Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools
by Richard Beach, Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, and Thom Swiss
As the unit I’d like to teach revolves around wikis and blogs, I wanted to find a resource that not only included overviews of these technologies, but also other digital tools that can be used powerfully in the classroom. I also was hoping to find a resource that included theoretical underpinnings that would warrant their use in education. Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools seemed to fit the bill though it required a closer look if I’d like to use it as the actual text for a workshop I’ll be teaching soon. In light of the length of the title of my chosen tool, and given that it was written by multiple authors (not just Richard Beach), I will refer to this tool as “Teaching Using Digital Tools” and the voice of the book as “Beach.” I hope his colleagues will forgive me.
Since “Teaching Using Digital Tools” was written by four authors who were compiling observations from other teachers using digital technologies in their classrooms with actual students, meant that this volume was truly a collaborative effort on multiple levels. Having just read Scott Warnock’s Teaching Writing Online, there was a similar resource to compare it to.
Whereas Warnock shares his own experiences with digital tools, Beach looks at the practices of many instructors. Warnock book’s strengths are in helping teachers shift their f2f techniques and traditional thinking to online delivery tools, providing teachers with chapter-by-chapter prepping heuristics and offering summative guidelines along the way. Beach’s book is probably a good resource to take Warnock’s foundation to another level. This is because Beach offers so many specifics and examples of tools and contexts that an instructor who has already made the shift in their thinking toward e-learning would probably be looking for.
Warnock examines the instructor’s core approach to teaching and suggests types of tools that might work within that approach (CMS, email, the internet, the phone—and “Fancier Options:” Audio/Visual, Virtual Worlds, Games, etc). Beach speak more specifically about the effective use of searches, digital, note-taking tools (and lists several on page 30), blogs, feed aggregators, delicious.com, Google Reader, how to locate and annotate images, online mind-mapping software (41), and storage tools—just in one chapter alone (25).
The introduction encapsulates some of the common strategies the authors have observed from other instructors in how effective digital writing pedagogy is used-- such as guiding students to seeing “the purposes for using digital writing tools,” their social use, and benefits to reflection and developing a voice. Chapter one answers “Why Use Digital Writing to Engage Students?” Beach makes a case that digital tools have the potential of engaging online students, which will lead to more effective learning: “We believe that one of the larger purposes of using digital writing tools is to encourage students to learn to voice their ideas on their own initiative” (13). An illustration diagrams four types or phases of writing-related tasks: teacher- vs. student-initiated writing, and writing for a classroom assignment vs. writing for students’ peers or even a global audience. Each subsequent chapter will connect how its content relates back to these four phases in this diagram, with a goal to shoot to encourage Phase IV or Self-Initiated Writing as Beach believes it leads to increased writing, which in turn leads to improved writing.
As I looked at diagram more closely, it bears an uncanny resemblance to a 2001 article I read for ENGL 820 by Coomey and Stevenson, who describe a similar diagramming of tasks.
The end of chapter one explains a code readers will see throughout the book: “( @ = ).” Whenever the reader sees this code, the topic that follows the “=” sign indicates a topic that is further explored on a “Resource Wiki Website” developed especially to support the book. Beach practices what he preaches by expanding the educational material into the digital realm and expanding the conversation—something that Cheryl Ball maybe should have tried when she wrote “Show, Not Tell.”
The book covers technologies such as blogs, digital audio and video productions,”Designing and Editing Digital Writing, “Using Digital Tools for Formative and Summative Evaluation of Writing,” and “Fostering Reflection through E-Portfolios,” but offers the reader many examples of each. Again comparing it with Warnock, Beach’s chapter six on blogging covers teachers’ discussions on their specific experiences with blogging in the classroom (good and bad) and gives the reader a sense of when it is more successful and when it’s not (117). Warnock’s chapter on conversation focuses on student interaction merely through discussion boards, yet makes a passing reference to blogging under the topic of “Journals and Notebooks Online” (103) and peer review (112).
