More Than Textbooks: Engaging Students with Blogs & Vlogs

 Reflecting on the Experience

As this 12 week blogging experience winds down, I pause to reflect on this experience and how blogging can be a benefit to the secondary and higher education classroom. The experience has been a journey to say the least. The journey did have its rewards tough. I once took a Microsoft Educator certification years before the pandemic, and in that set of courses it spoke of the benefits to discourse and discussion:  

"Group discussions build community, increase knowledge construction and sharing, and develop valuable communication skills for students. Unfortunately, traditional live discussions can also leave voices unheard. Traditional discussion can also create anxiety for students who need more time to consider responses or who struggle to participate in fast-paced, in-class discussions. Modifying group discussions to better meet the needs of all students increases engagement and breadth of contribution." www.learn.microsoft.com 2025 (click here for website) 

Key Take Aways

• Meet students where they are:  Whether you understand it or not, your students are already immersed in content creation and consumption, you might as well leverage their strengths. 
• Empower the Student Voice: Allow your students to move past being passive consumers of information. Give them a platform in which to authentically and safely share their ideas. 
• Motivation Through Authentic Audiences:  Unlike assignments only read by the teacher, blog and vlogs increase student motivation and the relevance of their work

While it is unlikely that a district will support an open forum blog such as the one you are reading, there are lots of classroom safe alternatives.  So, where do you start?

Start Small:  Start with a low stakes project that allows the student to acclimate themselves to the idea of blogs or vlogs.  Something that is 1 to 2 minutes long and can be posted on Canvas or Blackboard but still allows for other students to view each others work. 

• Scaffold the process
• Focus on Content over Production
• Ensure Safety and Digital Citizenship
• Feedback:  make sure you are responding and encouraging the students in a timely manner.  
• Facilitate don't Dictate
• Assess what you Expect