Position and Perspective

Blogs—shorthand for “Web logs”—are online, reverse-chronological collections of personal commentary and links. As simple to use as an online e-mail program, blogs are available to anyone with access to the Internet and an application on a hosted service or campus Web server. An easy form of Internet publishing, blogs have become an established communications tool for capturing and sharing ideas, opinions, and reflections through text, hyperlinks, images, and/or multimedia. But where do they fit in the contemporary course?

Think of blogs as digital journals with the same power of critical reflection found in traditional journaling but enhanced by the 24 x 7 Web-based ability for others to post feedback as well as “ping” to alert the author their work has been commented on in another blog. While journaling is a traditional practice in teacher education and other professions, the activity was often limited to instructor-to-student sharing. In contrast, blogging adds the dimension of student-to-student and student-to-outside expert interaction. By design, blogs encourage communication and extend community around a common topic or set of ideas.

Blogging is about reading, writing, and reflection in the public domain. Perhaps their most significant attribute is the capacity to engage deeper learning through knowledge sharing, critical reflection, debate, and revision so students learn to develop voice, formulate opinions, and stand by them. Within that framework are opportunities to learn about plagiarism, copyright, privacy, and ethics.

Although audio and photoblogs have emerged in the blogosphere, generally blogs use text entries and links to resources or images, audio, or video. Whether students access blogs from a desktop/laptop computer or engage in “moblogging” (mobile blogging) through a cell phone or PDA, uses can be divided into individual and group/collaborative blogs.

Individual Blogs

• Journals for sharing thoughts and reflections or having discussions on a particular subject, or to chronicle the undergraduate experience, such as a semester abroad
• Portfolios for gathering evidence and demonstrating proficiency of specific skills
• Research diaries where students chronicle their research experience—trials, challenges, successes, and results—or where instructors document their research and allow students to follow progress
• Spaces to organize thoughts on class assignments, readings, and discussions or keep track of important Web sites or library database citation research for papers and presentations
• Metajournals for graduate students visiting new places where they blog about their specific area of study (such as archaeology) and the places they are traveling

Group/Collaborative Blogs

• Collections of student reactions to class readings and activities
• Forum to extend in-class discussions
• Common place for students working on a group project to share resources and have discussions

Colleges and universities are finding blogs useful for a range of nonacademic uses, also. Students use blogs to share club or student-organization news, events, and activities and to post opinions about classes, campus events, and local or world news. Blogs help faculty researchers working across time zones to brainstorm, update, and archive ideas. For services and administration, blogs are being put to use in a number of areas, including as an admission tool, where current students blog about their campus experiences; an extension of campus writing center activities; a space for commentary from campus leadership; a medium for departmental, alumni, or orientation-services newsletters; and a feedback mechanism for campus services.

In selecting a technology for a learning activity, it is important to address where blogs are positioned across the technology spectrum and how blogs relate to other technologies in terms of mobility, platform neutrality, instructional flexibility, and accessibility (see Table 1).

Table 1. Attributes of Blogs

The figures below represent a general categorization of blogging. Use them as a starting point for discussing the use of blogs at your institution.

Figure 1 represents where blogs fit in the overall technology landscape; the landscape is defined by how easy the technology is to develop (create) and how flexible it is for users to access and/or manipulate. Compared to other technologies, blogs are relatively easy to develop and provide a greater degree of user flexibility, especially when compared to more traditional development and delivery tools.

Figure 1. Blogging Positioned Relative to Other Technologies

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Figure 2 represents some specific uses of blogging and defines those uses through flexibility as an instructional strategy (faculty-transmission to learner-created) to degree of learner engagement (passive to active).

Figure 2. Blogging: Instructional Flexibility and Learner Engagement

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As you think about blogging and the figures above, the following questions may stimulate dialogue about where blogging fits at your institution:

• Is blogging a good match for your instructional goals? What kinds of instructional problems could blogs solve?
• Is blogging a good match for student skills? For faculty skills?
• Would you use blogs as a delivery technology or as an active learning tool?
• Do you have the necessary technology, expertise, and support to ensure that blogging is successful?