The Impact of Using Blogs on College Students’ Reading Comprehension and Learning Motivation

This week's reading entitled "The Impact of Using Blogs on College Students’Reading Comprehension and Learning Motivation" was written by HUI-YIN HSU AND SHIANGKWEI WANG. This article highlighted with factual data and research why new literacies must be brought into the classroom in an effort to reach students who live in a technology rich and digitally saturated world, even more so than adults do. 

The study looked at reading scores from years past and highlighted significant drops in reading comprehension now in the 21st century. The article mentioned that young adults spend more time reading screens than books. They find that books are not as engaging for them and as a result they do less traditional reading and this shift is impacting not just reading abilities but writing as well. 

Also students are often "distracted" when sitting with their nightly homework, there are other things happening in the background like video games, television and other distractions. Thus the reason the article stressed the use of new literacies in order to match students interest and abilities. Students enjoy technology immensely so why not have them start a blog. This newer approach to learning could be beneficial to them in so many ways, especially in reading and writing. 

With blogging students are now asked to think more critically and provide evidence to support this thinking, they are required to collected data, analyze this data, interpret it and then discuss it factually with peers. I agree that blogging is the right idea to enhance reading comprehension, learning motivation and college preparedness for young adults.  

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