Blogging and Its Connection to "Writing to Learn"

Best practice instruction includes giving students the opportunity to reflect on their learning, clarify thinking, or make connections among different ideas through writing.  This is the process of writing to learn.  It may happen through students reflecting on essential questions, connecting discrete details of learning to their more significant concepts, or even just in considering what makes sense and what is confusing within the skills, processes and content of social studies.  Writing to learn elevates metacognition, the process of thinking about your own thinking.  As more teachers begin to use 21st century tools, blogging is something that students can do.  In terms of assigning relevant, worthwhile homework, student-created blogs seem to make sense.  And, if student blogs are connected to each other, blogs create opportunities for teachers to support students in their practice of 21st century skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity/innovation.  This video explains, perfectly, why blogging is so powerful for teachers and students as they mediate thinking.  One place to establish classroom blogs is Edublogs.org.  For additional thinking, see this post from ASCD Edge.