An IEASC Blog Post - Using Blogs to Support Student Learning

This blog post is a result of reflecting on assignments from a Web 2.0 course taken through the Innovative Advanced Studies Certificate program offered through Fresno Pacific and CUE. It has been an outstanding course of study which I can comfortably recommend to other educators interested in incorporating digital technologies and 21st Century tools into their instructional process.

As a part of the Web 2.0 course, students are given the opportunity to explore a variety of blogs, create one of their own and consider how they might use a blog to support instruction. It’s been a few years since I was in the classroom, but I found our classroom blog of book reviews to be a an engaging tool that allowed students to publish their writing online, share their work with a larger audience and to get feedback from their peers, parents and other teachers. The best part of the blog to me was the number of conversations about books it sparked amongst my students. They took each others recommendations seriously and their reading and writing gained a greater purpose than just turning in the assignment to their teachers. I’m saddened to have to confess that I’ve lost track of my username and password and am unable to embed a link in this post.

As an educator, I have taken to hosting a blog on Wordpress which can be found at pgilders.com. The posts don’t happen as regularly as I would like, but I do appreciate the moments when I have time to reflect on my ongoing learning process as an educator. This particular blog is hosted by blogger and was started years ago. My very busy life as full time educator, full time mom and perpetual student pulled me away from the initial vision, the link however remains active with the potential to grow. Time continues to be my greatest challenge to blogging. I have a life blessed with wonderful family, friends and work. I am grateful and wouldn’t trade all that we do for an active blog, but it does remain on my mind as something I think is worthwhile when I have some down time. Hosting a blog is also a great way to model many of the NETS standards for other educators and students. I’m conscientious of how a blog easily exemplifies Standard 1 Creativity and Innovation, Standard 2 Communication and Collaboration and Standard 5 Digital Citizenship.