Blog and Reflect: The Learning Journal

A blog is an online diary or journal on a website. Its content typically includes text, pictures, videos, links to YouTube channels, animated GIFs, and scans of old physical diaries or other hard-copy documents. Another great vocabulary word I would like to highlight here is blogosphere. It refers to the world of blogs and the people who write them.

Nevertheless, for teachers, that word can mean so much more—yes, this word has been accepted into the family of a dictionary sometime in the last ten years. Since a blog can exist merely for personal use, to share information with an exclusive group, or to engage the public, a blog owner can set their blog to private or public access. I do the same thing. I use my blog for different purposes; one of them is to encourage my students to write reflective journals to learn English.

A. Blogs and Blogging

First, blogging is writing—the 21st-century style—plain and simple. Blogging constitutes a massive genre. It comes in many forms, addresses myriad topics, and can range in quality. In my opinion, blogging is the best venue for teaching student writing. Whether they are blog newbies, avid bloggers, or anything in between, they will develop crucial genre muscles and come to understand their relationship to the world. Therefore, since a blog is a social tool, creating or reading blogs provides them with a better alternative method for interacting with others that did not exist previously. Below are some significant findings on the impact of blogging on both learners and educators.

1. A blog offers authentic writing practice, enabling learners to recycle language input learned in the classroom, provide an alternative way of communicating with instructors and peers, and create a collaborative learning environment.

2. A blog is used as a platform for critical reflection on their learning processes and to gauge the impact of blogs on their professional growth.

3. It is recommended that learners improve the use of blogs as their learning journals.

4. By writing about their learning in blogs, learners can better see and understand their thinking and revise their conceptions when necessary—both important elements of higher levels of reflection and cognitive processing.

5. Blogging enables learners to demonstrate independent action by taking ownership of the content and the quality of what they write as they produce publicly accessible text.

6. Learners enjoy writing informally through blogging for others to read.

7. Blogging becomes a motivating source for learners’ personal development.

8. Blogging benefits educators by allowing them to prepare better activities for their students.

9. Learners express their relief through blogging that their voices are taken into consideration.

10. The lack of writing mechanics in blogging allows learners to share their ideas more effectively.

Anyone can blog, including you, the educators and your students. Blogging is one of my favourite ways to get students to write real-world material. If you have a blog, use it to introduce students to blogging by inviting them to write guest posts or respond to your blog entries in the comment sections. You can have pairs or groups of students working together to write a post, which you can proofread before posting. Alternatively, take some time to help students set up their blogs. Either way, students should be able to respond to comments on their posts, which is another way to foster social connections in the blogosphere.

B. Blog and Reflect: The Learning Journal

Here is the introduction to my innovation: writing a reflective journal using a blog, Blog & Reflect: The Learning Journal. This innovation unveils the students’ experiences using blogs as learning journals and expressing their views on the activities. Qualitative data were collected through observations of 52 engineering students’ entry comments and interviews with 8 students to gain additional perspectives on their experiences using the blogs in their learning.

The focus is on writing reflections and getting feedback from students after each class activity during our regular face-to-face or online classes. I can always enhance my next activity based on students' feedback and not only from my observations and points of view. I realised that students expressed themselves better after they got used to writing comments via a blog. I let them write freely about what they had in mind without correcting their grammar or sentence structures. Those corrections would be done in Google Classroom, another platform for them to write.

After each class activity, students were required to post their reflections on the learning practices and their classroom experience, including the instructor’s teaching methods, their feelings about the lessons’ activities, and their opinions, and optionally comment on their peers’ messages. All they have to do is click the link at the end of the blog post, and they can write responses or reflections on the topics and concerns I have raised in the blog entries.

The findings show that students enjoyed using computer tools in their lessons, and most of them expressed relief that their voices were considered. Students’ recommendations for improving the use of blogs as learning journals, based on their own experiences, were also revealed. Contrary to the assumption that abbreviated words and colloquial language may affect students’ writing development, the findings show that a lack of knowledge of writing mechanics allows them to express their ideas more effectively. This would become a motivating source for their personal development. This also benefits me as the instructor in preparing better activities for my future students and classes.

C. Visiting My Blog Solutions

I welcome all readers to visit my blog. Below are the instructions for my blog readers:

1. Log in to the URL given: https://masturasspot.blogspot.com

2. Viewers or readers will be able to see the blog headings and titles.

3. Please browse through the listed category labels to find interesting entries. It will be easier, as bloggers always label their entries under categories.

4. Once they read, viewers or readers can share their responses by clicking the comment section and starting to write.

5. They can either use their real names or remain anonymous, but my students have to use their real names so I know who has written and who has not.

6. If readers are not interested in commenting or responding to the blog entry, reading will be sufficient to gain knowledge or new information on certain topics.

While I have briefly explained the innovation here, with a little time and a few clicks, the entire blogosphere is yours for the taking. So get clicking and bring the blogosphere into your classroom!

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This guest post was written by Khalipah Mastura Khalid, a lecturer at Kolej Matrikulasi Kejuruteraan Kedah, Malaysia.

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