Forum .LRN Q&A: Re: Using web logs for learning

Collapse
5: Re: Using web logs for learning (response to 1)
Posted by Bruce Spear on 05/17/04 03:37 PM
Interesting question!  I've little experience using logs, so I'm curious to know what their learning qualities might be.  For classroom work I've been concentrating on the use of forums as with forums you can set students into debate with each other, put them to work on a common project, or ask them to explore together.  In this way, you get the benefit of their wanting to work together, present for each other, discuss with each other, etc.  I guess I'm confessing to a gap in my understanding, or maybe a mere preference: I think of blogs as a single, short, opinionated voice which, in the context of the classroom, leaves little room for debate: everyone has a right to their own opinion and, following Bartleby, need not need the opinions of others.  Debating or problem-solving contexts, in contrast, invite the play of cooperation and critical scrutiny.  Maybe I've a not-so-secret aversion to poetry and am wedded to work teams?  Nope, it's just that when I write poetry (in my case, photograph), I go off and do it alone and have no need of the web until I've got something to present, and then, it is a presentation for others.  So, Bill, what kinds of learning activities do you have in mind for blogs?  I'm all ears! -- B
Collapse
8: Re: Using web logs for learning (response to 5)
Posted by Bill Ives on 05/17/04 05:06 PM
Response to Bruce Spear - (as an aside - I just posted two other responses to specific replies to my original posting on learning and blogs but they seem to fall at the end of the entire thread rather that after the reply I was responding to as in a regular treaded discussion - not sure if I am just misuing the tool - but I will indicate who I am responding to, as I did on the one in future replies.) Bruce you raise an excellent point. I am new to blogs and started two recently as an experiment.  They appear to hold great promise for a number of functions and are certainly easy to use.  It seems that blogs, with their extensive search functions, are designed for more exposure and distribution than dialog which is consisitent with your point.  While dialog is also enabled, the more public the web blog, the less likely that dialog will occur within the blog.  In the case of my experiment, an unscientific sample of two by the same author, dialog has been generated but so far it has occurred more outside the blog than within it. Chat sessions with forums, were dialog is the first priority and broad exposure, an available, but secondary function, because of the more limited search, still seems to get better dialog going within it.  But then I could easily be wrong here and it may just be that people are more used to chat than blogs for dialog or I am not yet fully using the medium to its advantage in my blogs. In one example on the effectiveness of blogs offered by Kathleen Gilroy of the Otter Group, it seems using web blog technology for a very focused target audience around a specific task, completing a course, combines the best of both. You are driving up usage because of the exposure features of the blog yet doing it in a traditional discussion group setting which is designed to encourage dialog between group members on a common task. I have used collaboration in learning in a number of situations prior to the introduction of blogs.  They seem to hold promise for this but we will certainly have to look closely at what works and what does work and why.