younger students. Younger children are very impressionable, so it is up to us to show them the way to success.
My experiences with blogging have been somewhat short. I did not know how easy of a process it was to create you own blog until this year. I have thought that creating my own blogs has been a fun experience and is something that I will use in the future.
