This is a research made by a group of researcher from University of Florida which are Wendy Drexler, Kara Dawson and Richard E. Ferdig entitled “Collaborative Blogging as a Means to Develop Elementary Expository Writing Skills”.
Here are some important points from the research that I want to share with all of you regarding blog and how blogging can assist language learners to improve and enhance their writing writing skill.
-Results indicated that collaborative blogging improved students’ attitudes toward writing.
-Feedback generated from the collaboration, rather than the use of technology itself, increased students’ motivation to write.
-Collaborative blogging improved students’ writing and supported development of related skills and knowledge.
-In addition to these intended outcomes, a number of unintended benefits emerged from the project. Students transferred knowledge learned during the collaborative project to other academic and social facets of the classroom.
-Students’ technology skills improved even though official technology-related instruction was not provided. Students developed visual literacy skills as they transformed the essays into online presentations.
-Finally, collaborative blogging enabled differentiated instruction while ensuring success for each student.
In this research the researchers have suggested that :
-Educational blogs employ technology to offer practice, thoughtful feedback, and revisions based on feedback—fundamental steps in the writing process to improve student writing (Williams, 2003).
-Blogs also expand writing time by extending beyond the classroom environment and traditional school schedule constraints.
-They can be about any topic, allowing for multiple cross-curricular projects.
-The comment feature of blogs provides the opportunity for feedback from anyone in the world creating limitless collaborative options.
-In sum, they are potentially powerful collaborative tools to build writing ability .
Other than that:
Blog is short for ‘Web log’; it is best described as an online journal. The term ‘Web log’ was coined by Jorn Barger in 1997 (Blood, 2000). However, Justin Hall, who began his personal online journal in 1994, is considered to be one of the first bloggers. Over 4 million Weblogs had been created by the middle of 2003 and over 60 million were created by May 2005 (Huann, Ow, & Ho Pau Yuen, 2005). There are more than 900,000 blog posts a day with a new blog created every second (Richardson, 2005).
-Blogs can be about any topic and can include pictures or even video.
-They often incorporate links to other blogs or websites.
-Most, though not all, blogs provide the option for readers to comment on the journal entry.This feature makes blogging a truly social communication tool.
-Blogging also provides a vehicle for sharing feelings and insights with the world without ever leaving the classroom.
Fernette and Brock Eide’s research (Eide Neurolearning Blog, 2005) found that blogging can:
-Promote critical and analytical thinking
-Be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking
-Promote analogical thinking
-Be a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information
-Combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction
Will Richardson summarized the pedagogy of blogging in his book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Richardson, 2006).
-He suggested that blogs are a constructivist tool for learning where participants construct knowledge, share ideas, and build upon each other’s work.
-He added that blogs archive the learning that has taken place and provide a historical framework. In such an approach, different learning styles are represented because every person has a voice.
-Finally, blogs teach students 21st century skills that are necessary in a global economy.
On the other hand:
-Commenting and hyperlinking are components that extend blogs beyond basic publishing.
-The comment function allows others to communicate relevant feedback thereby facilitating the "scaffolding of new ideas" (Ferdig & Trammell, 2004, p. 1).
-Hyperlinks provide “relational and contextual basis of knowledge and knowledge construction” (Ferdig and Trammell, 2004).
-Many blogs include references, visuals, and hyperlinks to related topics within the blog. In addition to expanding the students’ frame of reference, these links also provide opportunities to verify content and check other views.
-Students can become subject matter experts through exposure to vast amounts of information thus increasing interest and ownership of learning (Ferdig & Trammel, 2004).
-Exposure to different perspectives enables students to form opinions based on varied content rather than the controlled view of a textbook.
Reference:
My Reflection.
In my opinion, blogging did assist language learners to improve and enhance their writing skill. It is because while writing (err..I mean typing..hehe) something in your blog, automatically your brain will works because you need to think about what you going to write. Therefore, when you always do the thinking activity it will helps your brain to be more creative and in the end of the day you will be someone who always come out and write something with good and creative ideas. So, you will be a good writer!(^^)
Besides that, when you are blogging, you can simply to add pictures or even videos in your writing pieces so that your writing will be more variety and attractive. On the other hand, when you adding pictures and videos, it can be as additional information about what you are talking about. For example, if you want to write a story about your family, you can put your family picture to show your family to the reader. Thus, the reader will be more understand and get the clearer picture about what you write about. So, you will be a creative writer!(^^)
On the other hand, blogging also a platform for sharing and changing information. You also can share your information, thought and anything that you would like to share with the reader of your blog. You can write about whatever you want as long as in it is suitable with the readers. Other than that, you can read another people’s blog in order to get information and gain knowledge from the blogger’s posting and comment received. You also can learn the language used and the way or style of writing skill used by the bloggers or their follower. Thus this will enhance your knowledge and you will be a knowledgeable writer!(^^)
For me, blogging did assist me to improve and enhance my skill writing because when I am blogging I can write effectively and I can teach myself to write often because before this I have feeling sort of lazy to write because my handwriting was so bad. Sometimes, my friends even me myself cannot understand my own handwriting. So with blog, I can write often without worrying that is people cannot understand what I am writing about. When I can write often, InsyaAllah from time to time my writing skill will improve and get better and better. Really hope so!(^^)
Blogs that I love to visit:
(Other than Blogspot and Wordpress, there are another types of blog such as Multiply, Friendster and Myspace. Here is an example of blog which is Multiply that I love to visit. It is because eventhough the contains of the blog basically about entertainment,however the blogger did used English as her medium of communication. Therefore, while I am visiting her blog, I also can learn English (^^) )
http://www.allthingscupcake.com/
(This blog is about cupcake!!!(^^) I love cupcake because it is so cute...may be I don't have the opportunity to buy it, but looking at all the cupcakes is enough for me..hehehe XD )
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