Who is blogging?

One of the sub-questions that I wanted to investigate in this project was how my special learners in the classroom would be affected. I wanted to know if they would participate more through the use of the blog than they did in a regular class discussion. Also, if their comfortability with sharing their thoughts would increase through the use of the blogs.

Throughout the project I saw my special learners consistently being a part of the discussion. The majority of them submitted as many posts as the other students and often they were quite nicely done. Students that would previously shy away from raising their hand to share in class wrote their thoughts on the blog. Students that had been off-task in the classroom before during classroom discussions were no longer off-task. Rather, they were involved with the blog.

Even better I saw students that often struggled with writing during class do much better by posting on the blog. Although this was not true of all my special learners it was certainly true of most of them.

Another group of students who I really saw blossom through the use of the blogs are those in between students. The ones who don't qualify for special education, who are not receiving esl services, but yet who have issues of some kind or another. These are the students who lack the best home environments, who may goof off in class rather than paying attention because there is no follow through at home. These students by and large transformed into different learners. They became involved in their learning in the classroom through the use of the blog.

Also within these sub-populations I saw a lot of growth from the start of the project to the end. The posts went from being one sentence to being a paragraph. They took more interest in making sure they were submitting something that was quality work. Wow!