My Past Blog Experience

In my personal life I have quite a bit of experience with blogs. I started a personal blog in 2005 when I was pregnant with my son. My blogging phase was before Facebook took off so it was a way to share photos and updates with our family that lived around the world. I kept it up regularly for several years until everyone migrated over to Facebook. I will randomly look back at it to remember what life was like as a new mom. It's like looking at an old photo album but better because I can read about the details of our lives that have faded over time. Around that same time I also had several family members and friends that blogged. I actually miss reading the blogs of people I know. Blogs go more in depth than other social media. You get to know what someone really thinks or feels with more substance.


I do not have much experience with wikis other than looking up random things on Wikipedia. I know Wikipedia may not be the most reputable source because just about anyone can edit that pages, however, I quite enjoy reading about different subjects on there. Often times one subject will lead to another subject because of the embedded links in a Wikipedia article. I wasn't exactly sure what a wiki was until I looked it up just now. According to google a Wiki is "a website that allows collaborative editing of its content and structure by its users."

I could see how a blog or a wiki could be helpful in the classroom to promote writing skills.  Students could keep personal blogs instead of keeping a paper journal.  Students could also help keep a class journal and collaborate to work on writing and so parents could see what students were working on.  By creating a classroom wiki students could collaborate and share information that they were learning on a certain topic.  This could also be helpful for studying outside of class.  

Students having access to computers and learning how to use programs like Microsoft word can promote writing in the classroom.  When a student knows how to type they can write just about anything.  It is often easier and quicker to type than to write by hands.  Editing is can be made so much easier on a computer.  You can share writing by email, blogs, social media and ask for and receive instant feedback.  


One website that might be interesting to incorporate in the classroom to get kids excited about their writing is Pinterest.  Students could pin pictures or topics they were interested in writing about or researching.  They could use it to get ideas for a new science fair project or use it to find an inspirational quote to serve as a writing prompt.  Pinterest speaks to the part of me that is a visual learner and it would be fun to incorporate it in the classroom and see how my students would use it.