Teacher Matthew J. Clausen looked at his Web-design students鈥攖heir fingers flying over their computer keyboards鈥攁nd marveled.
These 10th, 11th, and 12th graders鈥攅ven the sullen or quiet ones who never raised their hands or took part in class discussions鈥攚ere spilling out their thoughts on an assignment both to him and their classmates, he recounted recently. They did so through This Digital Life, their class Web log at Willard Alternative High School, a 130-student public high school in Missoula, Mont.
Mr. Clausen is part of a growing number of K-12 educators using Web logs, or 鈥渂logs鈥� for short, to foster better writing, reading, communication, and other academic skills. Such Web sites, often open to the public, double as chronological journals and can include Web links and photographs as well as audio and video elements.
The interactive nature of such sites is a major reason they鈥檙e catching on in classrooms, say experts such as Tim Wilson, the technology-integration specialist for the 8,000-student Hopkins, Minn., school district west of Minneapolis.
鈥淏logs are like a conversation. Regular Web pages are static,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hen kids can talk with one another and share ideas, that鈥檚 powerful.鈥�
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A New Jersey high school English-literature class, for example, read and created an interactive 鈥渞eader鈥檚 guide鈥� blog on the novel The Secret Life of Bees. The author, Sue Monk Kidd, read the blog and used it to communicate with the class.
Some budding reporters at J.H. House Elementary School in Conyers, Ga., got mentoring from high school journalism students in New Jersey via a class blog. One of the elementary pupils鈥� teachers, Anne P. Davis, who now works in the instructional-technology center at Georgia State University鈥檚 college of education in Atlanta, said the project was a way to get the pupils to write.
鈥淢ost students don鈥檛 enjoy writing,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd I thought there were possibilities there.鈥�
And a teacher at a private high school in Vancouver, British Columbia, has his senior English-literature students blog on their reading assignments, bringing medieval narrative poems such as 鈥淪ir Gawain and the Green Knight鈥� into the era of ubiquitous computer technology.
Student Voices Heard
Blogs have flooded the Internet over the past five years. Some 60 million blogs, on subjects as varied as dieting, NASCAR, politics, and Las Vegas buffets, now crowd the World Wide Web, according to , a Web site on blogging news.
Experts say they don鈥檛 know how many education-related blogs exist, as the trend is still emerging in the K-12 arena.
It鈥檚 only in the past year or so that blogging in schools has spread from a handful of education technology hotshots to thousands of typical classroom teachers. Among them is Mr. Clausen in Missoula.
鈥淲hat I鈥檓 most attracted to in Web logs is the empowerment of the student voice,鈥� he said. 鈥淢any of our students 鈥� don鈥檛 often feel like they鈥檙e heard. And here they have a tool that gets them noticed.鈥�
Each week for six weeks this school year, his Web-design students blogged about their class assignments, on such topics as copyrights and the elements of a user-friendly Web site. Before the class, none of them had ever written anything in class that could be read beyond the school walls.
One week, they blogged about, well, blogging. 鈥淏logging allows everyone in the class to share their opinion, not just the loudest or most outspoken student,鈥� wrote senior Caitlin Nunberg. 鈥淏logs are more in-depth than a classroom discussion.鈥�
The often-public nature of blogs is also a draw for many students, who tend to be more careful with their grammar, logic, and writing style when potentially millions of people can read what they write, said Will Richardson, a self-described 鈥渂logvangelist鈥� who supervises instructional technology and communications at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J. His blog, , is one of the most highly read blogs among precollegiate teachers.
鈥淚 tell the kids after a few days of [blogging] to 鈥楪oogle鈥� themselves,鈥� he said, referring to the popular Internet search engine. 鈥淎nd they say, 鈥極h my God, I鈥檓 really out there.鈥� 鈥�
Still, some teachers may fear that blogs can isolate instead of connect people. Educational technology experts point out, though, that many students prefer to blog after school, even in the middle of the night.
Ms. Davis of Georgia State says blogging should complement rather than supplant classroom conversation.
鈥淚t shouldn鈥檛 replace oral discussion. It鈥檚 not either-or,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou should use all the tools at your fingertips.鈥�
No Last Names
Web sites offering free or low-cost blog-hosting services, such as , have proliferated. Create a user name and password, and you鈥檙e officially part of the 鈥渂logosphere.鈥�
But teachers and administrators must surmount some pedagogical and logistical issues to use and manage a blog effectively, as well as security issues to protect their students and districts, technology experts say.
The thorniest issue is how educators can use classroom blogs to advance student achievement. So far, little analysis has been done on the quality of blogs as a classroom tool.
鈥淐reating a blog is easy,鈥� said Mr. Wilson of Minnesota鈥檚 Hopkins school system. 鈥淯sing it well and in a way that enhances learning is difficult.鈥�
Mr. Wilson suggests that school districts鈥攏ot third-party Web sites鈥攕hould host class blogs themselves to maintain sufficient oversight. On Blogger.com, for example, a student could post an inappropriate comment on a class blog outside school hours.
That鈥檚 what happened recently in the Chicago school district: Three 7th and 8th grade boys in Taft High School鈥檚 Advanced Placement program last month allegedly threatened teachers online on a personal blog unrelated to the school. The district disciplined the students, but did not specify their punishment, citing confidentiality.
Districts can download blogging software, such as , on their servers, and teachers can control who reads and comments on a blog through sites geared to education.
For security reasons, experts advise against letting students reveal their last names or post photos of themselves on blogs. But they say students should be able to use their first names, or initials, instead of being identified merely as numbers.
鈥淵ou have to weigh safety concerns with pedagogy,鈥� said Mr. Richardson. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e creating great content but you鈥檙e referred to as Number 4672, there鈥檚 not that much ownership.鈥�
He and other instructional-technology experts suggest that teachers first get the lay of the blogging landscape before starting a class blog: They should read widely, comment on others鈥� blogs, then create their own.
Familiarizing themselves with blogging tools that can help them and their students is another good idea for educators, experts say. Such resources include Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, which provides subscribers to a blog e-mail alerts when that blog is updated; , a site for storing and sharing photos; , which 鈥渂ookmarks鈥� favorite Web sites, making it easier to visit them; and , a 鈥渕eta-aggregator鈥� that brings all types of online content onto one Web page.
鈥淏ecome part of the conversation,鈥� Mr. Richardson said. 鈥淓verybody really does have a printing press now.鈥�
