UC San Diego

The heart of education beats with a teacher's perception of instructional effectiveness with students. Research suggests that differentiated instruction, using multiple modes of presentation, will positively increase a student's opportunity for earning. Communicating efficiently will enhance a teacher's instructional effectiveness and a student's ability to understand. This study begins by examining selected modes of communication available to educators and poses questions of the validity of these modes within schools. It explores theories of the changing expectations of how people want to be given information or want to have information available via electronic means and how this could change the way educators communicate to students individually and collectively. Seen for many years as something special, the Internet and related electronic tools were available only to techno-wizards and data-loving geeks. They have now become part of everyday life. People routinely integrate them into the ways they communicate with each other, moving between phone, computer, and face to face encounters without deliberation. Blogs are one of those tools. Blogging appears to offer multiple opportunities for teacher and student use. Writing in a blog by both student and teacher may strengthen their relationship while also providing a unique means of communicating instruction more effectively. Through electronic surveys and virtual interviews of blogging K-12 teachers, as well as document analysis of their blogs, this study examines blogging in classrooms within the United States to determine how blogging is used for communication and instruction. This study also considers the teacher's perception of how blogging has changed their instructional practice. This examination of blogging educators, or edubloggers, charts new territory and informs the educational community on the potential of blogging to support classroom communication and promote increased learning for the Digital Age student