Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Academic Blogging

Blogs are certainly the tools of the digital natives! Comment on your thoughts about the use of blogs as an educational tool to reach the natives. How do you, as an instructor, feel about using blogs for academic purposes?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think blogging is useless as an educational tool. Students just waste time when they are online.

Tanya Judd Pucella said...

Joe,
That is a common frustration that many educators have. However, in my opinion, we have an obligation to utilize as many forms of technology as possible in order to engage our students. Blogging can be an effective hook to engage students, and can encourage those who are reluctant speakers in the traditional classroom to participate.

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of blogging, but I worry about students saying inappropriate things.

Tanya Judd Pucella said...

A valid concern, certainly. If you set up your blog so that you have to approve comments before they post, that can alleviate the problem. I honestly haven't had too many issues here because I made it clear to my students that if there were inappropriate posts, we would no longer use blogs...
Mary-great comment, and something that furthers our conversation. When you are participating in the blog, try to elaborate on your points to deepen the conversation. Can you think of an example perhpas?