Being a person who has a reflection journal and a blog, I find comfort
in having a space where I can write my ideas down and post things that I find funny, interesting, or insightful. Though my own blog is certainly not a professional blog, I think that
there is a lot of merit in having one. The concept of blogging is gaining in
popularity and put in an academic situation, there could be a lot of gains.
Just as I am writing posts for a class, students could post their work online
for the teacher and fellow students to look at and reflect. In the music
classroom, there could be reflections on pieces of music for the students to
write about. There would have to be guidelines as to what a good blog and
blog-post constitutes as, but that work would go in to any assessments given to
students. The pros of using this format for assessment is that it gets students
more accustomed to what the world expects a younger generation to do
(type, write well, research on the internet, etc.), it is congruent to what
students themselves might be interested in, and it gives students the chance to
explore writing in a way that might not be perceived as academic. If you think there might be
a problem implementing this, please let me know!
I think this is a lovely idea. Having students find a purpose for blogging where they share idea definitely feeds the moral aspect of community that we as a democratic society are trying to instil in our students. It is the way of the future, nothing is evolving faster than technology and there is a reason for that. The guideline is where I would spend the most time with this idea. If this would be used as an academic medium we definitely don't want it to look like the comment section of old youtube.
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