Blogging is a Personalized Learning Tool

It was interesting to discover the many advantages of blogging from Shelley Wright. As a 'digital immigrant', I was always afraid of learning new technology. I always agreed that technology can help me in teaching and learning; however, I did not realize the real meaning of learning and using it. Just like a student, I did not have the motivation to learn, I knew it is good for me because my teacher told me so, but I didn't know why it is good for me.  Until Shelley Wright persuaded me in her blog post Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay. First of all, I was lucky to learn the reason why students don't know how to write a thesis statement. A good thesis statement requires independent thoughts. Without the ability to think and reflect what they have learned independently, students cannot argue the pros and cons of an issue in their essays. Secondly, since blog paragraphs are shorter and free, students are more willing to express their ideas and opinions freely. Take free writing activity for example. I like to allow my students sometime to do free writing exercise to generate their ideas. It is a way to welcome their unique thoughts instead of scaring their creativities away with rules like grammar, spelling and transitional words. Third, Wright mentioned that "blogging requires a different voice... and the voice used in blogging needs to be rich, sharp and distinct, to gain an audience". This is exactly what we need in order to write a great thesis statement. Wright's blog post also reminded me of the BC Education Plan---Personalized learning which caught my attention at the very beginning. I have visited the BC Education Plan website and have done a lot of research about personalized learning and how to practice personalized teaching but I found nothing practical. Luckily, I read this post and found this is what they called personalized learning. Oftentimes we have to jump out of the box or think out of the box to get our answers. Similarly, in order to train our students to be better academic writers, we have to train them to be greater thinkers. Furthermore, in order to train greater thinkers, we prepare them with a life-long skill--- blogging. I am excited about creating my very first blog. I am going to practice and prepare myself to share blogging with my students.