In the Upper School (High School) courses that I previously taught (9/10 Study Skills Seminar, 11/12 Seminar, Photography, Film & Design;  Advanced Photography; Programming and Physical Computing) each student used a blog for their digital notebook. Blogs were a part of the universal access of information culture of that school. This supported an ongoing culture of thinking and reflection. Blogs reduced student stress- no need to keep track of a physical notebook.  Using blogs supported our ongoing culture of reimagining the school experience to support a student's health and wellness.

I have been using blogs in some form or another for student engagement in computer science and the digital media arts for over a decade in my teaching and learning in independent schools. As schools were first building websites and intranets I used blogs for inter-community updates. (Here is one that miraculously is still up-) Although the tools I use have changed as technology develops, I find the use of blogs to be useful for both the student and the teacher when the technology infrastructure is there to support their use.

At my most recent school we had a 1:1 BYOD for Upper School students, our courses met in a computer lab with an iMac workstation for each student,  we had a healthy amount of bandwidth on campus and it was an expectation that our students could access their digital resources from home. We had a robust physical infrastructure to support us and we had a community that embraced the appropriate use of our powerful digital tools.

In my courses, I really want my students to focus on the content and the process rather than distracted by keeping up with their materials. I want to free their minds to the process.  Their blog serves as a digital multimedia notebook and is easily searchable/ accessible from any device with a wifi connection. This digital storage allows students to access and reflect on their engagement anytime, anywhere.

In my work with the DC non-profit Critical Exposure we used a blog as an internal tool to document the ongoing story of our programs during the return to school in Fall 2022 and everything after. Program Facilitators blogged weekly about the experiences of the young people in our programs. Our goal was for our young people to blog for themselves to document for themselves their experiences and the evolution of their thinking.

Blogging and video blogging can be a useful tool for educators and students of any age. Blogging can be an individual or collective activity. If you are a user of social media you are already engaged in a type of blogging within a specific platform. Here are a few examples:

• Instagram: Photo/video blog, shared with your followers

• Tik Tok: Video blogging with short clips, shared with your selected audience

• Facebook and Twitter: Life journaling with text, photos, video and attachments, shared with your selected audience

Middle Schoolers can blog in a central location which creates a digital portfolio of their learning during these years. Non-digital work can be photographed and added. Students can create videos explaining their work. There are many education specific products that protect student privacy while allowing parents, students and their community to see their portfolios.

In elementary and early childhood education classroom blogs can be create and curated by teachers and students. In technology rich environments classroom tablets can be set up so that student self-record, learning to share and present their work. Using an iPad and PhotoBooth software a teacher can collect a library of artifacts then curate them for families and the school community.

• The dog cannot eat your blog.

• You cannot "forget" your blog at home.

• We are utilizing the power of cloud computing for organization and at the same time hopefully reducing the student's stress around organization of school materials.

My previous school communities used G Suite- meaning this was one of our primary digital tools used by the entire community. Blogger is a Google app/product that has a low learning curve and is offered as part of our G Suite suite of tools. Students in my previous school who were able to take Journalism and/or involved in our school news publication website in the high school used the Wordpress platform for digital publishing. Although Wordpress is a more robust blogging platform we did not need that robustness for our purposes in our courses- Blogger was the right sized tool for our needs.

A "curriculum" is a living organization of ideas concepts that is constantly evolving.  My courses both had a framework and at the same time are flexible and responsive to welcome continual innovation. In order to keep our opportunities open for collaboration and incorporation of "the new" (there is always a "new" in the digital media arts world) I preferred to keep my course blog in the public domain in a format that is easily accessible by those outside the community. In 2020 99% of teenagers are already published on the internet through social media. 

During each semester there are many opportunities for collaboration and feedback through sharing and publishing on the internet. In my  years of working with students in educational technology and the digital media arts I have learned that utilizing systems that allow for easy export and sharing of information across school communities enriches your student's experience in the following ways:

• develops the disposition of intellectual openness

• reinforces digital citizenship through active practice

• through regular publishing on for academic discourse students gain experience engaging with others about their work online

• through the repetition of regular documentation and reflection with a digital tool students will learn to internalize the concepts of design thinking and the design cycle