Encountering E-Learning Education

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“I think it’s the most beautiful tool of the world and it allows us the most magic thing…”—Florence Dassylva-Simard, fifth-grade student”.

This reflection upon children’s use of technology in primary education is primarily focused on Stephen Downes’ article entitled “Educational Blogging”. I have written more extensively on this article as part of my static pages. However, I found the article so insightful and intersesting that I thought it worthwhile commenting in my blog posting for other students to respond to.

The article describes online weblogs used by students at the Institute St Joseph in Quebec City as “a virtual extension of the classroom”. At St Joseph students’ use weblogs in numerous ways such as a classroom web space, site of announcement, posting for work, communication zone, reflective sphere and private personal space.

A fifth grade student at St Joseph commented:”The blogs give us a chance to communicate between us and motivate us to write more. When we publish on our blog, people from the entire world can respond by using the comments link. This way, they can ask questions or simply tell us what they like. We can then know if people like what we write and this indicates to us what to do better. By reading these comments, we can know our weaknesses and our talents. Blogging is an opportunity to exchange our point of view with the rest of the world not just people in our immediate environment.” (Downes, 2004)

I discovered that weblogs are an invaluable tool for promoting educational reflective analysis as well as developing the “emergence of a learning community that goes beyond the school walls” (Asserlin cited in Downes, 2004). Blogs used to “archive and publish student work, learn with far-flung collaborators, and manage the knowledge that members of the school community create.” (Richardson cited in Downes 2004). This learning technology can also be used by school communities as a source of information and communication.

Weblogs could be perceived as primarily consisting of a series of personal comments and observations. But Downes illustrates how this is a very restrictive and limited understanding of weblogs.  Weblogs must be recognised as more than an online journal. Weblogs have an immense capacity to link to resources as well as offering a space for personal reflection. Therefore blogs could be viewed in their simplest form as forum for “personal publishing” (Downes, 2004). This concept of weblogs has significant implication for education.  On a basic level a primary advantage of weblogs is the way they encourage students to become competent writers. As Rosalie Brochu, a student at St-Joseph, observes: “The impact of the blogs on my day to day life is that I write a lot more and a lot longer than the previous years. I also pay more attention when I write in my blog (especially my spelling) since I know anybody can read my posts.”

I found this reading very informative and worthwhile in widening my perspective on weblogs and their use in the classroom. I’m particularly looking forward to developing my understanding of weblogs as an online learning tool and using them to their greatest capacity within primary education.

Reference 

Downes, S. (2004). Educational blogging. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), 14–26.

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