Andrew Grumet let me know that this discussion was underway. As I commented in Bill Ive's blog, we have had some success using weblogs in lieu of forum discussions tools in our elearning programs. Our response and participation rates are way up, which I attribute to the public nature of blogs. When our students post, they know that they will be visible to an important community of peers (and their bosses and professors). This visibility factor substantially increases their motivation to post. I am not alone in finding this: in my own blog, I write about a professor at the University of Maryland who has also had a big jump in participation rates:
http://otterlearn.typepad.com/blogkathleen/2004/02/matthew_kirsche.htmlKirschenbaum, who started blogging a year ago, now uses blogs for his classes, which include ENGL467: "The Computer and the Text: Hypermedia as Critical Expression."
"Three weeks into the semester, there are 125 student comments on my class blog," he said. "There's much less discussion on a course e-mail list than on a blog."
In addition to his class blogs, he also maintains a personal blog, which focuses primarily on his research and teachings.
"It opens up other aspects of what I do to my students," Kirschenbaum said. "I have found that it's not just about what I wrote, but about what people said back."
I corresponded with Matt Kirschenbaum about why he thinks there has been so much more discussion on his weblog and not on the bulletin boards. Here's what he said:
Hi Kathleen,
Couple of reasons I think: one, like all the rest of us, my students now get a lot more email than they used to. Course-related mail gets mixed in with the usual jumble of spam and whatever else. All too easy just to hit the delete key. Two, the blog allows them to see their ideas instantly published on the Web. Email is a closed world, a self-contained loop between the instructor and the other students. With the blog, the fourth wall is always open. Best, Matt
