So who wants to blog?

I have only ever blogged via a parent newsletter format every fortnight.  I think blogging my views on the facets of early childhood education  as they informed our practice, was important in establishing the preschool as an intellectually active- and therefore robust and progressive environment. Part of my rationale to blog was to showcase how policy and curriculum interact and while both of those were shared objectively, this space allowed me to explain where we were coming from and what drove us as a school. As a blogger, this process involved synthesis ( you can only go on for so much) and refinement, and gave me more clarity, and raised deeper questions even as I wrote on familiar subjects. A very interesting journey if the author is keen on the subject matter.

With the  role that sharing plays in learning environments well established, we turn towards how to do this effectively for our digital citizens. Are we doing enough to keep students motivated to share electronically via blogs?

We want our students to traverse this learning trajectory that possibly begins with observations but quickly morphs into how they interpret what they see. Blogging can take this sharing via discourse and discussion online, extending the  topic laterally in a way. I like the idea of students continuing to reflect and share what they have experienced in class in an ongoing forum that is then analysed to reveal plots and patterns on where students are on a  learning curve for the teacher.
In fact, the formative aspect of blogs is probably what I am most drawn to because I see them as an alternate way to record gains, deficits and dispositions.

So far so good. But how do we make blogs motivational? Why would a student be inspired to write about something in addition to all the other tasks they have to get done? Assuming that the technology is going to be motivational may hold some water but will this be enough to sustain the higher order thinking we are aiming for? With the best of intentions, we run the risk of over kill of the blogs are not supported in a way that allows them to evolve so that students have choices in how they respond and what they use to make their point. So yes, I see a parallel between providing  varied
response mechanisms ( strategies and representations) in a classroom and in the online format. I think in giving more opportunity to express authentically, we could be adding a necessary punch to blogs for middle school students especially.

A challenge here could be that depth of response gets compromised for the 'fun' ways in which  the response is related or shared especially if  the class is younger.  Can the skills we give students to effectively communicate via blogs interfere with  the original intent of the blogs? Will these communication scaffolds take away from thinking deeper because of the energies spent on deciding how they will blog rather than on what they will say for students? Questions  that I continue to probe  as I explore effective ways to blog in a middle school classroom..