Learning and Teaching Centre

Blogs

Blog is an abbreviation of weblog. A weblog is an internet diary where users can post their comments, photos, audio and video files. The content is uploaded and formatted via the blog software. Users can create an attractive and interactive website without needing any web development skills.

Postings appear in reverse chronological order, the most recent content at the top of the screen. Depending on how the weblog has been created, weblogs can be personal, available to a specific group of people or open to the public.

Blogs are controlled by the owner and are a vehicle for their viewpoint, with guests permitted to respond. This is unlike Discussion Forums which are open to the group with each member having the same control and access.

Blogs can be on any topic. Google has a search engine specifically designed for searching blogs: http://blogsearch.google.com. Technorati http://www.technorati.com/ is also a blog search engine indexing over 44.1 million blogs.

Solution

Below are some examples of student blog sites that are currently on the internet.

AEGL 101-College Composition
Exploring Techno Literacy (University of Southern Carolina)
The convenor has used the site to post ‘message board’ comments, assignment details, unit readings and links to student blogs. The students’ blogs  are listed in the right column. Students contribute only to their own blog and their blogs are assessable.
http://www.usca.edu/english/fornes/101f03/ [viewed 30-07-06]

Resources for LIS753
Internet Fundamentals & Design at Dominican University, Chicago)
The convenor has posted an introduction, readings and links to unit content and related information in this *Squidoo.  At the base of the page is a list of student’s blogs.
http://www.squidoo.com/lis753dom [viewed 30-07-06]

Dose of Reality: Med Students Blog
The University of Michigan’s Medical School made public a range of student’s blogs to give potential students a realistic insight into the expectations of the course.
http://www2.med.umich.edu/medschool/reality/ [viewed 30-07-06]

ENG102 – Summer 2006
This blog is from Mesa Community College, Arizona. The convenor has posted message board comments on this blog. This blog includes a calendar, search function and the ability to change the font size. The right column has links to unit content and student blogs.
http://rrodrigo3.uniblogs.org/ [viewed 30-07-06]

Room 613 Student Blogs
School Blog for Class in Connecticut
Students and convenor post ideas and images on the main part of the blog. Guides for posting, links to class podcasts, other blogs and student blogs can be found in left column.
http://hetherington.learnerblogs.org/ [viewed 30-07-06]

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How

Using Blogs at MQ

CFL offers the use of 2 blogs, WordPress and Elgg, on our innovation server. More information on using these blogs can be found in the Innovation section of the CFL website below.

To discuss the use of these blogs with your unit, contact a CFL Educational Developer on cfl-duc@mq.edu.au.

There are many free blogging sites available where you can register and create your blog. Three popular sites are:

Edublogs is a service aimed at teachers, researchers, librarians and other educational professionals. They have educational blogs including learnerblogs (for school students) and uniblogs (for tertiary students).

Content that is posted on these blog sites is open to the public. Student content can be private when the blog software is hosted on a university server. CFL has two blogs on their Innovation server, ELGG and WordPress MU. More information on these blogs can be found in the Innovation (http://www.cfl.mq.edu.au/tools/innovation.htm) section of this web site.

Listed below are several tutorials that will guide you through setting up an edublog on edublogs public server. Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/) and Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.com/) have easy step by step set up instructions on their sites.
Setting up a Blog with Edublogs (a PDF handout)
http://www.landmark-project.com/workshops/handouts/edublogs_setup.pdf [viewed 30-07-06]

Setting up Your Blog with Edublogs (a PDF handout)
http://freidhof.fts.educ.msu.edu/Tech_Handouts/Setting_Up_Your_Blog_with_Edublogs.pdf [viewed 30-07-06]

Setting up your Edublog – Introduction (a viewlet)
http://ia300242.us.archive.org/1/items/WP_1.1_intro/wpintro1.1.swf [viewed 30-07-06]

Writing a Post (a viewlet)
http://ia300242.us.archive.org/1/items/WP_1.1_intro/wpintro1.1.swf [viewed 30-07-06]

Editing your Edublog (a series of viewlets)
http://freidhof.fts.educ.msu.edu/Movies/Using_Edublogs/Using_Edublogs.html [viewed 30-07-06]

How to Set–up a Student Centered Weblog (set up in a blog)
http://mhetherington.net/blogs/?p=8  [viewed 02-08-06]

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Why

Think through clearly your reasons for wanting to include a blog in your unit. Will a blog assist students to achieve the outcomes of your unit or will the use of existing WebCT tools (Discussions, email) be more appropriate.

