When used as an electronic bulletin board, an edublog provides a fast, efficient means of communication between classroom teacher, students, and parents. Edublogs can also be used as an instructional resource to extend classroom learning. Finally, edublogs can be deployed as collaborative tools where students and their teacher can work together, online, to teach, learn, and demonstrate knowledge (Ray, 2006). Collaborative literacy, through technology, enables students of mixed-ability to leverage their strengths. Specifically, with respect to writing, students collaborating through technologically tend to identify new strategies for accomplishing new tasks, often performing above the specific expectations for the project (Boling, Castek, Zawilinski, Barton, & Nierlich, 2008). When utilizing technology with which students are already familiar, and which increases task efficiency, students tend to become engaged in the learning process. The flexibility, ease of access, and speed of use of communication technology enables students to gain confidence to start to frame problems in their own way, seek solutions on their own, use their own methods, and make their own mistakes (Allen & Dutt-Doner, 2006).
Two key advantages I see in the deployment of technology to enhance communication between classroom teacher, student, and parent are the extension of the classroom and the engagement of students. In the same way that a school can be the centre of a community, the classroom can be the centre of a student’s life. That is, technology can serve to enable learning by allowing teachers, students, and their families to access much more information and knowledge than would otherwise be possible. The caveat for the classroom teacher is that he or she must frame that information in such a way that it is useful and meaningful. Supportive and collaborative interaction in this broader classroom, through the use of technology, becomes “on-demand”. That is, teachers can “push” and students and their families can “pull” when and where they choose. This flexibility enhances differentiated instruction and, when done well, leverages each student’s learning style.
References
Allen, S. M., & Dutt-Doner, K. M. (2006). Using digitized documents in
the classroom. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 66-67.
Boling, E., Castek, J., Zawilinski, L., Barton, K., & Nierlich, T.
(2008). Collaborative literacy: Blogs and internet projects. The
Reading Teacher, 61(6), 504-506.
Ray, J. (2006, Summer). Welcome to the blogosphere: The educational use
of blogs (aka edublogs). Kappa Delta Pi Record, 42, 175-177.
