Artigo traduzido do original: Blogging in the classroom: why yourstudents should write online.
For the past few months Michael Drennan's GCSE and A level students have been doing all their writing via student blogs. Here, he reflects on the power of blogging in the classroom
Do you blog at your school? Why not share your link in our comments section. Photograph: www.alamy.com
Writing in classrooms seems to me to have two wildly different, conflicting purposes: a limited, traditional and strict purpose - because exams, like many decent jobs, will be about written skill; and a wider, idealistic one: the ultimate method of exchange of ideas in depth. So, first, we should repeatedly use formal tests to acclimatise students to exam-specific writing requirements - dull, precise, necessarily regular. And beyond that, we'd let writing have free rein, encouraging students to be as ambitious, open-ended and wide-ranging as possible. That would mean loosening up most classroom time outside of the revise/test/peer-mark cycle to be about project work, self-directed learning, talk and flexibility; and we'd make the recording of learning a highly flexible process, for students to write what, and when, they like.
So I've spent the past few months with GCSE and A-level classes doing absolutely no writing at all beyond sample tests and student blogs.
Students realise how high the bar of public domain writing is. This can be initially intimidating, but that removes all apathy or sense of the humdrum. Asking all students to write blogs as learning unfolds and interlinks empowers the teacher to be more supportive because they're less tied to the bureaucracy; it raises challenge levels; it enables IT-skilling; it lets students see their own progress and differentiates well; it means more productive and accelerating learning-talk over rote-writing.
The breadth of results has impressed. Students have collated and commented on topical news, explained practical implications and real-world examples of syllabus phenomena, asserted their views on issues, designed and written up experiments in depth, published and evaluated data they have researched or sourced, and commented skillfully on one another's work. And if, as the best have done, they write professionally in the public domain already as teenagers - which top university admissions director wouldn't offer them a place on a degree course of their choice? (Inspectors were extremely impressed, too.)
Student blogging is powerful and stimulating and enriching. The online capacity to link-reference makes for a punchy way to write interconnectedly. The range of interfaces and appearances available professionalises students' work and they rise to that implicit reward: this is considerably more motivating than writing longhand in that dog-eared exercise book. Feedback, group work and a visible papertrail are all effortless gains. Display student work for class discussion, comment on student posts as feedback; set homework to post short peer critiques; devise project tasks requiring reading multiple peers' work and synthesising an overview with linked references. No hassle taking other students' work home for peer-comment (and losing it.) Read across classes and year groups. Resources are unloseable. My line manager can trace everything we do to the minute - without leaving their desk. (I'm not intimidated by this intrusive rise in monitoring capability. I do my job well and want students to feel that accountability isn't something to be scared of. In return, I give students, and expect from SLT, considerable flexibility in using this powerful system: stick to the big picture of whether there is good engagement overall.)
This is all massively more powerful, and infinitely easier, than collecting exercise books for monitoring and restricting peer-feedback within the classroom, and a source of far less hassle/conflict than fixed small-scale written homeworks with exact deadlines. Parents can be directed to helpful information, to the evidence of what their child has achieved, and to comparative students' work from within the same class.
None of the risks justify avoiding student blogging. Defamatory/provocative remarks are a behavioural issue, not a technological one: don't deprive all of an exciting outlet because of the remote possibility of misuse by a tiny few. Others may worry that student work is too weak. But where better than a blog to show the arc of individual development? Student bloggers are not meant to be the finished article (I'm not sure most professional bloggers are!); what we're looking for is emulation of, and participation in, a global community of discussion, however fledgling their efforts. Plagiarism is, surprisingly, not a problem. I've had one incidence of this all year: a discreet, firmly-worded email explaining copyright law to the student (copied to the parental email) and the post was swiftly amended.
Use of strong language is moot. A2 sociologists this year persuaded me to allow them to use it in political/satirical posts; tellingly, they did so freely early on, but then it fell away - its casual use disempowers it and makes writing appear lazy. Students came to reflect that they should choose words more carefully. "You don't hear Polly Toynbee saying 'What a dick' in her articles, even though she clearly thinks Cameron is one," concluded one perceptive wit, to general agreement. Language is a thorny issue, so I share this story without imposition. Child protection issues are minimal. Teach e-safety once, well, and take firm action when needed - but don't lock kids away from the world. My students were delightedly amazed to discover postgrads in Germany, travellers in South-East Asia and Occupy activists in the US liking, commenting on and following their blogs.
Our first year of use has been rewarding and engaging. I am confident it has enhanced students' enjoyment, writing skill, and university prospects. Our use has been hit-and-miss - but that's what a trial is for, and I go into year two with a clearer idea of the advantages, limitations and required timely guidance in asking students to write for the public forum. Remember what writing is for: to share what we see, think and believe, and invite response. Remember what schools are for: preparation to enter a wide world of possibility. Durrenmatt said: "A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge." Who wouldn't want their classroom to look like that?
Michael Drennan is head of psychology and head of careers at a non-selective British school in the Gulf. He tweets as @MBDoe. A expanded version of this article, with further details for interested teachers, can be found here.
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