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Blogging in the classroom: why your

students should write online
For the past few months Michael Drennan's GCSE and A level students have been doing all their
writing via student blogs. Here, he reects on the power of blogging in the classroom

Do you blog at your school? Why not share your link in our comments section. Photograph: www.alamy.com

Michael Drennan
Tuesday 17 July 2012 02.00 EDT

Writing in classrooms seems to me to have two wildly dierent, conicting purposes: a

limited, traditional and strict purpose - because exams, like many decent jobs, will be about
written skill; and a wider, idealistic one: the ultimate method of exchange of ideas in depth.
So, rst, we should repeatedly use formal tests to acclimatise students to exam-specic
writing requirements - dull, precise, necessarily regular. And beyond that, we'd let writing
have free rein, encouraging students to be as ambitious, open-ended and wide-ranging as
possible. That would mean loosening up most classroom time outside of the
revise/test/peer-mark cycle to be about project work, self-directed learning, talk and
exibility; and we'd make the recording of learning a highly exible process, for students to
write what, and when, they like.
So I've spent the past few months with GCSE and A-level classes doing absolutely no
writing at all beyond sample tests and student blogs.
Students realise how high the bar of public domain writing is. This can be initially
intimidating, but that removes all apathy or sense of the humdrum. Asking all students to
write blogs as learning unfolds and interlinks empowers the teacher to be more supportive
because they're less tied to the bureaucracy; it raises challenge levels; it enables IT-skilling;
it lets students see their own progress and dierentiates well; it means more productive
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and accelerating learning-talk over rote-writing.

The breadth of results has impressed. Students have collated and commented on topical
news, explained practical implications and real-world examples of syllabus phenomena,
asserted their views on issues, designed and written up experiments in depth, published
and evaluated data they have researched or sourced, and commented skillfully on one
another's work. And if, as the best have done, they write professionally in the public
domain already as teenagers - which top university admissions director wouldn't oer
them a place on a degree course of their choice? (Inspectors were extremely impressed,
too.)
Student blogging is powerful and stimulating and enriching. The online capacity to linkreference makes for a punchy way to write interconnectedly. The range of interfaces and
appearances available professionalises students' work and they rise to that implicit reward:
this is considerably more motivating than writing longhand in that dog-eared exercise
book. Feedback, group work and a visible papertrail are all eortless gains. Display student
work for class discussion, comment on student posts as feedback; set homework to post
short peer critiques; devise project tasks requiring reading multiple peers' work and
synthesising an overview with linked references. No hassle taking other students' work
home for peer-comment (and losing it.) Read across classes and year groups. Resources are
unloseable. My line manager can trace everything we do to the minute - without leaving
their desk. (I'm not intimidated by this intrusive rise in monitoring capability. I do my job
well and want students to feel that accountability isn't something to be scared of. In return,
I give students, and expect from SLT, considerable exibility in using this powerful system:
stick to the big picture of whether there is good engagement overall.)
This is all massively more powerful, and innitely easier, than collecting exercise books for
monitoring and restricting peer-feedback within the classroom, and a source of far less
hassle/conict than xed small-scale written homeworks with exact deadlines. Parents can
be directed to helpful information, to the evidence of what their child has achieved, and to
comparative students' work from within the same class.
None of the risks justify avoiding student blogging. Defamatory/provocative remarks are a
behavioural issue, not a technological one: don't deprive all of an exciting outlet because of
the remote possibility of misuse by a tiny few. Others may worry that student work is too
weak. But where better than a blog to show the arc of individual development? Student
bloggers are not meant to be the nished article (I'm not sure most professional bloggers
are!); what we're looking for is emulation of, and participation in, a global community of
discussion, however edgling their eorts. Plagiarism is, surprisingly, not a problem. I've
had one incidence of this all year: a discreet, rmly-worded email explaining copyright law
to the student (copied to the parental email) and the post was swiftly amended.
Use of strong language is moot. A2 sociologists this year persuaded me to allow them to use
it in political/satirical posts; tellingly, they did so freely early on, but then it fell away - its
casual use disempowers it and makes writing appear lazy. Students came to reect that
they should choose words more carefully. "You don't hear Polly Toynbee saying 'What a
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dick' in her articles, even though she clearly thinks Cameron is one," concluded one
perceptive wit, to general agreement. Language is a thorny issue, so I share this story
without imposition. Child protection issues are minimal. Teach e-safety once, well, and
take rm action when needed - but don't lock kids away from the world. My students were
delightedly amazed to discover postgrads in Germany, travellers in South-East Asia and
Occupy activists in the US liking, commenting on and following their blogs.
Our rst year of use has been rewarding and engaging. I am condent it has enhanced
students' enjoyment, writing skill, and university prospects. Our use has been hit-and-miss
- but that's what a trial is for, and I go into year two with a clearer idea of the advantages,
limitations and required timely guidance in asking students to write for the public forum.
Remember what writing is for: to share what we see, think and believe, and invite response.
Remember what schools are for: preparation to enter a wide world of possibility.
Durrenmatt said: "A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge." Who
wouldn't want their classroom to look like that?
Michael Drennan is head of psychology and head of careers at a non-selective British school in
the Gulf. He tweets as @MBDoe. A expanded version of this article, with further details for
interested teachers, can be found here.

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