Beach goes on to nuance the use of “Blogging as Social Conversation,” and move student conversations into Phase Two writing (from the diagram), the public arena. This section is quite detailed as it connects the dots of student writing to global conversation and how this can impact the tone and form of writing students employ in their work (121). Beach also covers other types of blogs such as fictional blogging (where the writers take on a character’s voice), micro-blogging (using tools such as Twitter), classroom vs. individual blogs, educator blogs and cover a host of alternative platforms and sites (124).
The last chapter models what the book has been suggesting—that these tools can be used to develop conversations outside of the classroom and develop reflective writing practices. Beach invites the reader to “Join Online Communities Devoted to Teaching Digital Writing,” and “View and create Online Teacher Cases.” Here is where the accompanying wiki takes on another role for the reader/user, continued professional development.
“Teaching Using Digital Tools” is well-structured and quite useful with so many specifics. Similar to Warnock, Beach has a summarizing paragraph at the end of each chapter, to assist in quick retrieval of information. However, the power of this tool is in the accompanying wiki and how it ties in with various points of the text. The authors have created a space for further discussion and elaboration and are modeling what they believe to be useful. If a person, who doesn’t have the book, stumbles onto the webpage, they can utilize this information without having to purchase the book.
One thing that struck me as odd or ironic is that in spite of the fact the authors are still adding content to this wiki, and inviting commentary, there are not very many comments from the visitors. This could be because the readers are instructors who are occupied with their own courses or because the content is clear and requires little more to be added. It may be because I haven’t seen the authors responding to the comments that are there. It’s a good question which may point out a flaw in the content or sense of audience.
Conclusion:
This book is useful because it really helps teachers think outside of the box, and gives them specific places to look for examples and resources. It is in no way a manual and does not provide step-by-step processes in implementing these tools—nor do I think it needs to. At times, some descriptions of examples seem lengthy, but they do help the reader delve more into what it feels like to implement a particular tool for a particular educational objective. I would recommend instructors who are either still not convinced of the benefits of digital tools or who are hesitant to use them to get a copy of this book as viewing the examples should spark some ideas.
I would use this book in the context of teacher training or personal professional development. However, for obvious reasons, I obviously wouldn’t use this in an English Studies course for writing, as it is a resource for the teacher. Granted, if the course were a graduate course in English Studies pedagogy, that’s another story.
The book is readily available at the usual online bookstores (Amazon, Barnes & Noble), or interested readers can go to the publisher’s website at christopher-gordon.com. The book retails for $32.95, and because it came out last year, I haven’t seen a lot of used copies surface yet. On Amazon, there are 5 used ones for sale at over $52 and new for over $70!
I saw one review on Amazon.com in which the reviewer hailed “how the book organizes its discussions of digital tools according to the thinking/writing processes they promote… In this sense the book is more than a ‘how to’ manual in that it gets at how these tools can be used to promote writing.” I agree and with the added feature of the online wiki, the book possesses the potential for an every-growing list of updated examples and resources as well as opportunities for further conversation.
Ball, Cheryl. “Show, Not Tell: The Value of New Media Scholarship.” Computers and Composition. 21. 2004. 403–425.
Beach, Richard and Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Thom Swiss. Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digitial Tools. Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon Publishers, Inc., 2009.
Beach, Richard and Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Thom Swiss. “Digital Writing Wiki.” PBWiki.com. Retrieved 11 June 2010. http://digitalwriting.pbwiki.com/.
Coomey, Marion and John Stephenson. “Online Learning: It Is All About Dialog, Involvement, support and control—According to the Research.” Stephenson, John, ed. Teaching and Learning Online: Pedagogies for New Technologies. London: Kogan Page. 2001. 37-52.
“Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digitial Tools.” Christopher Gordon Publishers Webpage. Retrieved 11 June 2010. http://www.christopher-gordon.com/Authors/beach.shtml.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Blog #5: "Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.'"
Bruffee, Kenneth A. “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” College English. 46.7. (1984) 635-652.
