One of the issues we discussed in our group during the first topic was how to approach blogging as an educator. I’ve worked as a teacher for 17 years, all of which I’ve used webpages and blogs for different purposes. I would like to share some of my thoughts about this.
On how to approach blogging as an educator:
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Define the purpose of the blog. Is it to inform students of homework, assignments and important tests? Is it a part of your lessons used to flip the classroom or give assignments that they work with during classes? Are the students supposed to just read the blog or are they supposed to interact with you and each other in the comment sections? Or are it just a way of documenting what you do in class so their parents can follow their work?
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Look at other teacher blogs. What are they doing that inspires you? How are they using the tool?
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Practise make perfect. Before launching your blog, make a few posts just to familiarise yourself with the tool. If you don’t want to keep them, you can delete them!
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Ask your audience. If you want your students to make use of your blog you should ask them how they would like to use it. Is it helping them reaching their goals? Why, or why not? How could you improve it?
Tools I like and frequently used when teaching:
- Interactive whiteboards such as Educreations.
- Tools to create interactive pictures such as ThingLink.
- Tools to ask questions in the classroom such as Kahoot or Socrative.
- Tools to create quizzes for students to practise with, such as Quizlet.
