Blogging Diversity

The world of technology may not have reached all parts of society yet, but it has certainly left its footprint deep in many of America’s schools. One example of technology impacting schools is the story of Brenda Dyck’s middle school enrichment class at www.education-world.com. She started using blogs for her class back in 2004 as a way for them to reflect. The class was assigned the Eleanor Rigby Project, which was about the homelessness. The blogs that the students had, Mrs. Dyck help them create at www.blogger.com. It gave the students an opportunity to reflect on the project and offer possible solutions to homelessness. The student’s blogged daily and Mrs. Dyck used some of the student’s blogs as discussion topics in future classes. The students in Mr. Dyck’s class were very detailed in their blogs. An example of the type of blogs that students turned in is a follows: "One of my own opinions on homes and the homeless is that there are people in the world who may have a roof over their heads but can still be homeless, like orphans and wives whose husbands abuse them. To me a home is more than a house; it is a place where you feel "at home." How can you call a place a home if you feel alone and insecure there? There is a song by the Dixie Chicks called "A Home" and it sort of talks about that. The chorus goes: 'Not a night goes by that I don't dream of wandering, through a house that might have been a home. I listen to my pride... and every day I wake up in, in a house that might have been a home.' The song also touches on the fact that a lot of people are homeless because of decisions they have made. I would like to explore that a little more. I know that I would never get over myself if I knew that I was on the street or all alone just because I did a few stupid things." The feedback that Mrs. Dyck received from the students was overwhelming and was an excellent way to revitalize the student’s interest in writing. The next website that showed examples of blogs being used in classrooms in the USA was at www.56c2008.edublogs.org, whereby a teacher named Mrs. C posts great ideas for class topics. She appears to post new material about every six days. The topics that she engages her students in vary from science to history to astrology. The class is made up of fifth and sixth grade students. There is another teacher mentioned by the name of Mrs.R who also teaches various subjects, but Mrs. C does a majority of the blogging. Photo of Mrs.C Science class 2nd Photo of Science class The world of blogging has become an international phenomenon. An example of blogging being used in an international setting is at www.repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/handle/1822/6381?locale=es.com. On this website it explains how blogs are being used in Portugal pre service teacher education programs. There were 26 student teachers, 14 from natural science and 12 from foreign languages. They were all asked to setup and maintain web-blogs for their future students for ten weeks. In a post interview the teachers thoroughly enjoyed their experience blogging although they never had any prior experience blogging.