Monday, March 21, 2005
Writing better by writing more: Blogging on the iPAQ
In August 2005 we are going to involve 60 first year Business and Engineering students in our iPAQ project (they will be using HP iPAQ 5500 handheld computers) and we are going to monitor their learning in communication--particularly their writing skills.
Our students are in four diverse locations
- the Business students are in Ethiopia (Africa), Karratha (north Western Australia) and Perth (capital of Western Australia)
- the Engineering students are in Miri Malaysia and Perth (capital of Western Australia).
We really want our students to write more--and a good way to do that might be to have them blog as part of their participation in the project. They could blog about:
- their learning experiences with blogs
- their learning in their courses
- their interests, questions, aims, hopes, ideas, questions--a 'think out loud' space just like this one
So each student would be involved in a group blog--say 5 students from at least two continents in each group--and each blog monitors every other blog. Depending on their study topics, each group might be asked to work collaboratively to produce a final assignment.
It would also be important to have two control groups--one group of students in the same groupings who only use desktop access to the blog; the other group who do not use blogs as part of their course experience. Then we can see if the iPAQ users--possibly because they have mobile and wireless access to their blogs--are more frequent users, as well as whether their communication skills improve more significantly than their peers without iPAQs. All the groups should use blogger.com just to keep it simple.
Just interested to understand a wee bit more about the activities of the student groups while on the Blog. What we've learned about Discussion Boards is that the structure set up by a tutor and the facilitation they can do by managing the space help to herd the discussion towards required outcomes, while still providing students ample freedom to reflect, express, reply, etc.
Question is, why would we have students Blog rather than chat in a Discussion Board. I know very little about Blog spaces - this is my first time participating, although I've read a number of them. I'm very interested in uderstanding how the structure of an online space can help or hinder constructive discussion dynamics.
The other fundamental underpinning is that all of these points of view can be aggregated and viewed with a single viewer (including discussion forums now though not all) such as Newsgator and a variety of other free ones.
Both have their merits.
What is the aim - for the students - of using the blog? To write more about themselves? To write more about course material? To get to know one another? To learn how to use blogs?
We get the best response to use of computer-mediated learning spaces (doesn't matter if they're forums, blogs or wikis) when a) the learning objectives for use of the space are clear, b) they are linked to the subject matter of the course or to preparation for a group assignment that addresses the subject of the course, and c) activities that take place in the spaces are assessed.
Or do you think this approach is too structured??
(I guess I think of an accessible, social, free and open content blog in much the same way as the virtual bar or cafe in an online course: only of interest to those students who enjoy chatting in bars.)
: 4:40 PM Exciting project !!!
Just one question ... for now :-]
... is the blog the only communication tool they will have?
ste
: 10:57 PM << Home
