Blogs in Education

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[Mike]

My day job is in eLearning at a university in Sydney.  My 2¢ is that blogs and wikis have a great deal of untapped potential to offer the academic community, and I'd like to see their use take root and spread.  So one of the things I'll be doing this year is trying to educate the local academic population about social software and hopefully start to work with them on how they can be used to support learning and teaching.

That said, I'd be very interested in hearing from other uni staff with experience in this area.  Case studies and links would be even better.

Thanks!

Mike

[macgirvin]

My day job is in eLearning at a university in Sydney.  My 2¢ is that blogs and wikis have a great deal of untapped potential to offer the academic community, and I'd like to see their use take root and spread.  So one of the things I'll be doing this year is trying to educate the local academic population about social software and hopefully start to work with them on how they can be used to support learning and teaching.

That said, I'd be very interested in hearing from other uni staff with experience in this area.  Case studies and links would be even better.

Thanks!

Mike

We should probably chat sometime. I'm doing something very similiar (besides keeping the Unix servers running). You've probably got similar constraints as we do, i.e. everybody sees the advantage of social media, but campus IT has a different view of how things should work. When I worked for a large PC security company, this turned out to be fatal to our online community efforts. IT would not allow dynamic pages to exist on the company website. Period. We had a blog, which ran on WordPress, and we'd push static HTML pages of the content every day to the other side of the firewall. The comment system went through a company in Texas and we never saw the comments and couldn't respond to them.

Luckily the uni isn't quite that bad, but it's still a case of opposing entrenched political structures. We're building up a drupal framework kind of behind the scenes and plan to use it at the school level to bypass the Oracle CMS that drives the main Uni website. The road is littered with obstacles. But my tact is to start getting the students involved in the community from the start. They 'get it'. Then let them shame the academics into checking out what all the buzz is about.

[Mike]

...You've probably got similar constraints as we do, i.e. everybody sees the advantage of social media, but campus IT has a different view of how things should work...

Luckily the uni isn't quite that bad, but it's still a case of opposing entrenched political structures. We're building up a drupal framework kind of behind the scenes and plan to use it at the school level to bypass the Oracle CMS that drives the main Uni website. The road is littered with obstacles. But my tact is to start getting the students involved in the community from the start. They 'get it'. Then let them shame the academics into checking out what all the buzz is about.

Man, that sounds familiar.  It's such a shame that this is the case too - it's almost as if R&D and campus IT are doomed to be perpetually at odds, which forces innovation under the radar rather that working on things together for the benefit of everyone.  We're likely to have to adopt the same model as you've suggested and basically facilitate a groundswell of support until a threshold is reached in which campus IT has no other option but to support it.

You mentioned Drupal.  That's one of the applications I'm looking at currently.  We've also looked at Elgg, but I personally find Drupal to be more user friendly.  Are there other apps in this vein you could recommend that might be worth a look? 

As far as the blogging app is concerned, uni-hosted instances of Wordpress is the only model that's ever been discussed.  For the sake of proper research I'll need to look at a couple other options, but at the end of the day I see Wordpress as the main contender - especially in light of many of the discussions that have taken place in this forum.

[That said it's odd that I'm still with Blogger for my personal blogs.  One more reason to switch I think.  If I can get motivated that is.]

At this stage we're still in the research phases of things (creating and evaluating test beds, focus groups, etc), and not yet to an implementation phase.  So this discussion coming up now is quite useful.

[macgirvin]

Elgg is a cute little social space, but it will take some time until it has all the bells and whistles needed by a diverse community. I also had a lot of issues just trying to maintain the code. It's clean, it's MVC. But it's too clean. If you want to change where one thing happens, you need to grep for the manifestation, track back through the code to figure out where the business logic lives, and finally go grepping through the business logic to find the right function. It takes way too much time to fix stuff. 

A lot of our academics swear by moodle. That's a pretty good CMS for elearning.

It kind of depends on what you're trying to do. I'm looking more at building community infrastructure - which is my forte. We'll probably end up with a hybrid of drupal and moodle, because where moodle shines is the 'lecturer/students' model of information delivery. You've got a mentor, and people 'subscribing' to his/her class. This product grew up in the classroom and the academic organization structure is built-in to it. Drupal has more of a democratic design. It isn't easy to use the same package for both roles because the entire product is designed around the social organization you're trying to emulate. So we'll probably go with drupal for the cms and community, and then drop down into moodle for specific classes. 

As for the blogs, drupal has a very capable multi-user blog platform built-in. It beats wordpress-mu hands down, although wp-mu allows a bit more theme tweaking ability. Again it depends on what you want. wp-mu is a bunch of private blogs sharing a database. Drupal is a community where everybody can have a blog.   

