Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Million Dollar Question

Pam has written about how useful blogs are for travel diaries, but what's their role in education (outside of the obvious like English or language classes?) We have email, forum, wikis, and blogs. What do blogs offer that the others don't?

7 comments:

Emily said...

Well Michael, for one thing it doesn't appear that you edit and change each other's posts, which I found a little disturbing with the Wikis. You might have to give us a hint, because this seems very much like a forum to me! Except slightly more complicated to get logged into. I guess it doesn't really compare to email, because you can hold a discussion with lots of different people at one time. As such, it would probably make a good space for an online, ongoing classroom discussion, for example tutorials. I guess the disadvantage (sorry to be negative!) is that it is a little complicated for students with limited or no computer/internet skills (like me)
Anyway, is there some really obvious difference that I have missed completely? Help!

Pam said...

You sucessfully posted a comment Emily so you are doing well withyour internet skills.In classrooms a blog is a way of publishing written work/photos of projects/ or whatever for all the world /community to see - not just your class . I was browsing the other learnscope Projects site (Startup) and found some blog links there for some interesting blogs worth a look - including one of a prisoner, of a primary school class, current team member Cheryls blog of last years Learnscope experience. etc.
Pam

Michael said...

Emily - Pam's gone some way to answering your questions, but I'm still learning here. And I think most educators still are - trying to figure out how best to use the new tools. Or IF to use them even.....

Pam said...

Here is the site with links to some blogs as mentioned in my previous comment http://www.sastartup.net/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=305

Cheryl Taylor-Cox said...

Like Emily, I am stumped Michael on "What do blogs offer that the others don't?" I have been pondering this for the last couple of days but I still don't get it either.

Blogs and wikis can be more public than email and forums if you want them to be but they can also be private as this blog is. All of them can have multiple contributors. Blogs are more journal like in that they keep entries in date order.

Oh, I don't know ... I am just guessing!

And thanks Pam for thinking my blog was worth a look. It was a great tool to keep notes on what we did at LearnScope, especially as Marlene let us blog in class. I started putting in notes from other PD sessions I went to but as I didn't have a laptop, I was having to transcribe them from my handwritten notes taken at the time into my blog. I still have a heap of stuff from other things I have been too and haven't got around to putting in there as it can be so time consuming. I have actually wondered whether some of that stuff would be better kept in a wiki where I could organise it better by PD session rather than the date I entered it in the blog. Not sure ... any thoughts anyone?

royboy69 said...

Hi all,

I have been playing around with Wiki's, this is all very new to me, to be honest, I can see how very useful e-learning could be in this day and age...I have tried in the past to get groups up and running with the students I work with but never had any real response or interest, the site we were using wasnt really that useful...so hopefully the new skills I am learning with this course will provide me with better knowledge and understanding to set up virtual classrooms....still really a bit confused though!

CHeers

Monique
http://spiritualityineducation.wikispaces.com/

tonyr said...

I find blogs very interesting and daunting. I feel it would be very good for students to express their interpretations outside the class structure.