Using Blogs to Meet Learning Standards

Blogging in the classroom has countless advantages for students' learning. It allows students to reflect, write for real audience, make comments, receive feedback, showcase their works, and improve their reading skills. Besides, it gives up-to-date announcement for both students and their parents. Due to those benefits of using blogs in the classroom, I will invite students to use blogs in my classroom. The followings will cover two ways of using blogs in my classroom and what benefits would students gain through using blogs.

First, I would like to use blogs in ESL class to let students write their reflections about what they have learned in class. Writing after-class reflection involves in reflecting, reading, summarizing, analyzing, and interpreting academic contents. After finishing their reflections on blogs, students need to make comments on their peers' reflections. By doing so, students can practice their written language, engage in intensive reading from their peers' feedback, and, most importantly, communicate with each other in a  meaningful interaction. This activity fall under performance indicator - ESL.C.9-12.1.1.7: students present information clearly in a variety of oral and written forms for different audiences and purposes related to all academic content areas.

Second, blogs can also be applied when students are engaging in literature circle. In Literature circle, students need to discuss literature or books in depth and exchange their ideas with each other. Every students have their own role, such as summarizer, vocabulary finder, question writer, and story mapper. Blog provides a platform for students to publish and present their findings on the story based on their own role, make comments, gain knowledge on others' findings, and exchange thoughts on the same piece of story. In other words, blogs, in this activity, allow students to learn from each other in interactive environment. This activity fall under performance indicator - ESL. E. 2-4.4.1.11: students discover alternative ways of saying things in social and classroom interactions.

Although there are many advantages of using blogs, blogs provide little training on students' listening and speaking skills. Therefore, it would be important for teachers to combine blogs in their teaching and match their teaching goals carefully.