Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Opinion
Instructional Strategies for Blogging
Statement categories and the development of the individual learning voice
5/9/2007
In an article I wrote a couple years ago for Campus technology, I suggested, "Instructors need time to evaluate the importance of self-reflection as a methodological approach in learning as well as the value of integrating personal voice in the learning context. Otherwise the exercise will be perceived as futile to the students."Since that time, I've focused on the actual use of blogs over a longer period and have evaluated what students were saying about their own learning through their posted statements. I found certain trends in the statements that seem to demonstrate a strong connectedness with students' processing of course material and new ideas.
Statement categories
While the notion of "finding individual voice" is not new to the learning process, technology such as blogging has presented a unique opportunity for teachers and students to work intentionally at this process. The notion of individual voice, however, is difficult to manage and evaluate. How individual is a comment? How personalized is the voice of the student? Are students aware of a developing voice? Does this voice raise the confidence of the student in the learning process? Do students perceive the blogging process as helpful or just another task/assignment? These are all useful and interesting questions; however, patterns and trends can only be evaluated over time as the answer to any or all of these questions are as diverse and unique as the students who blog.My analysis has been done mainly through evaluating the actual statements made by students in their blogs as a way to examine the usefulness to their learning. This was done by deconstructing the responses (statements) into several categories of individual response. Student response statements really cover a wide variety of "types" that reflect the instructional goals of the courses. That is, when developing individual voice throughout a learning process, each stage of that process is often reflected in the students' comments.
I have described each of these that I have noticed into the following categories:
- Reflective statements;
- Commentary statements;
- New idea statements; and
- Application statements.
Recommended Reading
- Beck Technology Donates DProfiler to Colleges, Universities
Beck Technology recently announced that it will donate its DProfiler software platform to colleges and universities for use in construction-related coursework.
- Microsoft Adds Gen 4 Datacenters for Cloud Computing
Microsoft is initiating the fourth in a series of datacenter upgrades to enable its cloud computing services, according to a Microsoft blog post Tuesday. And, like everything else in the software world, being highly modular is a good thing.
- Can You Operate as a Virtual Being?
Now that we are conducting at least a part of our business of education virtually and often meeting in virtual environments, let's explore the really big question for academics in a Web 2.0 era...
- Columbia Center To Smooth Web Operations with Collaboration Suite
A college or university without a Web site is inconceivable today, but with every site comes the challenge of managing content. Some sort of automated system is a given, but how much should the site's content management system integrate with other aspects of the campus computing infrastructure?
- IBM's Pass It Along: Mapping Memes Toward A Learning Organization
How IBM's new release is following through on old challenges... big ones.
- North Idaho College To Provide Accessible Lecture Recordings for Disabled Students
North Idaho College will be implementing a new classroom capture system as part of an effort to provide accessible education to students with disabilities. The college will be using SpeakerBox from ClearSky Systems for the lecture capture program beginning in January 2009.