After reading Teaching Writing Online:How and Why, I was interested in looking at one of the sources Scott Warnock cited for his chapter on conversation (chapter 8). I was intrigued by Bruffee’s title and especially the notion of “The Conversation of Mankind,” as it seemed to expand the idea of writing to a more philosophical level and not just something required in the classroom and other contexts such as “everyday life, in business, government, and the professions” (642). Although, this article was published in 1984, it seemed to under gird some of the rationale behind using collaborative writing tools in the digital age these twenty-six years later.
The most notable concept to me is the idea that one’s thoughts are actually internalized conversations from the social sphere; what one thinks is based entirely on what one has heard or read—from what is in the social discourse (639). This reminded me of a concept from Peter Morville’s 2005 book Ambient Findability: “What we find changes what we become.” What we hear/read/see/experience influences our worldview and how we process subsequent new information after that.
Bruffee is not writing about how to find texts in a crowded society, rather the cyclical process of our expanding human knowledge. Humans encounter concepts in the social sphere, internalize them, turn them around and write them back out into the public sphere again, thus perpetuating the conversation: “Our feelings and intuitions are as much the product of social relations as our knowledge” (641) and “in every instance writing is an act, however much displaced, of conversational exchange” (642).
As an introvert, I at first felt a knee-jerk reaction against this idea, as I like to think of myself as someone who isn’t swayed by peer pressure and that any new information I encounter is sifted through my worldview and readjusted as a decisive act on my part. However, Bruffee isn’t talking about mindlessly being swayed by our peers. We all readjust because of what is external to ourselves, as I am adjusting to this new idea, but how I adjust may be different from someone else.
How does this all fit with wikis and blogs? Bruffee’s goal is to encourage teachers to “try collaborative learning and to help them use collaborative learning appropriately and effectively.” (636). Though he doesn’t really define “appropriate” or “effective,” perhaps, the strength of this article is that it doesn’t offer a set protocol on collaborative techniques or tools. Teachers just need to keep in mind that the greater conversation and indeed knowledge of mankind comes from communities of knowledge and they are disseminated from the language of those communities of knowledge (646).
As Kevin DePew mentioned the Burkean Parlour in one of our class sessions, the conversation is endless. Any way we can get our students to converse with one-another and to re-externalize those conversations through writing can be a boon to the greater body of knowledge and not just those of the individual students--something to think about.
After reading Teaching Writing Online:How and Why, I was interested in looking at one of the sources Scott Warnock cited for his chapter on conversation (chapter 8). I was intrigued by Bruffee’s title and especially the notion of “The Conversation of Mankind,” as it seemed to expand the idea of writing to a more philosophical level and not just something required in the classroom and other contexts such as “everyday life, in business, government, and the professions” (642). Although, this article was published in 1984, it seemed to under gird some of the rationale behind using collaborative writing tools in the digital age these twenty-six years later.
The most notable concept to me is the idea that one’s thoughts are actually internalized conversations from the social sphere; what one thinks is based entirely on what one has heard or read—from what is in the social discourse (639). This reminded me of a concept from Peter Morville’s 2005 book Ambient Findability: “What we find changes what we become.” What we hear/read/see/experience influences our worldview and how we process subsequent new information after that.
Bruffee is not writing about how to find texts in a crowded society, rather the cyclical process of our expanding human knowledge. Humans encounter concepts in the social sphere, internalize them, turn them around and write them back out into the public sphere again, thus perpetuating the conversation: “Our feelings and intuitions are as much the product of social relations as our knowledge” (641) and “in every instance writing is an act, however much displaced, of conversational exchange” (642).
As an introvert, I at first felt a knee-jerk reaction against this idea, as I like to think of myself as someone who isn’t swayed by peer pressure and that any new information I encounter is sifted through my worldview and readjusted as a decisive act on my part. However, Bruffee isn’t talking about mindlessly being swayed by our peers. We all readjust because of what is external to ourselves, as I am adjusting to this new idea, but how I adjust may be different from someone else.
