3. INFLUENCES OF USING BLOG FOR STUDENTS IN ENGLISH WRITING
1) Facilitating the Students’ Critical Thinking Skills
The students engaged in collaborative learning through their interactions with others which
serves as a catalyst for critical thinking. Blogs foster critical thinking by encouraging students to
evaluate what they read and write. Writing blogs offers students a way to improve their writing
skills and encounter new ideas through interaction with other students. Blogs allow students to
easily link to resources that support their assertions, and thereby encourage critical thinking.
2) Providing Examples for Students to Model and to Learn
Publishing reflective commentaries on the Internet is an effective way for students to share each
other’s reviews. Not only will readership increase, when students see each other’s works, they
can learn from one another, thereby motivating them to produce better reviews. Furthermore, the
creation of online portfolios on the web amounts to a showcasing of their works over the
development period of their learning. Such knowledge artifacts are a display of learner’s growth
and reflection on their learning. When a sizeable number of interested visitors give comments
and input to a blog, a community of learners may be formed.
3) Affecting the Students’ Quality of Writing
The quality of writing is manifested in several ways. Some students who study English state that
they are always aware of their audience, and, as a result, write with their audience in mind. They
don’t know whether they are right or wrong. The permanent nature of publishing online
encourages students to pay more attention to the content and language in their blogs. And the
feedback received from the various sources as well as the different types, critical and
non-critical; also affects the quality of their writing.
The students also enhance the quality of their writing by adding visual representation to their
blogs. This helps to clarify concepts for the reader. Visual literacy, visual thinking, and visual
learning are concepts related to the purpose of Constructing Meaning. Multimedia research
shows that students with visual learning styles can benefit from technology with a multimedia
format. In other words, adding visual associations to their blogs helps the students express their
points of views.
4) Facilitating Meaningful Learning for Students