Week 3 - blog about blogs

Blogs, blogs, blogs, blogs.....they are consuming my world at the moment. To boot, this blog is actually a blog about blogs!! In particular, looking at the ways I can effectively incorporate the use of blogs as an on-line tool into my own pedagogy.

I’m not going to go into any detail on describing what a blog is as it is pretty evident given we are using a blog now that you are aware of how they work. What I am going to focus on is how blogs can be used for learning.

To begin the thinking process I comprised the following SWOT. Some of the points also came from ideas of other class members during our last class. I also tried to seek comments from other via my wiki but this didn't quite work out (read my next blog for more comments on that process).

STRENGTHS Single authorship/ownership – reflects own ideas and allows for individual creativity Student collaboration Available anytime/anywhere Parents can see how and what their children are learning Teacher feedback Teacher can ensure all students are on the right track / otherwise direct them back to the main ideas Easy to use

WEAKNESSES Time consuming for both students and teacher Can be hard to see any real outcomes other than personal updates/responses (lack of need for factual information and research) Requires very clear instructions as to what is appropriate Runs the risk of being used solely as a tool for individual entertainment rather than a learning tool Comments could be offensive/cause intimidation Not everyone is able to, or prefers using blogs and having other read their opinions Information posted can be incorrect, misleading etc. Relies on having a computer and internet which not all students have access too = disadvantaged students

OPPORTUNITIES Great tool to learn with – technology, writing, etc. Anytime/anywhere tool Individual creativity Collaboration and production Connections with the world

THREATS Information posted can be incorrect, misleading etc. Negative comments posted by other children Parents making comments on own child’s blogs or other children’s blogs Runs the risk of being used solely as a tool for individual entertainment rather than a learning tool Security issues with having children’s profiles on the web

I now draw on the assessment work I am doing as part of this course using blogs as a way of thinking about how blogs could be used for learning.   From the perspective of a learner I note that the assessment required that I set up my own blog and then use it to respond to weekly course activity questions. We are then encouraged to review and comment on other student’s blogs. Students are then given feedback from our lecturer.

Looking at the approach from a teacher’s perspective I think I can see how the use of the blog as a tool for learning may have been constructed. That is, it appears to me that the course purposely began with scaffolding - providing various manuals on the various ICTs that the course will cover, including how to create and use blogs, wikis etc. The course content was then broken down into sub-topics with specific blog activities relating to each - thus the teacher was guiding the learner/making sure the learner was focused on the important information. Throughout the course learners have been provided practical examples and ideas on how to complete blog activities, yet ensured that the end product was learner derived (or centered . I think this is an effective approach for ensuring creative, learner centered  individual output as well as student collaboration. It also means that our lecturer can scaffold effectively, provide feedback, and provides as bases for assessing students work. 

Looking back on my notes  I can see how the TPACK and Bloom’s revised Taxonomy could have been used to construct this course and its use of blogs and how I would be able to incorporate blogging into my own pedagogy.

As the unit notes suggests, the important element to the success of the blog, as a tool used in this course, is that the blog itself was used as a tool not only to learn from, but also to learn with. As a pre-teacher I can now see from this practical experience how blogs can work, despite the weaknesses and threats, into my pedagogy.

To finish I was also interested to find that the Bloom’s (revised) Digital Taxonomy now includes blogging as an appropriate verb to fulfill both the Creativity and Evaluation levels of learning – see http://www.techlearning.com/printablearticle/8670