How does this all fit with wikis and blogs? Bruffee’s goal is to encourage teachers to “try collaborative learning and to help them use collaborative learning appropriately and effectively.” (636). Though he doesn’t really define “appropriate” or “effective,” perhaps, the strength of this article is that it doesn’t offer a set protocol on collaborative techniques or tools. Teachers just need to keep in mind that the greater conversation and indeed knowledge of mankind comes from communities of knowledge and they are disseminated from the language of those communities of knowledge (646).
As Kevin DePew mentioned the Burkean Parlour in one of our class sessions, the conversation is endless. Any way we can get our students to converse with one-another and to re-externalize those conversations through writing can be a boon to the greater body of knowledge and not just those of the individual students--something to think about.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Blog #4: Blended Learning Approach in Teacher Education: Combining Face-to-Face Instruction, Multimedia Viewing and Online Discussion
Khine, Myint Swe and Atputhasamy Lourdusamy. “Blended Learning Approach in Teacher Education: Combining Face-to-Face Instruction, Multimedia viewing and Online Discussion.” British Journal of Educational Technology. 34.5. (2003) 671-675.
Having looked at wikis and blogs, I thought I’d step back to look at a more general study of blended learning, especially in context of teacher training. Khine and Lourdusamy’s article is also of interest as it deals with the National Institute of Education, “the sole teacher training institute in Singapore” (671). I had also been inspired by Oravec’s comment that “Because the weblog genre is simple in structure, it may lend itself easily to cross-cultural educational initiatives” (Oravec 618). So, it made sense to look at blended learning in other cultures.
The article looks at a 13-week course called “Teaching and Classroom Management,” which incorporates a multimodal approach to teacher training using a textbook along with content delivered on a CD-Rom, 6 weeks of face-to-face tutorial sessions, in-classroom practice teaching, along with online peer-to-peer interaction via a discussion board. Granted, the use of wikis and blogs was not specifically addressed, but the concept of peer-to-peer asynchronous interaction seemed to overlap.
Whereas content of this class had been traditionally communicated via traditional face-two-face lectures, this time around, the content would be found on a CD-Rom with “relevant classroom episodes, interviews with teachers, policy documents, reports and newspaper clippings on disciplinary problems in Singapore schools” (672).
Having taken Kathie Gossett’s New Media courses, I applaud the multimodal delivery of this content. However, it was never fully explained as to what “relevant classroom episodes” meant, or in what format was the interview content (video or audio only?). I still think the article is of interest because of this approach to teacher training. However, the summarization of the results seems to leave out a lot of potential links between causes and results.
The team doesn’t really mention the power of the first 6-weeks of face-to-face training. The class of roughly 20 students watched the CD-Rom module, and then participated in group activities and discussion time. The fact that the face-to-face sessions were scheduled in the first 6-weeks might have set up a strong camaraderie among the students, and yet that is never really pointed out.
“92% of the trainees agreed that the module was enhanced by the use of materials found on the CD-ROM” (674) and that “what seems to have been valued most in this exercise is the benefit of learning from peers” (675). But exactly how was this concluded? Are Khine and Lourdusamy merely going by survey results or was there a way they were able to measure these results via other instruments?
The authors claim the “appropriate use of technologies can make learning more interesting and enriching for students” (671), but again, how are they defining “interesting” and “enriching?” The students in this course are adult teachers, but could this approach be used in other learning contexts with younger pupils? This article leaves me with more questions than answers, and yet that really doesn’t bother me. The article (probably unintentionally) prompts me to think about possible methods in which further study could attempt to answer these questions.
Having looked at wikis and blogs, I thought I’d step back to look at a more general study of blended learning, especially in context of teacher training. Khine and Lourdusamy’s article is also of interest as it deals with the National Institute of Education, “the sole teacher training institute in Singapore” (671). I had also been inspired by Oravec’s comment that “Because the weblog genre is simple in structure, it may lend itself easily to cross-cultural educational initiatives” (Oravec 618). So, it made sense to look at blended learning in other cultures.
