Why should a teacher blog

This week a series on web 2.0 applications that will lead us to the TechTALK workshop facilitated by Susan Stuart and myself (Wed. noon in 3207 - RSVP to B.Hayes).

An excellent job making the case for blogging in education (How/Why/etc. mainly through loads of links) has been done by another blogger - and I've done it through anecdote at my first educational blog, but here I'll throw some recent hard research at you.

A blogging case study (Armstrong and Retterer, 2008) from the AACE Journal, affirmed that computer mediated communication makes writing more fun for students and there's indication that students wrote more, felt more confident and more accurately assimilated second language linguistic features (without overt instruction in grammar).

A phenomenological qualitative study (Felix, 2007) found first through a meta-anaylsis that

differentiated instruction, using multiple modes of presentation, will positively increase a student’s opportunity for learning. Communicating efficiently, using various communication methods, will enhance a teacher’s instructional effectiveness and a student’s ability to understand. Blogging appears to offer multiple opportunities [for this]...

No big surprise. But then the study itself

1. highlights the importance of writing in education,
2. finds that blogging teachers changed instruction to more actively engage students
3. indicates that blogging leads to greater collaboration, connected learning, cognitive complexity, student/ teacher dialogue
   

In E-mail in Academia, a refereed journal article from EDUCAUSE, faculty noted that they liked using email for communication, but didn't like answering substantive questions thru email. Students still feel more comfortable (due to shyness, or because written questions can be better composed) asking these questions thru email. If it's a personal issue or grades - office hours are the way to go, but if it's something the whole class could benefit from - blog it! That way you can share the info with everyone, and archive it indefinitely to pre-emptively address future classes - without necessarily identifying the source of the question.

For an example (case study(?)) using blogging in a class click here.