State of Educational Use of Blogs 2012 Survey

We’re often asked for detailed information on how educators are using blogs.

So we’ve decided the best way to pull together a comprehensive resource is to survey educators. We’re looking for replies no matter what blogging platform you may be using.

And here’s how you can help:

  1. Can you complete our survey?
  2. Can you share a link to our survey with your network?  The more responses we receive, the better the data we can deliver!
  3. Share links to any recent articles you’ve written on this topic by leaving a comment so we can include when we present the survey results.

Thanks for helping out and we’ll be sharing the data we collect in a follow up post.

Edublogger Debate: Scaffolding vs. Struggling – Can You Be Too Helpful?

My partner in crime here on The Edublogger, Sue Waters, and I have regular debates and conversations around a wide range of topics.

Recently, we were talking about best practices of professional development and writing support documents. We then moved on to a related discussion on best instructional strategies in the classroom when working with students.

One of us believes (and much research will show), that students will remember more and understand better when they struggle with concepts and new ideas. Learning experiences that provide students an opportunity to play with concepts and figure out on their own are best.

The other (with good reasoning and research to back it up too), believes that students that struggle will shut down. A better approach is to provide as much scaffolding as possible – activities that walk through information in a step-by-step manner.

No doubt that to some extent this will depend on the learner, content, environment, and more. But there is a general philosophy at play.

What Say You?

We think many of our readers will have great insight into helping us continue this debate.

Let’s turn this into a blogging discussion!

Here’s what we’d like to try and do:

  1. Write a post on your own blog about this topic. Share your thoughts, examples, research – or whatever you’d like
  2. Leave a comment below with a link to your post
  3. We’ll compile a list of all submissions at the end of the week on a post here on The Edublogger
If this works well, we hope to regularly ask questions like these to help provide everyone with topics to blog about and find new blogs to read.

Help Answer Student’s Questions on Blogging in Education

I'm BLOGGING this! - MOO Sticker DesignWe’ve been asked for a little help by a student who is researching the history of blogging and how it is being used in education.

She has asked some great questions that we know others would like answered as well.

So we’ve decided:

  1. We would love to hear YOUR answers to some of her questions
  2. We will write a follow up post that pulls together all your responses with the more specific questions we will need to answer

Can you help us?

Please share your thoughts on any or all of the following questions:  

  1. How long have you been blogging with your students?
  2. How has the educational experience for your students been transformed since you’ve been blogging with them?
  3. Do you believe that blogs have benefited the education system?
  4. Do you believe that blogs will become a common way of educating people in the future?
  5. Why has the way of teaching through technology grown dramatically?

Just leave a comment below with your thoughts or anything else you would like to say about blogging with your students!

Feel free to also answer with a blog post of your own (just leave a link in the comments) or send a tweet to @edublogs.

Thanks!

Image: I’m BLOGGING this! by salendron.

Don’t Miss Out! Student Blogging Challenge Starts Soon

The Student Blogging Challenge is a free and open collaborative project that runs for 10 weeks twice each year.

And the next series starts next week, so now is your chance to register and get involved!

Students and classes that participate work through a set of challenge activities that build blogging skills and foster collaboration by all involved.

Quick facts:

  • Anyone can participate using any blogging platform
  • All levels of blogging skills welcome – complete beginners encouraged to join
  • Teachers can tailor the challenges or incorporate theme however needed to fit in your time frame and curriculum

This post wouldn’t be complete without recognizing the tireless efforts of the volunteer coordinator of the challanges, Sue Wyatt. From everyone involved, we can’t thank you enough!

Don’t miss out! 

 

The Class Blog List has been updated! Is your class blog on the list?

Once yearly we go through the entire Edublogger’s class blog list to ensure the list remains current, contains helpful resources and see what else we can do to help you to find class blogs for the grades and subjects you teach.

We’ve just completed the 2012 update!  We hope you find the list helps.

You can view the list by:

  1. Going to our Check out our class blog list page.
  2. Downloading our Edublogger’s class blog list PDF — handy if you want to print copies to share with others!
  3. Scrolling to the bottom of this post to view our embedded Google Spreadsheet of the Edublogger’s class blog list.

Please let us know if you would like your class blog added to the list.  We add new blogs onto the list throughout the year and would love to add yours.

About The Edublogger’s Class Blog list

The Edublogger’s class blog list was originally created in 2008 for educators to use as a resource to:

  • Get ideas on how class blogs are used with students.
  • Check out ideas they can use with their students and on their own class blog.
  • Make connections with classes in other countries.

Now 3 years since the list was first created:

  • It’s still growing — the list is updated monthly to add new class blogs to the list.
  • It’s the most visited page on this blog

The list is created by teachers who submit their class blogs to be added to it by leaving a comment on these posts.

Keeping the list current

To ensure that the class blog list remains current and contain helpful resources we go through the entire list once a year to remove any blogs that:

  1. Have been deleted
  2. No longer exist
  3. Are no longer active (haven’t updated recently)
  4. Have changed their privacy from public to private.

Improving the list

During the yearly update we also look at how we can improve the list.   This year we have made the following changes:

  • We’ve changed to an embedded Google spreadsheet because it makes it easier to quickly update the list.
  • We’re broken the class blog list into Grades; Subject Areas such as Maths, Science, English, History, LOTE, EFL /ESL; type of blog such as Library, School news.

Blogging Since

We’re also aware that with some many blogs on the list that educators needed a way to quickly scan the list while learning more about the age of specific blogs.

The solution was the Blogging Since information.  For example, 2004 means the blog has been used for class blogging since 2004 whereas 2009 means a blog with has been used as a class blog since 2009. A class blog with ‘Since’ and the date indicates the teacher has been blogging for awhile but is now using a different class blog URL.

I continue to be amazed with how long some of these blogs have been used for class blogging!

Is your Class Blog on the List?

If you want to add your class blog to this list (or update your class blog details) leave a comment on this post to share with us:

  1. Your Class Blog title(s) and URL(s).
  2. Grade level(s) of your student
  3. If applicable. what subject areas or class blog category?  Refer to the category list on Our check out Class blogs page.
  4. Country
  5. Age of class blog.  Blogging since?
  6. Feel free to add other information as educators refer to comments to create connections with other class blogs!

Please check the Check out Class Blogs list first before providing updated information.

And here’s the complete Edublogger’s Class Blog list:

Just click on their blog title to visit the class blog!