The article looks at a 13-week course called “Teaching and Classroom Management,” which incorporates a multimodal approach to teacher training using a textbook along with content delivered on a CD-Rom, 6 weeks of face-to-face tutorial sessions, in-classroom practice teaching, along with online peer-to-peer interaction via a discussion board. Granted, the use of wikis and blogs was not specifically addressed, but the concept of peer-to-peer asynchronous interaction seemed to overlap.
Whereas content of this class had been traditionally communicated via traditional face-two-face lectures, this time around, the content would be found on a CD-Rom with “relevant classroom episodes, interviews with teachers, policy documents, reports and newspaper clippings on disciplinary problems in Singapore schools” (672).
Having taken Kathie Gossett’s New Media courses, I applaud the multimodal delivery of this content. However, it was never fully explained as to what “relevant classroom episodes” meant, or in what format was the interview content (video or audio only?). I still think the article is of interest because of this approach to teacher training. However, the summarization of the results seems to leave out a lot of potential links between causes and results.
The team doesn’t really mention the power of the first 6-weeks of face-to-face training. The class of roughly 20 students watched the CD-Rom module, and then participated in group activities and discussion time. The fact that the face-to-face sessions were scheduled in the first 6-weeks might have set up a strong camaraderie among the students, and yet that is never really pointed out.
“92% of the trainees agreed that the module was enhanced by the use of materials found on the CD-ROM” (674) and that “what seems to have been valued most in this exercise is the benefit of learning from peers” (675). But exactly how was this concluded? Are Khine and Lourdusamy merely going by survey results or was there a way they were able to measure these results via other instruments?
The authors claim the “appropriate use of technologies can make learning more interesting and enriching for students” (671), but again, how are they defining “interesting” and “enriching?” The students in this course are adult teachers, but could this approach be used in other learning contexts with younger pupils? This article leaves me with more questions than answers, and yet that really doesn’t bother me. The article (probably unintentionally) prompts me to think about possible methods in which further study could attempt to answer these questions.
Post #3: Posting now because of my trip
Oravec, Jo Ann. “Bookmarking the World: Weblog Applications in Education.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 45.7. (2002): 616-621.
As the first two articles I mention in this course’s posts cited this article, I decided it might be interesting to see if Jo Ann Oravec said anything that could be useful for my purposes. Oravec immediately makes the case for two important and distinct uses of blogs in education: 1- (the use most-often cited) blogs can be used as a venue for students to create and post their own content and reflections, and 2- (the use I haven’t really seen mentioned in other articles), blogs can be a source of “useful information” and “high quality relevant material” (616).
Considering its brevity, this article does manage to cover many applications, benefits and drawbacks of blogs in the classroom. A couple of particularly appropriate applications of student blogging include strong supplementary journalistic and marketing/business training. These applications are strong because of a couple benefits of the blog format: its immediacy and potential for direct contact with the world (620). Although Oravec believes in blogging, she cautions against many drawbacks of blogs: potential for abuses with plagiarism, their constantly changing content, and possible movement to another URL, or even complete disappearance (618).
I found the article helpful and would recommend it to anyone who is still ambivalent about blogging’s academic usefulness. I would echo Oravec’s point that we’re so used to asking students to post to blogs, that often we don’t value the resource that they can be for finding information. However, Oravec doesn’t address what to do with the fact that blogs do not carry the same amount of weight or clout in academic discourse. Granted, this may be due to two more drawbacks she does mention—the issues regarding verification of information and potential problems with intellectual property and copyright. Some content may be created by published and highly-regarded scholars, yet blog content is often regarded as personal, anecdotal and it often lacks verification through the peer review process. However, I agree that blog content isn’t entirely useless.
