Uses of Blogs
January 22, 2009 by mlower
The article “Use of blogs in online college classes“, found in Encylcopedia of Educational Technology, lists a number of ways that blogs could be used within a college course. Don’t let the title of “online college classes” keep you from checking it out though if you are a lower level teacher because most of these same activities are applicable in middle and high school environments. Besides listing ways to use the blogs, the writers list the many pros and cons of using blogs in an educational setting. Don’t miss the list of good blog related websites at the end of the article!
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I like this article because it describes how blogs can be used in online courses. I like the description provided about having and individual blog within a group, and individual blogs linked to a group. I also liked the pros and cons of using blogs. Some of the links fomr the More Information section were borken, so I could not see the information they contained.
I agree that blogs could be used to hold discussions. However, I am not sure about the advantages of using a blog to hold online discussions instead of a discussion board within a course management system.
I, too, found this article helpful. Like Norma who posted on 1/28/09, I especially liked the pro and con section. For me, the conversational quality of a face to face classroom cannot be fully captured because of the asynchronous nature of blogging. By the time someone posts a reply, the original author may not even bother to check back. We want to keep driving new conversations, and continually looking back to archived blogs may defeat that purpose. How to strike a balance? And I also want to echo Norma’s question about the advantages of (public) blogs versus (private, password protected) online course management systems like Blackboard and Angel.
I agree that having to continually check back for updates does not work over time. By using RSS feeds for blog postings and comments, you can get rid of the time consuming task of always checking a blog for updates. Deciding to use a blog or a private discussion board depends upon the purpose of the writing task. They each have their value.