What does Blogging have to do with learning?

            When the world wide web opened itself to 2.0 tools, communication between people through a screen became a new and exciting common place. Interestingly enough, while it seems as if now much social media communication and reflection is done through scripts of less than 280 symbols, “longer” forms of these reflections are being used in a multitude of places. These reflections are called Blogs. Blogs began gaining traction in the early 2000s and have been implemented into work places, school districts, and corporations (American College of Education, 2024). Parry and Hracs (2020) noted in their research that bloggers blog for a variety of reasons and motivations and therefore have produced a multitude of different blog purposes. So what purpose do Blogs have in the education world and how can they help students learn and gain the skills they need? According to Abdul Kaidar and Tasir (2020) blogs can have a positive impact on students’ learning. In their study, students were highly engaged in blog topics that acted as a reflection and discussion pieces given by their instructors. When students reflected and were able to discuss their work process with other students, not only are they engaging in the metacognition of their thinking, but they are also engaging in social constructivist theories which help foster learning for topics that are difficult to learn. Blogging can be a powerful tool to help learners succeed and gain the skills they need to be successful.

Resources that help with Blogging/Discussion:

www.wix.com

www.padlet.com

References:

Abdul Kadir, N. I., & Tasir, Z. (2020). Students’ perceptions and information-sharing

patterns in learning authoring system course through blogging. International Journal of

Emerging Technologies in Learning, 15(19), 187–199.

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v15i19.10950

American College of Education. (2024). DL5763: Trends in instructional design: Module 1 [Part 3

presentation]. Canvas. https://ace.instructure.com/courses/1956858/external_tools/118428

Parry, J., & Hracs, B. J. (2020). From leisure to labour: towards a typology of the motivations,

structures and experiences of work‐related blogging. New Technology, Work &

Employment, 35(3), 314–335. https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12179