The Power of Blogging

A women in a green t-shirt is sitting at her desk 
working on her computer. There is a cloud of thought 
flowing from her computer, representing all her work. 

 Blogging is a powerful way for individuals to express themselves and share their experiences, content and opinions on important topics. educational blogging is a wonderful tool to use in the education system. Blogging is very useful for students and teachers. We learn from Benefits of Blogging in Education by, the NSU, that blogging is a wonderful education resource. For students it allows them to express themselves freely, collaborate with peers, learn different point of views and document their work throughout the school year. This also teaches them how to appropriately interact with media professionally. For teachers blogging allows them to share experiences and help others with challenges that may be shared my many teachers, keep families and students updated on what is going on in the classroom document the work they have done in their career and how far they have come professionally. Blogging is beneficial for all members in the educational world if done properly and professionally. 

I have learned a lot through looking at a few of my peers blogs. Mental health in education is a very important topic to me because I have experienced this myself and want to make this better for the current students in our school systems. Mental health does not only effect children's personal life but spills over into their academic experience and success. From reading Maddison's blog I learned that one in six children face mental health battles but only 50% for these children acquire help for handling these stressors. This is mind blowing for me. This means that at least five children in an average size classroom struggle with their mental health but only two or three of them have help to learn how do navigate these confusing feelings. This needs to change in order to make school a welcoming and fun place for all children. Standardized testing is another topic that is very important to raise awareness about. What started out as a why to test child knowledge on the core subjects they learn throughout the school year has now turned into to something different. Through reading cobi's blog I have learned that what once was a way to asses child learning has now turned into a way to streamline test scores and determines what academic skills the children have mastered throughout the school year. These tests do not take child differences, background or disability into account when giving tests at the end of the year. Now, these tests just determine how well students can take a test rather than what they actually know. We know from being students and up and coming teachers that not all people test well but that does not determine the kind of student they actually are. This is something that should be changed to allow students no mater of their testing skills to have academic success. Lastly, as teachers it is important that we meet children where they are developmentally and socially. Through reading Anna's blog I learned more about how family and home environments affect children individually. She brought to my attention that family characteristics such as SES, parental involvement and where the family lives have a large impact on children's literacy and language development. This is an important factor and relationship for teachers to understand so that we can teach to each individual child and provide them the best supports for them to have the best academic success. 

In my experience blogging has been very beneficial for me. I enjoy that I have a space to express my opinions and document my work through this semester. I think it is a valuable resource that allows me to reflect on how far I have come with my academic understanding and writing. This platform has also allowed me to learn more about education and reflect about it through my posts. This blogging experience has also given me another avenue about technology. I am not very tech savvy but through developing this blog it has given me more tools for my personal life and career that I can use once I am in a classroom and that is very exciting. In the future I think that I will use a blog to document what is going on in my classroom and allow parents to follow what we are doing through the year. It is a great tool to keep students and families updated and involved in their child's academic experiences
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