[Joh Blogs]

I work in a secondary school - a world away, but for what it's worth, I'll add my bit. Our school has adopted moodle, and I have created blogs with students on moodle, however they have no capacity for commenting, so therefore crashed and burned with the kids.
Last year I tried an experiment with Wordpress and this was taken up more by the kids.
Both moodle and the wordpress 'thingos' (my technical terms give away the fact that I am not technically inclined), were on our intranet and not available to the public.
Moodle has great potential for lesson delivery though as far as I could see. I just haven't ever got that organised and am one of the few in a staff of over 100 teachers who has even looked at it.

[Jaycee]

I too work at a university and the words 'social media' and 'web 2.0' were used so much in 2007 that I'm sick of hearing them but at least the powers that be recognise that it won't go away and that it will potentially be useful. This is more from a marketing perspective than an e-learning one, as I don't work in the teaching area. As those of you who work in uni's know, the wheels can turn very slowly and I agree with Mike and Macgirvin about IT restraints. I hope that 2008 will be a year of change in this area for us and I hope that I can be involved with it.

[Mike]

...A lot of our academics swear by moodle. That's a pretty good CMS for elearning...

...I'm looking more at building community infrastructure...

...As for the blogs, drupal has a very capable multi-user blog platform built-in. It beats wordpress-mu hands down, although wp-mu allows a bit more theme tweaking ability. Again it depends on what you want. wp-mu is a bunch of private blogs sharing a database. Drupal is a community where everybody can have a blog.

In terms of my interest in blogs, wiki's, communities like Drupal and Elgg, etcetera, it's all definitely focussed on the community building aspects you mentioned.  This is one of the areas that the current version of our LMS/CMS completely overlooks.

We're with Blackboard Vista, and yes this raises a WHOLE other conversation in itself [I'm on the central eLearning support team (in a non-academic unit) and well versed with the political and user-satisfaction ramifications of this].  I can't elaborate on this in a public forum for obvious reasons LOL Another agenda item for our chat perhaps...

I definitely see your point about Drupal being more community based than Wordpress.  As I said, we're still in the exploratory phase at this stage so it's too early to say what the vision for the web presence will be with respect to these sorts of tech.  That said, I personally think that a community based system could be more useful initially for academics who are completely unfamiliar with the technology.  I suspect we'd see far more information digestion than creation in the early stages.  Would you agree/disagree?

Then again if we're looking to instill a sense of ownership in each individual user's web presence, a wordpress instance might be better suited.

A thought occurs that a centralised portal that tied all Wordpress instances together so staff and/or students had an easy way to locate one another might be a compromise between completely disparate blogs and a centralised drupal-based community.  How effective do you think that would be?

I too work at a university and the words 'social media' and 'web 2.0' were used so much in 2007 that I'm sick of hearing them but at least the powers that be recognise that it won't go away and that it will potentially be useful. This is more from a marketing perspective than an e-learning one, as I don't work in the teaching area. As those of you who work in uni's know, the wheels can turn very slowly and I agree with Mike and Macgirvin about IT restraints. I hope that 2008 will be a year of change in this area for us and I hope that I can be involved with it.

I completely agree.  I find that most people talk about or have an interest in "that Web 2.0 stuff" without having much of any frame of reference for what it actually is - let alone how they can use it effectively for their learning and teaching purposes (or anything else for that matter). 

I personally see this as one of the key responsibilities of educational technologists and/or eLearning specialists in 2008: To model best practice in use of the technology.  This isn't something that's happening widely at my uni, and perhaps not surprisingly the basic questions - "what is a blog", "what is a wiki" etcetera - are still quite pronounced.

Fortunately the interest is growing and this is why it's so important to pick up the torch now.  When people's interest is piqued and their passions are stirred they are far more likely to actively engage in the learning process in new technologies and start to brainstorm the possibilities.  But they desperately need a compass or point of reference to start with.

[macgirvin]

Then again if we're looking to instill a sense of ownership in each individual user's web presence, a wordpress instance might be better suited.

A thought occurs that a centralised portal that tied all Wordpress instances together so staff and/or students had an easy way to locate one another might be a compromise between completely disparate blogs and a centralised drupal-based community.  How effective do you think that would be?

It's intriguing. I haven't yet had enough caffeine to digest thoroughly. Initially I wonder whether this would actually build community or build islands. There has to be something compelling about the portal to keep folks using it. A lot of web2 properties have faced this same issue, as this is the architecture many of them are trying to achieve on a global level. I think it all boils down to defining the glue that holds everything together.

[therinofandor]

I'm currently writing about a recent personal success story using wikis with Kindergarten (Early Stage 1) students.

