Online Blogging vs. Paper and Pencil Writing

It is important to appeal to the interest of students in the classroom. In the case with "The Talkback Project" in Shelbi Witte's article "That's online writing not boring school writing," students were not putting their best efforts into their writing when being assigned the typical paper and pencil writing assignments. Interaction with online blogs; however, was the way students felt they could express their writing and actually enjoyed it.

Personally, I prefer to write with pencil and paper. I think this is because that was the only way I wrote growing up through school, so it seems more comfortable. I have never considered myself very good with technology in general so I tend to not have much interest in it. However, I understand that technology has advanced so much and the new generations of students are more likely to see blogging online as more natural to them.

Incorporating both styles is what I would like to do in my own classroom. Hopefully schools continue to work on bringing in technology into their systems. By being able to provide online writing blogs for students, schools will be providing more opportunity for students to develop technological skills. I feel it is important for students to always have traditional writing skills though as well.