Welcome to Our Learning Blog!

Assignment

Purpose:

• To think critically about what you are learning from the readings
• To use as a springboard for conversations with other readers
• To actually use technology to learn
• To practice using a writing to learn activity (blog posts)
• To imagine how you might use a blog in your class
• To learn to write for an audience beyond the teacher & classmates

 

You might be asking, “No, really, why are we blogging?”

Here are two things that influence my thinking about this:

 

 

 

 The Benefits of Writing to Learn

“[Writing to learn] is low stakes writing. The goal isn't so much good writing as coming to learn, understand, remember and figure out what you don't yet know. Even though low stakes writing-to-learn is not always good as writing, it is particularly effective at promoting learning and involvement in course material…” (Elbow, 1994).



Efficacy of Blogging

“Blogs constitute a fast online publishing tool. Educators have been examining the opportunity to use blogs to support students’ personal reflection, to collect teaching resources, to showcase students’ projects, or to establish communication channels among instructors and students…With greater flexibility, blogging tools offer a richer learning environment than traditional course-management systems” (Hsu & Wang, 2011, p. 71).

 

Want to read more?

Elbow, P. (1994). Writing for learning--not just for demonstrating learning. http://www.oberlin.edu/ctie/Elbow-Learning.pdf

 

Hsu, H. & Wang, S. (2011). The impact of using blogs on college students’

     reading comprehension and learning motivation. Literacy Research and Instruction, 50,
    68–88.