It’s interesting that by exploring the use of technology in teaching and learning we not only evaluate what is important to us in the curriculum, but the process tends to encourage collaboration – of teachers with mentors, teachers with technical specialist, teachers with other teachers and librarians, teachers with students, and students with peers. Each drawing on the skills, knowledge and attitudes of others. That collaboration is not easy, and made more difficult because many are used to working at their teaching on their own. Working with others across disciplines and specialist areas can only make education richer, even if we are only thinking more about how and what we teach.
Here are teachers in different parts of the world having a go at teaching with technology.
Teacher Talk, NSW, Australia
Teaching with Technology, California, USA
Sunday, March 2, 2008
What's the value of blogs in higher education?
Blogging shouldn’t be seen as an isolated phenomenon, according to Marcus Donnell (2006*), who comments on blogging from a journalist’s perspective. It’s part of a whole set of set of practices conducted over the net. Blogs happen in the midst of many different cyber cultures. We are not just thinking about communicating in the blogosphere, it’s blogging within myspace, Myflikr, My librarything, My youTube, My delicious, My skype, My secondlife, My podcasting, if you’re a student - My online tutorial, each with their own culture and norms. All various forms of personal publishing.
So if we start thinking about what is happening in a group blog – how does this subvert the norm of blogging? Or does it? Does a group blog just represent a series of personal blogs jammed together, or do we get some other synergy happening? Maybe this is dependent on the level of authoring rights of those contributing to the blog. Perhaps it’s also dependent on context.
In terms of students using a blog for a group project to document process, I wonder how much the blog will be viewed as a personal vehicle for expression, rather than a group effort. Still more monologue than dialogue?
In our project with the drama students, the group blog is replacing individual student journals. So while documentation is still a key outcome, the practices around that documentation are quite different. It is a public and shared form of documentation, no longer a private contribution submitted only to the lecturer. It requires interaction with peers – but whether this means students get to know their peers any better or establish stronger learning communities is to be revealed. Group blogging is a digital record on the web, available for scrutiny as it develops, a formative document - unlike the traditional student journal, printed out in hard copy and presented as a summary evaluation on demand.
No doubt we can expect to see some differences in outcomes.
I want to know if students share more ideas or resources using blogs as a digital record than they would just meeting face-to-face each week. We’ll know in about 6 months I guess!
Some student blogs to compare from the Vine Drama Project look like this:
JeMeGe, secondary students: entries are individually posted under a single account http://jemege.vineblogs.net/
Little inventors, primary students (Year 6?): each post is generated by the group , not individuals
http://class6m.vineblogs.net/
* O'Donnell, M. (2006). Blogging as pedagogic practice: Artefact and ecology. Asia Pacific Media Educator, (17), 5-19.
So if we start thinking about what is happening in a group blog – how does this subvert the norm of blogging? Or does it? Does a group blog just represent a series of personal blogs jammed together, or do we get some other synergy happening? Maybe this is dependent on the level of authoring rights of those contributing to the blog. Perhaps it’s also dependent on context.
In terms of students using a blog for a group project to document process, I wonder how much the blog will be viewed as a personal vehicle for expression, rather than a group effort. Still more monologue than dialogue?
In our project with the drama students, the group blog is replacing individual student journals. So while documentation is still a key outcome, the practices around that documentation are quite different. It is a public and shared form of documentation, no longer a private contribution submitted only to the lecturer. It requires interaction with peers – but whether this means students get to know their peers any better or establish stronger learning communities is to be revealed. Group blogging is a digital record on the web, available for scrutiny as it develops, a formative document - unlike the traditional student journal, printed out in hard copy and presented as a summary evaluation on demand.
No doubt we can expect to see some differences in outcomes.
I want to know if students share more ideas or resources using blogs as a digital record than they would just meeting face-to-face each week. We’ll know in about 6 months I guess!
Some student blogs to compare from the Vine Drama Project look like this:
JeMeGe, secondary students: entries are individually posted under a single account http://jemege.vineblogs.net/
Little inventors, primary students (Year 6?): each post is generated by the group , not individuals
http://class6m.vineblogs.net/
* O'Donnell, M. (2006). Blogging as pedagogic practice: Artefact and ecology. Asia Pacific Media Educator, (17), 5-19.
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