About Will Richardson's "Weblogs in School".

My own perception of using blogs in schools is very positive, and reading about Will Richardson’s ideas about blogging in school was very helpful for me as a TEFL professional. In my opinion weblogs affect directly on the learners’ motivation and engagement. This interactional type of learning process develops a sense of ownership, critical thinking, good reading and writing skills.

According to Will Richardson, the usage of blogs in schools enhances better learning, besides blogs can serve as an archive for collecting your ideas and later coming back to them, if needed. He states that it has a special influence on teaching reading and writing skills. When they write they know that it  is going to be available not only to their teachers, but to a wide audience. Another important thing is that we should teach the learners read before writing. They should read different sources, analyze, synthesize, criticize, and then write their own posts.

Blogging also fosters collaboration between the learners. They not only learn from the sources they read or listen, but also learn from their peers, from other people’s reflections.

According to Richardson, the digital world of blogs differs from podcasts, wikis, videos, etc, because it makes the learners become network creators and users.

In future I will use teaching through blogs, because I can feel from my own experience, that it makes the learning process interactive, meaningful, modern, helpful for a wider community. I would use that for them to reflect on the activities done in the classroom, also on the homework assignments. Besides, there has been done a research in the EEC program of AUA, according to which teaching via weblogs is effective and promising.

For more information please visit this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_5F_zcOJ3o