IDEA: The Educational Benefits of Blogging

Blogging is not just fun but also educational! Through blogging, children can build writing skills, become better researchers, develop better communication skills, and explore a wealth of topics that interest them. In fact, the research that goes with creating an interesting blog may fuel a child’s desire to learn more about a topic or explore new subjects he or she discovers while researching. Additionally, a blog may hold a child’s interest longer than some other types of projects. It’s a living project on which children can build as they grow and develop.

 Writing Practice

One of the primary educational benefits of blogging is all the writing practice it provides. Often, children find writing more difficult when they don’t have a lot of practice with it. In such cases, putting words to paper can feel foreign, awkward and downright difficult. When building and maintaining a blog, however, children get daily or weekly practice with expressing themselves in written form. Over time, what may have seemed difficult at first begins to flow and take on a second-nature feel. 

Besides general writing practice, blogging provides an opportunity to learn how to write well. This means not just writing a bunch of words to get an assignment over with but writing compelling posts that interest and engage others. Learning how to engage others this way can be critical for success educationally as well as later in life. For many, many jobs, excellent communication skills are a must, and blogging can help a child develop them.

Research Skills

Blogging also helps with the development of good research skills. In an effort to provide reliable, interesting information about a blog topic, a student will often have to explore various sources. Often, this involves not just locating relevant information but also discerning the difference between a source that provides information that is accurate and up to date and one that supplies details that might be interesting but far less reliable. Additionally, students can learn many lessons about citing references, avoiding plagiarism and respecting copyrights as part of the blogging process.

 The Visual Aspect

 When a child maintains a blog, he also has the opportunity to learn a bit about visual appeal. For example, he or she may spend time selecting images to add to a post (or even taking photos) and arranging them to provide the most visual appeal for readers. Even such things as deciding when to use bolding, using headlines, and deciding how much space to place between paragraphs helps bloggers learn to prepare visually appealing arrangements of text and images. 

 A Passion for Learning

Though listed last here, the most important educational benefit of blogging is the chance to learn. When given the task of creating interesting blog posts on a subject or range of subjects, children must explore and learn in order to create engaging posts. Often, this means delving deeply into a topic and discovering fascinating facts. In some cases, what starts out as a mere learning experience fuels a lasting passion. At the very least, blogging can encourage an interest in learning for learning’s sake.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christina Strickland is a project management, social media and blogging specialist. Since 2006, she has worked with brands, agencies, consultancies and independent professionals to meet a wide range of social media, marketing, project management and community building goals. She is also an active blogger at Detroit Mommies and Social Media School. She is the co-founder of Smart, Savvy, Social and is the owner of Homeschooling In Detroit and ChristinaStrickland.com.