Pedagogy
Like a lot of other web technologies before it, blogging has made its way into the educational arena and with its emphasis on personal expression, the written word, and the stimulation of discussion, it seems to have made a happy home in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Ease of set-up, maintenance and use have all led to more and more educators in our Faculty using blogs as a teaching and learning tool and the number of ways in which a blog can be utilised is seemingly limitless.
Here are some of the uses present in the Faculty:
- Discussing learning experiences
- Reflexive writing
- Peer review/assessment
- Content debate
- Student portfolios
- Platforms for collaboration
- Resource banks
- Development of communities among students
- Critiquing videos
Public or private blogs?
Many of the blogging activities being run in the Faculty at present are being done behind password protection. There are a number of compelling reasons for doing so, such as when material being added to the blog site is of a sensitive nature, for example. Nonetheless a public audience can cause students to think more critically about the quality of both their ideas and their writing, and exposing the learning experience to the public domain is itself a compelling topic for debate. Public blogs also offer the opportunity to set up a communication space between students and community groups, encouraging community engagement.
Links
Blogs and Blog posts
Blogging Pedagogy. Department of English Studies, University of Texas
“The street finds its own use for thing”. Blog post at Out of the Crooked Timber.
Articles
Educational Blogging, Stephen Downes. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 14–26.
Scholars Who Blog, David Glen. The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 6, 2003.
Writing with Web Logs, Kristen Kennedy. techLearning, February 15, 2003.
Websites
Blogging Across the Curriculum. University of Quinnipiac.
