Blogs in Education
I’m extremely interested in the idea of using blogs in higher education and believe the opportunity to create, organise and maintain their own blogs could provide students with a tremendous opportunity for deeper exploration in subjects of interest. My theory is that the creation of their own unique virtual space would inspire a greater sense of ownership in not just the course, but the subject matter as well; and this could in turn lead to a greater synthesis, appreciation, and retention of information.
In reality however I am currently unfamiliar with any examples in which blogs have been used in this manner. A proper research mind dictates objectivity, therefore one of the many investigative tasks I’ve set for myself is to locate real world examples in which blogs are being used to support learning and teaching, either as a tool for documenting student progress, a research journal, presentation page, collaborative portal, or other activity.
I will post synopses of anything I find here.
One such course, ENGL 112, run by Elizabeth Clark, is scheduled to commence this semester at Mesa State College in Colorado. Elizabeth described the first assignment in her blog, 4RxT (”Using Blogs As Research Journals“).
Students will be asked to review a series of websites and video clips covering blog use, history and basics, and then complete a series of activities - not unlike those you’d find in offline assignments.
- “Brainstorm a list of topics you’re interested in using for your research project this semester….
- Write three paragraphs about the topic you’ve selected: (1) identify your topic and explain why you chose it, (2) discuss what you already know about your topic, and (3) discuss what you don’t know and want to learn about the topic….
I would be very interested to see what emerges from this experience and have submitted a comment on her blog requesting/encouraging her to post a summary when the semester is complete - or better yet, an ongoing account of the discoveries and hurdles that arise.
The prospect of a public discussion on classroom experiences may be a bit too much to ask however, so it remains to be seen whether we’ll hear anything further from this.
Update: Just to clarify, because I didn’t write this post nearly as well as I had in my head - it is the integration of blogs into coursework and/or research activities that I’d really like to delve into.
This is the most significant aspect of an integration, because in order to be truly effective from an educational standpoint, use of blogs can’t just be thrown into the mix on a superficial level. Careful consideration and planning must be given to educational aims and outcomes, ways of measuring and/or assessing these outcomes, methods of tying the online aspects back into traditional face-to-face settings, and the more esoteric vagueries of how to inspire the growth of an online community that focuses on (or includes) a dozen or more student blogs.
The theory of blogs in education is an inspiring thought; the reality is undoubtedly much more complicated.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I totally agree, It would be awesome if schools hosted student blogs
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January 28th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
One of the schools at my uni does have a blog hosting program, and I’d bet other universities are beginning to do the same. But again, it’s not the presence of blogs alone that piques my interest. What I want to know is the extent to which blogs are being integrated into coursework and other learning and teaching or research activities - and particularly how this has been implemented, and what the results were.
In the case of the English course I mentioned, the instructor advised her students to go with an off-campus provider - either Blogger or Wordpress - rather than IT services on campus.
There are issues that arise with externally hosted student blogs of course, so I suspect the more courses using blogs at an institution the more the Powers That Be will want to gain more regulation and control.
[Reply]
January 29th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Hi Mike,
“My theory is that the creation of their own unique virtual space would inspire a greater sense of ownership in not just the course, but the subject matter as well; and this could in turn lead to a greater synthesis, appreciation, and retention of information.”
Can you tease out a little further what it is about the blog format/nature of the blogging process, in your view, that makes it particularly apt to have such results? Why is blogging of value as a medium through which to achieve and/or demonstrate achievement of learning outcomes?
[Reply]
January 31st, 2008 at 7:36 am
[...] an example, in the case of my “Blogs in Education” post, Rohesia asked me to explain why I thought blogs could reinforce or facilitate student [...]
January 31st, 2008 at 7:40 am
Hi Rohesia,
As usual I started writing a brief comment to your question, but it’s turned into a whole other post:
Blogs as vehicles for discussion
Cheers,
Mike
[Reply]
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
[...] I said in my initial post on Blogs in Education: “…in order to be truly effective from an educational standpoint, use of blogs can’t [...]