Supporting "Learning by Design" Activities Using Group Blogs

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015

The research focuses on the way in which specific and dedicated blogs can be used as a tool for teaching and a channel of didactic dialogue with students, in relation to the activity of the Architecture Design Studio at the Faculty of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Timisoara. Three different blogs for three different years of study have been developed at the beginning of the study year of 2012/2013, as a necessary addition to traditional communication of an essentially applicative subject, at the initiative of the teachers involved in the design studio. The paper follows the activity and educational accomplishments of the blogs from their debut until present, comparing them at the same time, while also discussing different concepts on the use of blogs in the teaching process. The teaching experience offered by the blogs is discussed through the feedback requested at the end of the study year from both teachers and students that have been using and experiencing it. This feedback was also used as a basis of shifting to a new blogging platform for one of them, that can offer an improved educational experience for both students and teachers, integrating individual student blogs into the main blog of the "class". Thus, the research depicts the positive and negative aspects of using blogs as communication tools in teaching students of the faculty of architecture, studying its direct implications in the didactic process.

Abstract -This study explored student perceptions of a 12week blogging activity that was a standard component of a college Euclidean Geometry class offered in a university in the Western United States. This paper presents qualitative data regarding student perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of using blogs as supportive tool in the Euclidean Geometry course. Data were collected by asking two open-ended items and analyzed using MAXQDA, a Qualitative Data Analysis program. The study uncovered ten themes related to advantages and six themes related to disadvantages of using the blogging activity as a supportive tool for teaching and learning in this class. Each of these themes was labeled by an in vivo code. The themes were not independent of one another, but instead showed interconnected aspects of an overall phenomenon.

Proceedings of the 4th International Inquiring …, 2009

There is now increasing interest among educators in schools and universities in engaging learners through the use of web logs (blogs), which enable learners to articulate ideas readily and also to publish reflections on their learning experiences. They also have the potential to facilitate collaboration and peer interactions, so they can become a breeding ground for the development of an effective learning community. However, a problem is that learners tend to use blogs mostly for entertainment purposes. This paper will discuss two cases of implementing learning-centred blogs in a university in Hong Kong with respect to how educators can design structured learning tasks and other ways to motivate learners to participate in learning-centred blogs and how to create a supportive learning culture.

British Journal of Educational Technology, 2008

Various forms of computer-mediated communication have resulted in the formation of multifarious online communities. Blogging is one such form that is now used widely within the university for educational purposes. This paper gives an overview of pedagogical blogging and discusses the way it was implemented in two university courses. It also proposes that because students and their teacher facilitators develop and share common interests and goals, they evolve into what Lave and Wenger (1991) have termed a “community of practice” (CoP). Following that, the paper explains how blogging in these two course CoPs extended teaching and learning out of the classroom into a class-centered “blogosphere.” A theoretical justification for utilizing blogging is also provided as is a description of the manner by which a systematic approach to blogging can broaden learner-learner and learner-teacher interaction. Finally, the paper shows how students following a strict blogging regime positively view blogging as an opportunity to refine various writing skills within the context of their "real world" writing tasks.

The teacher's role in today's society should promote, among other tasks, digital competence of students in order to be able to use ICT in our information society and for this we must facilitate the integration of activities across the curriculum through various tools. The term Blogging is the use of a Blog on the Internet, which has undeniable educational benefits that enable dynamic activities, creativity, enriching and innovative tasks and communicative learning. Responsibility as teachers to implement technology in classroom practice, involves an oriented commitment to reflective practice that allows improvement as professionals in the use of tools of the importance of Blogs. It opens up a range of possibilities from its benefits regarding motivation and participation. The qualitative study presented analyzes data recorded on 14 interviews and 5 open questions in a questionnaire, and based on the information encoded; there is a very pessimistic and negative assessment on the use of Blogs, including teachers who use ICT generally. Teachers interviewed claim to have difficulties in training, techniques of group organization and difficulties concerning the need of time and effort to prepare activities with ICT. In short, it seeks to inquire and understand the problems raised by teachers to deal with them, assessing and analyzing causes or factors that influence negatively in this tool, which has many benefits and possibilities.

2007

We propose to use blogs as design primitives to enable interaction in e-learning systems. As a proof of concept, we implement a prototype of a concept mapping tool employing blogs attached to concepts to enable students to discuss these concepts in-place.

Proceedings of the Seventh International Blended Learning Conference

For several years, the School of Divinity has pursued innovation in pedagogical use of blogging to enhance the student learning and digital experience and in particular engagement in tutorials and seminars. However, we have observed that when the blogging tool was used primarily as a vehicle for students to report on their critical reading of key texts, students often isolated the blog from the text, reducing the effectiveness of the tool. Therefore, this project implemented the Wordpress plug-in digresst.it (http:/ /digress.it) which has been developed for pedagogical use to bring text and writing closer together, allowing blog comments to appear as marginal comments next to the relevant part of the key reading. This tool was implemented during the second semester of the academic year 2011-12 in the first year course within the School of Divinity: "Christian Ethics, Sources". For each of the six tutorial groups a separate incidence of the tool was made available containing all the weekly readings (three per week) in a digital format. This paper will discuss in detail the usage of the tool and our analysis of its success based upon evaluation from both staff and students.

Educational blogging: Implications, benefits and challenges to pedagogical practice, 2018

Technology these days is present in nearly every field of the students' lives. We enjoy the benefits of its use, especially in the field of education. More specifically, access to internet has dramatically transformed both teaching and learning and, therefore, teaching methodologies have faced more questions. One of these questions is whether educational blogging can be utilised as an innovative teaching tool to achieve curricular goals. There is a growing corpus of literature on blogs as an effective learning tool in education, and evidence has shown that educational blogging is not a new phenomenon. Considering these observations, the discussion centres on how blogging in an educational setting produces several benefits. In the same vein, the paper also explores the disadvantages of blogging in this setting. Discussions highlight the fundamental implications for professional development in pedagogical uses of educational blogging.

The purpose of this study is to determine the views of students about blog use for supplementary purposes in courses. Survey research method was applied for the quantitative dimension of the study, and the semi-structured interview technique was used for the qualitative dimension. Regarding the quantitative dimension of the study, the participants were 68 undergraduates at a university in Turkey; as for the qualitative dimension, the participants were nine students from the same group. The research results revealed that the students' interest in courses, the duration of their preparation for exams, and their socialization did not differ with respect to the variables such as their gender and the availability of the Internet connection. On the other hand, the results demonstrated that there was a significant difference in favour of female students in terms of the variable of achievement. Also, in the study, it was revealed that the students who had frequently followed the course blog and their personal blogs had higher levels of achievement and interest in the course.