Students Blogging for SS?

I reckon it is useful to use blogs to teach and learn SS. To me, to write something on a blog requires one to be reflective. This means that I’ll have to think through an issue before I pen it in words. And even as I write, my mind is processing and thinking ahead – does what I’m writing make sense?, how can I better connect my ideas to make my writing coherent?, how can I better organise my thoughts?, etc.

Especially as a SS teacher, if I were to be careless in the way I use blogs to teach SS, I will have to be accountable should my students learn the wrong things from me.

But I guess there are three main issues that I’m concern with with regard to students’ blogs:

1. Not all students will have access to the Internet from their homes. I’m referring to poorer students.

2. In Singapore, I don’t think many students are used to writing blogs as a means of learning, especially for neighbourhood schools. So, teachers may have to go slow and not expect much, at least at the beginning. During our LTA at Jurong Sec School, when we asked how many of the students blog, there weren’t many at all. And I doubt for those who do blog, they’ve never use blogs for academic purpose.

3. In addition, even for face-to-face interactions, students are often limited by their ability to process information, be reflective and afterwards, express themselves adequately verbally. Again, I doubt that they will be able to produce much quality reflective writing on their blogs for SS.

It’s NOT because I don’t have faith in our students, but I’m merely stating a fact that they are weak in expressing themselves cogently. Just look at their compositions which can be rather shallow and even go out of point.

So if I want students to blog their SS thoughts, very much will depend on what kind of students I get, i.e. Express class, N(A) or N(T).