Blogs, the new normal.

Picture from here.

In the simplest metaphorical form of description, a blog is the journal you used to write in English class. The one where the teacher would give you a prompt and you, usually puzzled and mildly interested, would write a response either "telling a story about that one time" or how you might "in a given situation". The audience for that journal was your teacher, only a single set of eyes. It was comparatively easy to write for that one teacher, you know what they were looking for.

In it's most complex metaphorical form, a blog is a sign being held by a person standing on a street corner or the busiest road in the history of mankind, asking people to give the only form of currency left uncorrupted, their attention. Some people's signs have words on them, others have photos they have taken or videos they've made. Some of these sign holders have three people viewing their sign. Others have millions of viewers, whole communities invested in viewing the sign.

So how do you use something like that to further education you ask? How could a sign that can show anything help students be better learners? I would start with the end in mind, asking myself what am I looking for that shows me my students have understood what I am trying to teach them? I'm going to be an art teacher, so let's start with the basic elements of art as the subject. I want my students to show me they understand the seven elements of art. They are going to show me they understand by giving me examples of these elements and producing a piece of artwork themselves that incorporates three of the seven elements.

This is a project I would assign over the course of a six weeks, expecting the student to post two to three times a week, those post in response to the materials we talk about in class. In class we would review the vocabulary, view pieces that have explicit and implicit examples of these elements, talk about culturally important artist who both challenged and defended these elements, and I would give the students time to work on their pieces exhibiting the elements. The main purpose of the blog would be to have the students talk about their learning process of the elements of art and follow their creation process of their piece.

This method has contructivism written all over it, and I'm okay with that. I strongly believe in encouraging students to be aggressive learners, taking their own education into their hands and constructing it for themselves. Not only does the learning anchor deeper into the students, it affects them mentally and emotionally, building self esteem and making them better students and people.

Because this type of technology is native to the students, it's not a stretch for them to use it for displaying what they are learning in school. Even if they have never published a blog personally, they are aware of what it is supposed to look like and how it works. The affordances are pulled from the students involvement with other media heavy, social websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Because of it's ubiquitous presence, this tech can be used to show students applying what they learned in the classroom in practical application in the real world. If a science class is learning about chemical reactions, students can show what chemical reactions they found in their home, like baking soda and vinegar, lemons on apples, and water on metal. In Language Arts classes, students can showcase their writing (that's an easy one) but they can also turn their story on paper into a live action dramatization and shoot a video.

I think the biggest obstacle to using this technology is the student having access and a desire to use it. In the school where I am student teaching, there is one computer lab and the students only get to visit it once a week. Most of the children don't have internet access at home and this can be a huge barrier for the students completing their work. In addition to not having easy access, the internet itself can be a huge distraction, even for a disciplined mind. Children without regular access wouldn't want to spend the precious time they get with a computer completing homework. It is very easy to get off task and spend hours on really, nothing at all, how much more so when you have limited access?

Knowing all of this, I would still employ this type of technology in my classroom. The skills the students will learn about how to present the knowledge they learned, along with what they learned about the elements of art, will help them tremendously in the future.

The blog, as a form of information distribution, is the new normal.