Instructional Use of Weblogs

Akbulut + Kiyici, Y+M (2007). Instructional use of weblogs. Turkish journal of Distance Education, 8, Retrieved 2007, from http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde27/pdf/notes_for_editor.pdf

Akbulut and Kiyicic are lecturers and PhD Candidates at the department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies at Anadolu University, Turkey. Akbulut conducts research on ICT integration at tertiary education, language learning through
Hypermedia, cyber-plagiarism and academic obsolescence. Kiyicic conducts research on web-based training, technology literacy, mobile learning technologies and ICT integration. They explained the instructional use of weblogs and agreed that the weblogs 2.0 can provide learners with increased interaction and online collaboration. They added that weblogs have gained an increasing popularity because they allow bloggers to voice their own ideas and opinions which can easily be delivered to large number of readers through the webs. Weblogs can be integrated into teaching process as they encourage learners to participate and freely voice their ideas and opinions. Thus, blogging enables individuals to publish their thoughts on webs in a diary format without using programming or HTML knowledge.

The lecturers added that weblogs allow users to:
- frequently update their logs
- publish items by time and date of publishing
- Attach to items facility for comments to be added and for postings elsewhere that have linked to that item to be tracked back.

Technologies such as weblogs help students find authentic audiences for their work (Richardson, 2006).

I think that blogs offer a different way of communication than traditional web pages. They not only transmit the information to audience as traditional web pages do, but also allow that audience to comment on the content. This interaction creates an important online learning situation. The lecturers here mentioned three types of interactions, between learner-content, learner-instructor and learner - learner interaction. This kind of interaction makes learning happens because there is an exchange of knowledge and information between the audiences. Therefore, blogs will be considered sources of interaction on relevant topics and also as modes of online classroom interaction in the current review (Oravec 2002). In the Oravec study (2002) weblogs are considered as unique tools in developing students’ voices.

I think that blogs can be used effectively as a method of communication which serve competently in disseminating information and knowledge than traditional hard copy and reduce the cost of copying and printing assignments. Blogs now is aiming to empower reflective learning, communication and motivated students to generate reflective conversation which leads to improvement in learning.

The lecturers summed up the effective use of blogs as follows:
- use of group projects, maintaining conversations on complex issues and allotting more time and grade on discussion might lead to increased interaction. Thus, these applications should be arranged with caution for effective applications of blogs in online classrooms.
- Clear criteria & strategies to get students into responding their peers’ comments should be determined so that the conversations do not exceed the boundaries of anticipated interaction
- Students with insufficient writing skills, analytical skills development or motivation to tackle with challenging tasks should be indentified and supported.

I concluded that, Blogging as an online journal offers students an opportunity to interact with many peers, experts, teachers, and experienced educators from whom they can learn and enhance their skills in reading, listening and writing. Because they will continuously get a feedback from teachers and educators about the topics they have already written about. It’s the necessity to empower the use of blogging in education as an integrated tool of teaching and learning, as well as to provide access of internet nationwide to assure equal opportunity to those who are living in the remote areas. Thereby, we might realize and support the notion of distance learning.

References:

v http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde27/pdf/notes_for_editor.pdf


v http://chapman-online.org/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=3353566&CPURL=chapman-online.org&Survey=1&47=5689605&ClientNodeID=835325&coursenav=0&bhcp=1