Blogs, the Vitamin B for Extending Class Time

My experience with blogging has been so intriguing thus far, that I cannot help but search for ways this ICT tool can be used to minimize some of the issues that face teachers. One issue is the little time teachers have to engage students in academic work.

But how is the allocated subject time divided daily. Well after the routine classroom management and administrative teacher obligations are completed, time left for instruction is reduced. While we acknowledge that routine activities such as when the teacher calls the roll, return assignments, reads and files excuses, responds concerns, inquire of missing students and their well-being and stops for announcements on the public address system are indeed important, time left for instruction is reduced.

After the teacher's instructional time, the time left for students' engagement in activities is reduced even further. At which time, we are not sure if any academic learning had taken place. The findings of researchers Aronson, Zimmerman and Carlos (1998)which show a high correlation between "academic learning time" and "student achievement", implies that teachers need to find innovative ways to extend the time for student engagement or academic learning.

Hence, blogging, a vitamin B can serve to extend that time to allow both teachers and students to communicate with each other. The teacher can post lessons and links that contain audio files (podcasts -play on demand) and video files (vodcasts - video on demand) for students to access on their own time before their next class.

For students who are having difficulty with reading, the teacher can use PowerPoint visuals and narration to review points from earlier lessons, save these as vodcast and post unto the class blog for students to access.

Victoria Cunningham

Reference
Aronson, J., Zimmerman, J. & Carlos, L. (1998). Improving student achievement by extending schools: Is it just a matter of time? West Ed, 1-9.