One caveat about this article: whereas Oravec cites academic contributions in her article, these quotes mainly stated generalizations about blogs in higher education and really didn’t offer grounding to the claims made by Oravec. Although I believe the content is sound, I think Oravec should have included examples or results of studies to substantiate her claims. Definitely there should be more study on the praxis of blogging in the classroom.
As the first two articles I mention in this course’s posts cited this article, I decided it might be interesting to see if Jo Ann Oravec said anything that could be useful for my purposes. Oravec immediately makes the case for two important and distinct uses of blogs in education: 1- (the use most-often cited) blogs can be used as a venue for students to create and post their own content and reflections, and 2- (the use I haven’t really seen mentioned in other articles), blogs can be a source of “useful information” and “high quality relevant material” (616).
Considering its brevity, this article does manage to cover many applications, benefits and drawbacks of blogs in the classroom. A couple of particularly appropriate applications of student blogging include strong supplementary journalistic and marketing/business training. These applications are strong because of a couple benefits of the blog format: its immediacy and potential for direct contact with the world (620). Although Oravec believes in blogging, she cautions against many drawbacks of blogs: potential for abuses with plagiarism, their constantly changing content, and possible movement to another URL, or even complete disappearance (618).
I found the article helpful and would recommend it to anyone who is still ambivalent about blogging’s academic usefulness. I would echo Oravec’s point that we’re so used to asking students to post to blogs, that often we don’t value the resource that they can be for finding information. However, Oravec doesn’t address what to do with the fact that blogs do not carry the same amount of weight or clout in academic discourse. Granted, this may be due to two more drawbacks she does mention—the issues regarding verification of information and potential problems with intellectual property and copyright. Some content may be created by published and highly-regarded scholars, yet blog content is often regarded as personal, anecdotal and it often lacks verification through the peer review process. However, I agree that blog content isn’t entirely useless.
One caveat about this article: whereas Oravec cites academic contributions in her article, these quotes mainly stated generalizations about blogs in higher education and really didn’t offer grounding to the claims made by Oravec. Although I believe the content is sound, I think Oravec should have included examples or results of studies to substantiate her claims. Definitely there should be more study on the praxis of blogging in the classroom.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Post #2: Use of Wikis in Graduate Course Work
Bold, Mary. “Use of Wikis in Graduate Course Work.” Journal of Interactive Learning Research. 17:1. (2006): 5-14.
In the “Use of Wikis in Graduate Course Work,” Mary Bold of Texas Woman’s University, looks at wikis as a viable tool for collaborative work. As Williams and Jacobs discuss the development and use of blogs in their article mentioned in my entry of May 16, Mary Bold looks at the development of wiki technology in 1995 and its desirability in academic settings.
Defining a wiki as “a set of related webpages that can be authored collectively, typically without a special log-on or password entry” (5), Bold cites benefits of wikis:
1. “A collaborative workspace that can display documents immediately, with a minimal working knowledge of HTML tags” (6).
2. Collaborative changes can be made “live” whereas “by contrast, a collectively authored document in a CMS [content management system-DC] setting requires saving, uploading, and other transfer of the file among student-authors” (6).
3. Due to their ease of use and open-source code, wikis require little to no institutional support, financial or technical (6).
4. Bold claims “they are not usually vandalized,” but acknowledges that users can create misinformation and “unwanted changes” (6).
5. Conversely, if there are any issues, because multiple users have access, there can be multiple users assisting in page rebuilding if necessary (6).
6. Wiki instructions are relatively simple and therefore require few demands on teachers to assist their “lost” students. (7).
7. Wikis can allow instructors to delegate tasks to their students who are held responsible for posting, managing and maintaining their work instead of requiring the teacher at each step of the process (10).
8. Wikis can be used as part of group collaborative work or as part of individual submissions (8).
9. Wikis can be used in both informal and personal contexts as well as “formal and science-based” (11).
10. Bold claims that students like wikis (10).
Unlike Williams and Jacobs, Bold had not yet surveyed students specifically about using wikis, but has found past responses to indicate “the loss of interaction as a disadvantage in the online setting” (11) and students’ desire for fostering community. As the Williams/Jacobs article pushes for LMS’s to include blogs as part of the LMS package, Bold states that wikis should also be part of the features or plug-ins offered in CMS products.
