Classroom Blogging...Good or Bad Idea??

Classroom Blogging

This is a short digital story I found about the pros and cons of blogging in the classroom.  I was unable to embed the video, but you can find the video here.

Three traits were chosen from Jason Ohler’s rubric to use in order to critique this story:

1.       Story

2.       Research

3.       Flow, Organization and Pacing

1. Story- How well did the story work?

I believe this short story did work.  It covered a lot of information in a short amount of time.  It is a relevant topic (despite being created in 2009) and I think will become even more relevant in the upcoming years as blogging becomes even bigger.  Blogging in the classroom is a great way to address digital citizenship (as she briefly mentions) while teaching kids how to type, navigate the internet, etc.

Score: 9/10

2. Research- How well was the story researched?

I am split 50/50 on this one.  The author did have facts and statistics about blogging in general, but she didn’t listed them in the credits (not a huge deal but would be nice to see).  She also did not have facts or stats about blogging in the classroom specifically.  I liked her pros and cons about blogging but again, did she come up with them on her own or did they come from somewhere else?  More information here would have been nice.

Score: 7/10

3. Flow, Organization and Pacing

I wasn’t thrilled about the organization of this story.  I felt it jumped back and forth too much between pros and cons; I would have like to see it organized all pros, then all cons.  This effected the flow of the video as well.  Her pacing was also a little fast and I had to watch the video a few times to get it all (maybe there was a time constraint?). 

Score: 7/10

Overall Score: 23/30

Other comments:  I think I was a little hard on this storyteller, but I did like the content.  While I don't agree with all her pros being pros and cons being cons (I don’t think kids being slow typers is a problem, I think it is great practice no matter how long it takes), they were good thoughts and something to think about.