Friday, September 01, 2006 12:08 PM
Kenneth Gerard PINTO
Blogs v Forums
Dr Tham Chen Khong of ECE left a comment on the Module Blogs FAQ
questioning the role of module blogs, particularly with regards to IVLE and its forums. My response to Dr Tham is quite lengthy and relevant to others, so I will answer here instead of in the comments. I have also emailed Dr Tham.
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Dear Dr Tham,
Thank you for the comment you left on the Using Module Blogs site on 17 August. I apologise for the lateness of this reply. The system is supposed to notify me of the latest comments. I will look into that. Now, to address your query:
Some uses of blogs in education
The beauty of blogs is that you can do what you want with them. Yes, one of the primary functions of blogs is for personal use. However, there are other possibilities, as I have pointed out in an IDEAS article. Scott Leslie, an educational technology researcher, has collated a useful matrix of some uses of blogs in education. (Direct link to the graphic.)
NUS Academic Staff blogs
Associate Professor Ismail Talib's Literary Stylistics blog is an extension of his lecturers, tutorials and the module forum. It is the most read and commented blog at the moment. Assistant Professor Park Cheolsung, in Labour Economics I, highlights articles of relevance to his students and gives some thoughts about each article. Assistant Professor Paul Barter blogs about his passion, Urban Transport Issues in Asia.
These are some of the more prominent NUS faculty staff blogs. While CIT chose to give a module slant to our blog service, feel free to start a professional interest blog using one of the many free blogging platforms out there, as Dr Barter has done.
Network and Openness
The value of blogs is that students can link to the individual posts (or comments even), which are available on the internet. They can then continue the discussion in their own blogs. This, in turn, is accessible to a new group of readers, and the new readers can add value to the students' musings and reflections.
Also, the fact that blogs are out in the open tends to force posters and commenters to think more about what they write before they write. You can't think what you can't write.
But how are blogs different from IVLE's forums?
First and foremost, the blogs are accessible to anyone (although those outside the NUS community cannot comment at the moment) whereas forums are locked within IVLE. Of course, this is a desired feature to some users.
Second, in the Module Blogs current configuration, the discussions are instructor-directed. If you have a topic which you feel is important, it may go down the order of the forum posts if there is more conversation going on in other threads. With the blog, you can prompt the discussion.
Third, you can always use the links of the previous posts in your subsequent posts (or elsewhere on the internet for that matter). This is especially useful if you've written something of value which you or your students always refer to. The blogs don't get cleared after the semester, so the collective knowledge and discussions of previous students is shared with current and future students.
Last difference: You won't get questions pertaining to exam tips in your blog. Or at least they won't appear in prominently within the blog. =)
A mix of tools
Blogs, I admit, are not the end all and be all in e-learning, but neither is IVLE. Not all subjects or modules suit blogs. Conversely, some may be more suited to blogs than to IVLE forums. Nevertheless, I think it's not a case of one displacing the other. Rather, it is a mix of tools and how you choose to deploy each tool.
Do let me know if you need further clarification or information about NUS Module Blogs. Thank you.
UPDATE I have locked the comments for this post because it is attracting a lot of spam. Please
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