Overall, Bold believes wikis don’t just help the student learn the curriculum better, but they help the student learn how to improve their skills in online interaction.
Bold cites very few drawbacks. One drawback has to do with the accuracy of the content added by the users or with the lack of experience many students have in creating content in the wiki format. Bold didn’t cite the emphasis on text-based content as being a drawback and only marginally showed an example of a wiki that contained any imagery.
I found the article handy however, as I wish to encourage new faculty to consider the benefits of wikis (and blogs) in their online and/or hybrid courses as they provide additional opportunities for peer-to-peer interaction.
In the “Use of Wikis in Graduate Course Work,” Mary Bold of Texas Woman’s University, looks at wikis as a viable tool for collaborative work. As Williams and Jacobs discuss the development and use of blogs in their article mentioned in my entry of May 16, Mary Bold looks at the development of wiki technology in 1995 and its desirability in academic settings.
Defining a wiki as “a set of related webpages that can be authored collectively, typically without a special log-on or password entry” (5), Bold cites benefits of wikis:
1. “A collaborative workspace that can display documents immediately, with a minimal working knowledge of HTML tags” (6).
2. Collaborative changes can be made “live” whereas “by contrast, a collectively authored document in a CMS [content management system-DC] setting requires saving, uploading, and other transfer of the file among student-authors” (6).
3. Due to their ease of use and open-source code, wikis require little to no institutional support, financial or technical (6).
4. Bold claims “they are not usually vandalized,” but acknowledges that users can create misinformation and “unwanted changes” (6).
5. Conversely, if there are any issues, because multiple users have access, there can be multiple users assisting in page rebuilding if necessary (6).
6. Wiki instructions are relatively simple and therefore require few demands on teachers to assist their “lost” students. (7).
7. Wikis can allow instructors to delegate tasks to their students who are held responsible for posting, managing and maintaining their work instead of requiring the teacher at each step of the process (10).
8. Wikis can be used as part of group collaborative work or as part of individual submissions (8).
9. Wikis can be used in both informal and personal contexts as well as “formal and science-based” (11).
10. Bold claims that students like wikis (10).
Unlike Williams and Jacobs, Bold had not yet surveyed students specifically about using wikis, but has found past responses to indicate “the loss of interaction as a disadvantage in the online setting” (11) and students’ desire for fostering community. As the Williams/Jacobs article pushes for LMS’s to include blogs as part of the LMS package, Bold states that wikis should also be part of the features or plug-ins offered in CMS products.
Overall, Bold believes wikis don’t just help the student learn the curriculum better, but they help the student learn how to improve their skills in online interaction.
Bold cites very few drawbacks. One drawback has to do with the accuracy of the content added by the users or with the lack of experience many students have in creating content in the wiki format. Bold didn’t cite the emphasis on text-based content as being a drawback and only marginally showed an example of a wiki that contained any imagery.
I found the article handy however, as I wish to encourage new faculty to consider the benefits of wikis (and blogs) in their online and/or hybrid courses as they provide additional opportunities for peer-to-peer interaction.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Post #1: Exploring the Use of Blogs as Learning Spaces in the Higher Education Sector
Williams, Jeremy B. and Joanne Jacobs. “Exploring the Use of Blogs as Learning Spaces in the Higher Education Sector.” Australasian Journal of Educational Technology. 20.2. (2004): 232-247.
In this article, Jeremy Williams and Joanne Jacobs cover a brief historic overview of the development of blog and blog technology, their use in the corporate sphere and ultimate expansion into the academic world. The article also includes the results of a survey they gave to their MBA students at the Brisbane Graduate School of Business at Queensland University of Technology. Written in 2004, their somewhat simple conclusion is “that blogging has the potential to be a transformational technology for teaching and learning” (232) but the article is useful for other reasons.
