The Reflection of the Week:
Welcome to the week of blogging. We had a nice class to talk and discussion on blogging in this week. Right now, you are on an educational blog (my blog) and are reading it. I think first I need to define what a weblog is. Weblog is a website that contains information about a particular subject. The difference between a website and blog is that readers always find newest information at the top of the page. After defining the blog, let’s talk more about it.
For me, the most useful point on blog for bloggers is to write, think and reflect what they have learned, thought, criticized, questioned and more. Moreover, they give bloggers to communicate people not only in their local environment but also across the world and bloggers have opportunities to see their weakness and strengths by reading comments from the readers.
How to use educational blogs in education!!! Teachers can use blogs as a class webpage that indicating class times, rules, assignment notification, suggested reading and exercises. They can be used to link to online resources that relate to their courses. Also, class discussions can be placed on blogs. How about students. As a student who posts a weekly reflection for this course (R685), it is really important and useful to see and read ideas on the topics of the weeks from my classmates’ perspectives in terms of the similarities and differences, which they have come up with really interesting and brilliant ideas on the topics. Thus, blogs leads both bloggers and reader to lead to further writing and thinking.
For last point, I am not sure to keep writing my blog after this class and I think weblogs is not for everybody. So maybe in order to keep writing weblogs, bloggers should have a purpose, maybe passion and motivation that encourage to them to keep posting information and share their ideas with the others.
The Example of the Week:
If you want to cool blogs that relate to different areas, please go to www.bloggerschoiceawards.com this website, which provide you to see really nice blogs.
The Quote of the Week:
Instead of assigning students to go write, we should assign them to go read and then link to what interests them and write about why it does and what it means.
Downes emphasizes how to begin to write weblog for students. He says that students first need to read and make a link to their interests and then they should write a blog. So it is not good idea to create a blog with first writing. (Downes, Stephen (2004, September/October). Educational blogging, EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), 14–26)
The Picture of the Week:
What is on your mind to post what you think? Blog? Podcats? Photos?
(Source: www.sfclassroom.com)
Great posting, Cesur! I especially liked the “Quote of the Week” and “Picture of the Week” sections; these sections make your postings more interesting and visually appealing, great idea! I also think that you have identified the main ways in which blogs can be used for educational purposes. Personally, this is my third class in which I used blogs. In one of those classes, the instructor used a similar approach as the one we’re using for this course, in other words, using it as a metacognitive tool to reflect upon what we have learned and how we can apply it to our every day professional and personal lives. In my opinion, this approach is kind of restrictive, but I understand that it is a way for the instructor to make sure that each student has done the required readings and understands the main concepts. At least we are able now to post comments to other blogs instead to stick to the same critical friend for the whole semester, because in this way we get the chance to find out what others are doing and get/provide feedback from someone different.
ReplyDeleteA different method to use blogs which is less restrictive is the way I used it in my Interaction Culture class in Informatics. Instead of using the ‘structured” approach of submitting one post per week and then critiquing one another’s posting, we used only one single blog for the entire class. The blog posts can be about anything related to the class, here is the link so you can get a better idea of it: http://interactioncultureclass.wordpress.com/
However, in general I think that the most important is that we, as learners, select the best way in which we can help ourselves to reflect upon what we covered in the class to facilitate its comprehension, strengthen its retention and facilitate transfer it into different domains…. After all, isn’t that what learning is all about?
Hello Cesur,
ReplyDeleteLet me start my comments from where you ended. I agree with you that a blogger needs to have a purpose and motivation for blogging. In this class, our purpose is to fulfill the requirement, and just like you, I am not sure when I will have my personal blog to share with others my thoughts and ideas.
In terms of educational use, I tend to like the method Miguel mentioned about the blog in his informatics class. I think it would be more rewarding when more people are participating and collaborating in the blog. While Miguel did not mention how the blogs worked, but I expect that all students have an author role in their collaborative blog rather than only posting comments.
You also mentioned that you look at other students blogs to learn from their experiences and perspectives. I do the same thing, and in fact, I used what I learned from the blogs as the main source for one of my podcasts when I missed that week's class. I guess what I am trying to say is that the learning experience is not limited to the bogger when reflecting and sharing their thoughts and ides, but rather extended to the readers as well when they reflect on others contributions.
Best,
Hesham