For this week’s topic we have an interesting perspective to
blog about blogging, more specifically in adult education. This could be very useful to students and
faculty, with many pros for learning.
One of the pros I am experiencing right now. Let me explain.
Usually, because I never devote enough time on the weekends to reading, am one
of the last to respond to threaded discussion. When I do finish reading on the
deadline that I am supposed to post, I usually read what other students posted
first about the topic, not only to make sure I got what others got out of the
reading but also that I to make sure
that I am not really just stating what others have said. However, due to me
reading others ideas first, I almost always feel like I am just writing what
others have said. Here on blogs, it was way to cumbersome to read what others
have said first, so I know at least I am typing what I got out of the reading, not
what others students thoughts on topics influenced my own.
Another pro to blogging is that is very reflective. King and
Cox (2011) discuss this on page 92-93. They discuss how it helps develop
critical thinking skills, something of a goal for most graduate programs. A
Study that I ran into on another class also discussed reflective writing had on
medical residents (Linked here). The study had an assignment for students to
write and comment on blogs about bedside manner and patient care. Most of the students
found the blogs helpful and discovered things about themselves they might not
have if they had never blogged.
While there are many other pros that blogs have, given the
title of the topic, we need to move on.
A major con of blogging is more for the instructor then the
students. The instructor has to be willing to make a time commitment to reading
the blogs, the comments on the blogs, and then responding themselves. This is
very time consuming as discussed in King and Cox (2011) on page 93. The instructor does not have the ease of a
threaded discussion. Each blog is an individual website.
Another con of blogging is the prep time of teaching
students about blogs and how to use them.
We all like to talk about the younger generation being more tech
savvy. As discussed the reading this
does not mean they are natural at creating a blog and blogging. Blogging is not
Facebook and twitter. Many people share their lives through the social media
sights and while reading blogs, have never had to create their own. An instructor
would be wise to ensure that each student knew where to go and how to create a
blog, no matter the age of the students, so they can be successful.
I think blogs have great potential in adult education. I
think they might be seen as less work by the students that actually might be
able to get them to reflect more. This a is based on a personal antidote, I
have to share. I recently discussing a with a co-worker, who is getting her
masters in Social Work about this class requiring me to blog. She also this semester
has to maintain a blog. In discussing the criteria for our respective blogs, her was going to be mainly based on
reflections of her experiences on an internship. At the end of the conversation
she stated “Oh well, as least its not a reflective journal, I hate those.”
Which not to burst her happiness that she basically was doing one, I did not
point that out to her.
Hello Sarah, I enjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is cumbersome to read all of the postings. I enjoy reading and discussing things as a class, so I hope that I still have time to look at postings from class members who are not part of my group. I am hoping that as I get more acquainted with blogging and the blogging sites, I will be able to speed the process up.
You said, “I think blogs have great potential in adult education.” In ‘The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology, Carter made a statement that I feel sums up a lot of technology; “For faculty in higher education, pressured in many institutions to respond to the growing drumbeat to adopt technology in the classroom…” (Pg. 95)
It seems like the status quo in our society to force the ‘latest and greatest’ technology into every aspect of our lives. It doesn’t seem to matter if there is a need or not. I doubt teachers felt ‘pressured’ to put chalk boards in their classrooms. I imagine teachers and students alike immediately recognized the value of being able to write.
My thought here being, if you have to ‘pressure’ instructors into using technology, do they really need it? It seems to me, if the instructors needed the technology, they would seek it out. Right now, I am not sure that I agree with you about the potential for blogging in adult education, but maybe this class will open my eyes to the potential of blogging.
Roy,
Blogging is not for everyone. It is very personal thing, like journaling, in a very open forum. Some people, possibly you included, may never really like blogging due to that. Which is okay.
DeleteYou mention the time commitment as being a major con on behalf of the educator for blogs, which I absolutely agree, but while reading your comments I began to think about a fairly different type of negative for faculty that use blogs. I can't help but feel this was mentioned in some of our readings, but I can't for the life of me find it...becoming too personal with students/faculty. This is true for many forms of digital communication, but in this case we're talking about acting differently on a blog than you would in a classroom. There is a tendency (at least in my experience) to act much more freely and perhaps erratically online compared to my physical presence in a classroom. Do you feel this is a negative aspect that could prove problematic for adult education?
ReplyDeleteI think working with adults in an education compacity lends itself to having more intimate relationship with students and that it does not have to be as firm as a line then if you working with K-12. However, the blog students create should only be for the class as hand. I don't think students should use the blog to post school work, then discuss the vactaion they took with their kids and how inspired them to take up watercolor painting.
DeleteHi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI’ve enjoyed reading your post. It sounds like the switch from the discussion board to blogging has disrupted your usual routine, but it has been a positive disruption allowing you to express your own thoughts with less initial interference from others.
This reminded me of something I read in a couple of articles, the idea that Web 2.0 technologies like blogging are disruptive technologies that have the capacity to bring positive changes to higher education. Meyer (2010) discusses how computers and Web 2.0 technologies disrupt the status quo by making faculty reexamine course design and goals, by enabling new processes in classes, and by changing the relationship between faculty and students. Williams and Jacobs (2004) specifically mention the positive disruptions of blogs because of their versatility and their ability to stimulate collaboration and reflection.
Although we usually think of disruption as something negative, these authors give the word a positive connotation, the idea that disruptions of this kind can help higher education continue to experiment and evolve in ways that harness new technologies to promote learning and to engage students’ interest.
It sounds like many of us may be experiencing blogging as a positive disruptive technology in this class. I hope we continue to enjoy and learn from the experience.
KSU Cuz
References
Meyer, K. A. (2010). The role of disruptive technology in the future of higher education. Educause Quarterly, 33(1). Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/role-disruptive-technology-future-higher-education
Williams, J. B., & Jacobs, J. (2004). Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 20, 232-247. Retrieved from http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet20/williams.html
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteYou are not the only one who feels as if you are just restating what everyone else may have posted previously. I sometimes post early, sometimes post at the last minute, but I too feel as if I am use retreading group that have been well covered. However since we are all using the same material and readings, for the most part we will all come to fairly similar conclusions because we are generally give very direct questions to answer. There will be some differing opinions of course, but as a whole we all seem to end up in the same ball park. The differences are usually small and personal opinion driven.
I think you are correct in giving the weight of the issue to the instructor for added work, as pointed out in your site from the text on page 93. Dr. K showed in my thread from last week all of the analytics that were available for his as the class instructor. With blogs, he would not have this information such as long ins, page views, etc. that he does with the KState site. While content is more important than time, it does give him some idea of what the students are focusing in most.
One advantage that students have can be the that they can be more creative with the blog and it is easier to upload multimedia content to the blog than say KSOL. Several of the students saw this issues the first week during introductions, when the content that they chose may have been to large a file for KSOL to handle. While there are many was to overcome this, it is often easier in a blog setting to add larger files. Over all, there are pros and cons to any thing we use.
Shawn