Monday, November 15, 2010
When I first started to blog for this class, I was simply treating this blog like a diary. I stated how I personally was feeling, my thoughts about the class as a whole, and what I hoped to get out of this class. I did not reflect on what I had learned in class nor did I post anything I found confusing, wanted to expand on, or thought was not needed. Once I got some feedback from Dr. Liu, our associate instructor, I quickly realized that I was not on the right path. With a brief email from her and a few other email correspondences back and forth, I made the necessary changes. My blog went from that of my "feelings" on the class to educational blog of reflections of the different topics and ideas that arose in each class.
In Dr. Liu's lecture, she started with two warm-up questions:
1. What is a blog?
2. What are the motivational factors to contribute to the continuing blogging behavior of a blogger?
From what I have gathered from this class, a blog is a journal entry that is web-based and can been seen by anyone. Followers are those who regularly read a specific person's blog and will comment from time to time with information regarding their personal thoughts on the information listed in the blog. According to Bonk (2010) a blog is a “Web log”—is an online, chronological collection of personal commentary and links. Easy to create and use from anywhere with an Internet connection
1. It is private and self conscious thus causing a benefit to oneself.
2. Seeking reassurance and would like to benefit from a blogging interactive relationship with someone else.
3. Needs to provide and/or acquire information thus they benefit from information handling skills.
3. Needs to provide and/or acquire information thus they benefit from information handling skills.
This leads me to wonder do blogs solely focus on the readers, the blogger, or is it simply an exchange of information?
In the article entitled How People are using Twitter during Conferences by Reinhardt, Ebner, Beham, and Costa (2009), we got an idea into Educational Blogging. Let us take Twitter for example. Twitter is an online, public broadcast service where its intent is for people to microexchange information via chatting with friends, tweeting, or stating what is on their mind. Twitter is easily accessible through mobile devices, computers, and iPads just to name a few. There is a Twitter specific domain, a "Hashtag" that allows its users to create a grouping pattern on Twitter. News cast, celebrities, schools, and the regular public tweets on Twitter simply for reporting information from school closings, to unplanned weather, to celebrity sitings. Though Twitter itself is a good tool for all that it can do, but because it can do so much and it is easily accessible, Twitter can be extremely distracting. Take for example a conference. Say someone like Dr. Bonk is presenting live and through Skype and someone ha a comment who are not face-to-face, then they can tweet the comment. This is good as their topic gets broadcasted but at the same time this can be distracting if Dr. Bonk and his followers have the Twitter page up or an alert set for every time a new tweet arrives.
This answers my above questions, blogs are an exchange of information first written by the blogger, read passively by a follower and that is the end all or the blog is written by the blogger, explicitly read by the follower/learner, commented on by the learner, and then the blogger or other leaders until a new blog post is created. Blogs are an Educational tool and I do understand the use of them now. Though they can be distracting but simultaneously very useful if used correctly. Instructors uses blogs to Keep students up-to-date, extend course beyond class (blending), make course more interactive and personal, etc. Fosters student reflection on content—a content and course focus (Bonk 2010). I am happy to know this as I first thought blogs was an online journal filled with peoples opinions and now I know that it is more than just that.
Everyone has their own specific roles of blogs but like with most research, more research has to be done on blogs both longitudinally and systematically in order to create a good theory on the importance and need for blogs. As for now, do you BLOG? If no, then you are not one of the hundreds of millions of people who do (Bonk 2010). You should at least read one blog even if done so passively.
Everyone has their own specific roles of blogs but like with most research, more research has to be done on blogs both longitudinally and systematically in order to create a good theory on the importance and need for blogs. As for now, do you BLOG? If no, then you are not one of the hundreds of millions of people who do (Bonk 2010). You should at least read one blog even if done so passively.
References
1. Curtis Bonk, Ph.D. Blog Uses and Applications Powerpoint. 2010.
2. Xiaojing Liu, Ph.D. Research on Blogging PowerPoint (2010). Special Issue on Blogging (2007, July). Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 12(4). http://jcmc.indiana.edu.
3. Wolfgang Reinhardt, Martin Ebner, Günter Beham, & Cristina Costa (2009, March). How People are using Twitter during Conferences. http://lamp.tu-graz.ac.at/~i203/ebner/publication/09_edumedia.pdf
My answer to your question is: Blogging is the simplest form of Web 2.0, I think!
ReplyDeleteBlogging has been around for many years, but it was in different forms, maybe as daily column in the newspaper. However, the great expansion of service the provide blogging tools, added new aspects that made blogs easily integrated into education.
It is interesting to see how you view blogging as many people differ in their perception to the concept. I do blog, but mainly visual blogging about my daughter "you can see the blog by clicking my name up there" and I see it as a way to keep family updated about their granddaughter.
I follow a great blog about food: http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/
this one is my faviourate and it reflect how blogs can be very effective in education and still include lots of fun and creativity.
Abdullah