“jedublogs” – Thinking About Blogs for Jewish Education
How are educators thinking about blogs?
Blogs are generally considered to be online journals. In terms of format, they are made up of entries that are organized chronologically, the most recent listed first, and can be further indexed by topic. Blogs often include a mixture of text content, audio, photographs, videos, and links to other sites. Blog culture encourages reader comments, cross-references to other blogs, and opportunities for collaborative publishing. A blog’s relative ease of use provides a publishing forum for anyone with an Internet connection and the patience to learn a new medium.
Educators are experimenting with the use of blogs in their work and have coined the term “edublogs.” Many of these projects use the traditional concept of blogs in highly creative ways.
Below are ways to think about genres of blogs in education. Please note that it is not clear that all of these types of blogs currently exist for Jewish education. However, with your assistance, we will try and identify examples of the variety of Jewish education blogs on the jlearn2.0 wiki (jlearn20.wikispaces.com; see under “Jewish Education Blogs.” Or add your blog suggestion in the comment section at the bottom of this post or email us at jlearn2.0. More about wikis in future posts).
General for Educational Stakeholders
Blogs about Jewish education – these sites tend to offer information, resources, policy, advocacy, and commentary related to aspects of Jewish education.
Personal voices – independent voices examining issues related to Jewish education; sometimes articles related to Jewish education are posted on individuals’ blogs that address a wide range of topics on Jewish culture.
Educator Blogs
Teacher journals – online diaries describing personal experiences and commentary by educators; these are often projects initiated by individuals and not under school auspices.
Administrator journals – online diaries that share perspectives and experiences of school administrators; these are often personal journals and not under school auspices.
Professional development – sites that provide “just in time” and individualized learning opportunities; blogs that support reflective practice through journaling, feedback, etc.
Communities of practice – sites devoted to specific issues related to the profession; collaborative spaces to share and refine ideas
Student Blogs
Student journals – online entries describing personal experiences and observations by students; these might be self-initiated diaries or related to school projects.
Curricular Resources
Online resource centers – access to curricular resources, annotated links to content and pedagogy, repository for original resources.
Learning Blogs
Student learning – curriculum-related blogs created for, and often by, students to engage with learning through writing, information and communication technology (ICT) skills, podcasts, videocasts, map tools, multimedia presentations and projects, etc.
Digital portfolios – blogs developed for assessing learning including presentation of work, revisions, critiques, and personal reflections.
Community
School collaborations – online space for classroom projects, including those that are inter-class, inter-school, and international.
Mentorships – shared collaborative space for online mentorships, including student-mentor and teacher- mentor relationships.
Travel journals – reports from travelers around the world, interacting with readers who share their experiences virtually.
Social action blogs – sites that promote Jewish social action and related projects.
School Blogs
Schools and other institutions of higher learning – school communications shared by the administration, teachers, parents, and students (school news, homework, assignments, important bulletins, messages from the head of school and rabbi, etc.)
Organization / Institution Affiliated Blogs
Organizations – blogs associated with institutions and organizations; these sites are often developed in conjunction with their organizational websites and offer additional, more regularly updated information and resources of interest to their membership.
Conference Blogs
Conferences – official and unofficial reports and insights related to conference events by organizers and participants.
Do other categories come to mind? How do you use blogs in your work?
Administrators and teachers should be reminded that appropriate security measures need to be taken to assure student safety and privacy. For example, blogs can be kept private with only pre-identified members granted permission to read or post comments. A simple way to protect the student is to have them use a pen name for any work that is publicly accessible. The school community should be aware of the school’s acceptable use policies and should develop appropriate rules of netiquette.