Discussion Forums are a community space where everyone has equal access and functionality; they are usually plain in appearance, with little decoration. In contrast a blog is a student’s own space, which they personalize by selecting from a range of formats and layouts. Students can embed   images within their text and also add video and audio clips. Blogs are online versions of a diary. Students can link to other students’ blogs, or if allowed comment directly on another student’s diary.

The ‘SupportBlogging’ Wikispace (http://supportblogging.wikispaces.com/Educational+Blogging) [viewed 30-10-06] suggests that blogs are an excellent way of helping students find a voice to comment on ideas to a public audience. Blogging is a way for students to document their thought processes about a project, assignment, theme or event over a specific time. Students can then receive feedback.

James Farmer, founder of Edublogs.org is compiling a list of “what not to do” when using blogs in education. This list can be found on his blog http://blogsavvy.net/how-not-to-use-blogs-in-education [viewed 30-10-06]. Some of his points are:

  • Don’t attempt to use blogs the way you would use discussion forums
  • Don’t create group blogs where everyone has equal access. Blogs are most effective when they are an individual’s own space which other people can comment on.

Blogs are an exellent tool for allowing students to document their thought processes or responses over a period of time. Blogs can help students organize and structure their thinking. As blogs are open to peers or the public, students edit, censor and structure their thoughts into a presentable and assessable form.

Scott Leslie, an educational technology researcher, has posted an interesting matrix
http://www.edtechpost.ca/gems/matrix2.gif  [viewed 30-10-06] on his blog EdTechPost (http://www.edtechpost.ca/mt/). His matrix shows many ways blogs can be used in Tertiary Education

Helen S. Du and Christian Wagner in their paper ‘Learning with Weblogs: An Empirical Investigation’ state that weblogs may facilitate active learning in the following three ways:

  1. Active knowledge construction – keeping weblogs requires students to actively construct meaning and organize their thoughts.
  2. Incremental improvement – students build their own understanding and knowledge over time.
  3. Self directed learning – help students identify what they have learned and areas they need to improve through self reflection

Useful Resources

Anne-Marie Deitering, Oregon State University
Shaun Huston, Western Oregon University
Weblogs and the ‘Middle Space’ for Learning
http://www.rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/5mar2879z4.htm [viewed 30-07-06]

Blog FAQs
Western Oregon University FAQs on Blogs
An good summary of information on blogs
http://www.wou.edu/ucs/faq/blogging.html [viewed 30-07-06]

Edublogs
European Collaborative Learning Network’s Blog on the use of Blogs in Education.
Some useful examples of school student’s blogs [viewed 30-07-06]
http://www.ecolenet.nl/best/edublogs.htm

Glogoff, S. 2005 Instructional Blogging: Promoting Interactivity, Student-Centered Learning, and Peer Input. Innovate, v1 issue 5 http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=126&action=article [viewed 30-07-06]

Learning with Weblogs: An Empirical Investigation
Conference Paper Presented at the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Science -2005 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/9518/30166/01385240.pdf?isnumber=&arnumber=1385240
 [viewed 30-07-06]

Use of Blogs in online college classes
http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/blogonlineclass/index.htm [viewed 30-07-06]

Williams J B., Jacobs J. (2004) Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology v.20 n.2 p.232-247. This paper shows some examples of blog use in higher education contexts. This is designed as a guide for instructors on potential applications of blogging, and offers some insights into the educational theory supporting the use of blogs in any LMS.
http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet20/williams.html [viewed 30-07-06]

Winer, D. (2002). The history of weblogs. http://oldweblogscomblog.scripting.com/historyOfWeblogs [viewed 30-07-06]

* Squidoo (http://www.squidoo.com) is an online storage space where anyone can build pages, with links on a topic, idea, product they have an interest in.

 

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