When initially including the use of blogs in an MBA course, Williams and Jacobs didn’t really tell their students what their goals or rationale were for having this blogging option in their curriculum. In hindsight, they viewed this as a mistake for only about half the class participated “actively” in contributing to the blog. The instructors were surprised to find that the students who “lurked” considered their lurking a valid form of participation, even though they didn’t contribute to the content. These are important things to consider when setting up blogs as an assessment tool in any higher education course.
Williams and Jacobs declare that “universities ought to give strong consideration to the setting up blog facilities within their learning management system (LMS).” The fact that blogging tools have now been added to Blackboard’s more recent versions indicates that other people and indeed the creators of LMS’s have agreed.
Granted, the article may be a little out of date, since some LMS’s have already adopted blogs into their tools and features. However, the survey questions reveal in what ways the blog can best contribute to the learning experiences in higher ed courses: in facilitating learning, facilitating reflection, increasing peer-to-peer student interaction and functioning as a learning tool. Any instructor who is considering using blogs in their courses should review this article to see the ways in which Williams and Jacobs believe they can improve using blogs in future courses. Instructors can then design their courses to use blogs to their best advantage.
In this article, Jeremy Williams and Joanne Jacobs cover a brief historic overview of the development of blog and blog technology, their use in the corporate sphere and ultimate expansion into the academic world. The article also includes the results of a survey they gave to their MBA students at the Brisbane Graduate School of Business at Queensland University of Technology. Written in 2004, their somewhat simple conclusion is “that blogging has the potential to be a transformational technology for teaching and learning” (232) but the article is useful for other reasons.
When initially including the use of blogs in an MBA course, Williams and Jacobs didn’t really tell their students what their goals or rationale were for having this blogging option in their curriculum. In hindsight, they viewed this as a mistake for only about half the class participated “actively” in contributing to the blog. The instructors were surprised to find that the students who “lurked” considered their lurking a valid form of participation, even though they didn’t contribute to the content. These are important things to consider when setting up blogs as an assessment tool in any higher education course.
Williams and Jacobs declare that “universities ought to give strong consideration to the setting up blog facilities within their learning management system (LMS).” The fact that blogging tools have now been added to Blackboard’s more recent versions indicates that other people and indeed the creators of LMS’s have agreed.
Granted, the article may be a little out of date, since some LMS’s have already adopted blogs into their tools and features. However, the survey questions reveal in what ways the blog can best contribute to the learning experiences in higher ed courses: in facilitating learning, facilitating reflection, increasing peer-to-peer student interaction and functioning as a learning tool. Any instructor who is considering using blogs in their courses should review this article to see the ways in which Williams and Jacobs believe they can improve using blogs in future courses. Instructors can then design their courses to use blogs to their best advantage.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
New Course, New Types of Entries
Welcome to my blog for ENGL 895, Teaching Writing from a Distance. In this course I hope to develop a brief workshop on the use of wikis and blogs in higher learning with the purpose of passing this information onto higher ed instructors.
I’ve been asked by my employers to create a workshop on the Use of Blogs and Wikis to present to our new faculty at the end of the summer, I thought I’d take advantage of this course to look into theoretical and practical issues and considerations of blogs and wikis in higher education.
Over the course of the next few weeks I will be posting reviews of articles that examine issues of digital tools in higher ed and teaching the teacher.
I guess it’s appropriate that I’ll be presenting some of my findings via blog entries.
Hope you find something useful.
D.
I’ve been asked by my employers to create a workshop on the Use of Blogs and Wikis to present to our new faculty at the end of the summer, I thought I’d take advantage of this course to look into theoretical and practical issues and considerations of blogs and wikis in higher education.
Over the course of the next few weeks I will be posting reviews of articles that examine issues of digital tools in higher ed and teaching the teacher.
I guess it’s appropriate that I’ll be presenting some of my findings via blog entries.
Hope you find something useful.
D.
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