Lesley Johnson's List: EduBlogs

In the course of a year I get to run a lot of workshops about blogging. One of the questions that frequently comes up in those workshops goes something like this, “do you recommend that I have just one blog or should all of my students have their own blogs?” There is not a clear cut answer to this question because the answer depends upon how you envision using blogs in your teaching practice

"This study examines issues of online identity and language use among male and female teenagers who created and maintained weblogs, personal journals made publicly accessible on the World Wide Web. Online identity and language use were examined in terms of the disclosure of personal information, sexual identity, emotive features, and semantic themes. Male and female teenagers presented themselves similarly in their blogs, often revealing personal information such as their real names, ages, and locations. Males more so than females used emoticons, employed an active and resolute style of language, and were more likely to present themselves as gay. The results suggest that teenagers stay closer to reality in their online expressions of self than has previously been suggested, and that these explorations involve issues, such as learning about their sexuality, that commonly occur during the adolescent years."

"Let Them Blog: Using Weblogs to Advance Literacy in the K-12 Classroom 1"

"The findings of two recent literacy studies in Great Britain will come as no surprise to many parents and may also help to explain why students are reluctant to do homework. These studies reveal that most young people never pick up a book—at least not outside of school. In fact, about one in five reads blogs and magazines only. But these findings shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning that young people don’t read. It’s just that students browse social networking sites, blogs, websites and magazines much more frequently than they read books."

"These 5th graders in a suburban elementary school in southeast Georgia have been engaged in a yearlong blogging project whose purpose was to create a space for the students to converse about what they were learning in class and beyond. The entire 5th grade class of 16 students meets weekly in a blogging project designed to improve their reading, writing, and communication skills."

Possible resources from the CDC about blogging improving literacy

"The following letter from Sandy Hayes, president of the National Council of Teachers of English to organization members, supports a moratorium on the high-stakes consequences of standardized tests aligned to the Common Core State Standards."

"Blog it An Innovative Approach to Improve Literacy"

In this book, Penrod explicitly teaches readers how blogs improve literacy learning and addresses the issues that have been raised among the bloggers. The book includes ten chapters, including blogging and new literacies, blogs as a new writing genre, encouraging safe blogging practices, and creating classroom ethnic for blogging In this book review, I will elaborate how blogs have extended their use from entertainment to learning literacy. Second, the review summarizes the author's viewpoints and illustrates suggestions on how to apply blogs to literacy learning.