NETS Reflection

             

Blogging for Teaching and Learning

Block Assignment 6 

The Benefits of blogging are many. Each of the six NETS for students (creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; critical thinking, problem solving and decision making; digital citizenship and technology operations and concepts) all play an individual role in the ‘metablognition’ process. The great thing about blogging is that these processes tend to happen simultaneously! Students begin with the creation of their own original work. This often requires innovation and applying new ways of thought as students respond to the feedback of their audience. As students grow in their ability to collaborate and work together, they learn articulation of ideas to facilitate better communication. They may then come to understand that their work and published ideas require research and as a result, seek to find evidence that supports their findings as well as find evidence that refutes their findings to come up with appropriate counterarguments. Through blogging students learn to interact appropriately with others and practice good citizenship online as well as becoming well versed in different technological capabilities, all the while becoming aware of a world outside of their own communities. I’d say that anything that puts all these things together in one is great. Blogging does just that!

I expect the overall achievement of most students to improve after a year of employing these types of strategies. Of course there are always exceptions to new strategies, as there is no ‘one size fits all’ method that works in education, but my hope is that I’d see improvement in all of my students even if it is slight. Anything that encourages them to take ownership of their own learning is beneficial; it allows them to use the knowledge they’ve gained for life, not just for a test.