Blogging in the primary classroom

Our reading was called ‘The influence of classroom blogging on elementary student writing’. We found that the article was about an investigation conducted over a period of one year on a year 5 class focusing on the effects of classroom blogging on writing skills. Prior to that, there had been little research on primary school blogging with the majority of case studies based on secondary and tertiary students. The study aimed to introduce students to using technology as a means of improving their writing skills. The subjects of the study were 5^th graders in an American classroom with some limitations to the research. These were the lack of diversity in ethnicity and numbers of students within the classroom.

Initially in the early stages of blogging, the students displayed a number of difficulties in their writing. These included disjointed sentences, lack of complex language and sentence structure, lack of expression like figurative language, self centred ways of writing and thinking and the inability to hold multiple readers’ perspectives when writing.

The study found that as the school year progressed, the students became more confident in their writing ability, as well as improving their writing skills they also improved their communication and social skills through commenting and feedback provided by both the teacher and peers in the blogging world. They also developed empathy and the ability to hold multiple reader perspectives by reading other blogs and reflecting on comments. This in turn provided students with motivation and encouragement to continue writing and editing their work, resulting in a feeling of empowerment, confidence and writing with a purpose.

Davis, A., &McGrail, E. (2011). The influence of classroom blogging on elementary student writing.Journal of Research in Childhood Education,25 (4), 415-437.