Blogs in Education

James Farmer at Blogsavvy recently posted some thoughts about HOW TO use and HOW NOT to use them in education. He bases these ideas on some work that professors are doing at the college level with blogs. He links to an essay/proposal in which he gives more detail:

Through the use of blogs, it is suggested that teachers and learners are becoming empowered, motivated, reflective and connected practitioners in new knowledge environments.

Here are his points briefly for how not to use blogs:

  1. Don’t try to use blogs as discussion boards, listservs or learning management systems. By their nature, they have a different functionality.
  2. Blogs are individualistic and do not work well as a group tool.
  3. Don’t try to force blogs into something else.
  4. Without the use of RSS, blogs will not be successful

I am planning to experiment with some group blogs with teachers this year (around some technology professional development), so I found his third point very interesting. I’ll have to pay particular attention to this and monitor things as we move down that road. I see his point, but I have to see it to believe it.

Here are his points briefly for how to use blogs:

  1. The use of blogs should have a clear purpose in a course.
  2. If assessment is blatant, it will cut at the core of what a blog should do.
  3. Use blogs for what they are good for.
  4. Use real blog tools.

I think most of these things are obvious. As I was reading, I was thinking one could say these things about any kind of technology, not just blogs. I really enjoyed reading his article which provides some interesting insight into what is a really powerful tool.

Posted by Randy on 07/29 at 08:52 PM

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