Walking Stick Blogger

A Learning Space for Literacy and English Language Learners

Journaling – the Starting Point of Blogging

I am putting together a series of journal writing assignments, and I felt that this would be a great way to contrast the way an instructor can use journaling with students and using the blogging tool for journaling. There are some distinct similiarities:

1. Both journaling in a notebook or hardbound diary and blogging invite learners to express themselves creatively;

2. Both journaling and blogging give learners an opportunity to explore topics of significance;

3. Both journaling and blogging require implied trust between the learners and their instructor to maintain privacy and confidentiality;

However, the blogging tool affords learners certain options not available to them when journaling using traditional hard-copy:

1. Learners can restrict their posts to as many others as they wish; alternatively learners who blog can open access to guest, friends, peers, and family, as well as to their instructor.

2. Learners can revise their posts repeatedly, change their access, and delete them as they wish. They can also append and reflect back over and over on the content.

3. Learners can review their posts and re-tag, re-categorize, and generally re-organize them in view of new experiences.

4. The most crucial difference, however, lies in a blogger’s ability to weave others’ ideas as links to enhance the post over time, adding more and more new ideas and context cues, re-working the post over and over again.

5. In effect, the blogging tool provides an unusual opportunity for shared reflection – one’s own posts serve as stepping stones for further reflection in self and others.

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ALFIEstepping stones

netizenship • May 6, 2010


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