Check out the link called Kinder's Core Value Fables at "Penrith Public School Library's Wiki". These wiki pages represent the students' amazing work from last term, and I'm finishing up the procedure and analysis now. Keep in mind, these kids are only five years old!

[Mike]

I'm currently writing about a recent personal success story using wikis with Kindergarten (Early Stage 1) students.

Check out the link called Kinder's Core Value Fables at "Penrith Public School Library's Wiki". These wiki pages represent the students' amazing work from last term, and I'm finishing up the procedure and analysis now. Keep in mind, these kids are only five years old!

Fantastic!  Thanks for the link, I'll take a look Welcome to the forum as well.

[Lani]

I have nothing to offer on the blogs in education issue, but I love the fables, and drawings.  A giant with a hare on his head!  Gorgeous.

[therinofandor]

Thanks Lani,

This type of unit of work would usually be done with a huge sheet of butcher's paper and a felt marker, and perhaps published in a class "big book", so typing directly into a wiki instead, while the students narrated the fables as a group, was amazing. We'd already done some fable research, character generation, group discussion and drama activities, plus the top drawing on each page - but I was getting goosebumps as the stories unfolded.

The project took about seven weeks all told, with one fable being added each week (about three lessons per week). The other (lower) drawings were all done after re-reading the final pages.

There is something very precious about both child art (ie. snatch it away while it's still good!) and children's writing - an economy of words that makes me so jealous. As I said, these students are five years old.

[Mike]

Interesting news article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Blogs Are Increasingly Venues for Scholarship, Librarians Are Told

[Frogdancer]

Two years ago I worked with year 9 students in a heavily computerised subject, and blogs were used to get them to document their work.

It was boring, and the kids hated it. A diary about their work. Whoopdidoo. I set up a blogspot blog just to see how to do it, but I was never motivated to activate it. Why would I? It was all a huge yawn.

Imagine my surprise two years later to find a blog already set up for me when I decided to start one up. I'd forgotten.

Using blogs in education has to be handled well. If it's boring, or the comments turn into a bitch-fest free for all (which isn't totally far-fetched if we're talking about adolescents) then the potential for disaster is huge. It sounds draconian, but a little judicious supervision is sadly necessary. (You have no idea of the havoc that internet bullying can introduce into a year level.)

[servantofchaos]

Great topic, Mike!

One of the best places to start is Ewan McIntosh's blog on the future of education. Some great, big thinking and problem solving! You can find it edu.blogs.com ...

[Mike]

Brilliant, thanks   Some hefty posts there from the look of things.  This will give me something solid to digest on my 2 hour + commute each way every day.

Mental note: I need to get wireless broadband again.  Think of all the blogging I could do!

[therinofandor]

It was boring, and the kids hated it. A diary about their work.

I'd love you to check out a primary school of my acquaintance. Not my school, but they are doing great work - and no one sounds bored.

Go to:
http://belmoresouthpublicschool.edublogs.org/

The students' blogs are listed under "Class blogs" in the sidebar.

[Frogdancer]

I went straight there and checked it out. (I was a bit worried that you'd use your phaser on me if I didn't.)

Yes, it's a bright bubbly site. They've used lots of photos so every kid has his/her face on there for ownership and LOTS of movement. Don't kids love those moving photo graphics! They've got primary kids (I'm secondary) and they have blogs run by each class, so the responsibility is shared between 25 kids, which for things like an education blog is probably a good thing. There's lots of varied things to blog about if the kids are able to talk about their schooling as a whole.

Unfortunately the experience I had was in one subject, (Advertising) and each kid was responsible for their own blog. From memory they had to post at least 6 times on their learning in this subject and this subject alone. Could it get any drier? What Year 9 adolescent worth their salt wants to intricately analyse their own learning even once, let alone 6 times? The whole exercise was painful, the kids wrote purely to satisfy the course requirements and I'm pretty sure no one got any comments. Who'd comment? The blogs they were writing were stilted and hideously boring.

I'd never even heard about blogs until then, and the whole exercise turned me off the idea for the next two years. I'd still be happily blogless if I hadn't been tricked into reading one. Then another. I kept popping back to check them out, and before I knew it the beast that is my blog was born. I think that if you force things like this down lkids necks, they'll run a mile. The trick is to make it fun and personal.

Now, speaking of the beast, I'd better go and feed it.

[therinofandor]

Hey, you know, if their topic was "Advertising", they should have been posting six actual advertisements on their blogs to inform others of their learning. That would have required them to analyse a whole range of static and movie advertising media with a purpose, and for a real audience.

Nothing dry about that. 

[peterblackqut]

Great topic - as another academic who uses blogs and wikis I'd love to spend more time chatting with other like minded people about what works and what doesn't work.

[therinofandor]

Great topic - as another academic who uses blogs and wikis I'd love to spend more time chatting with other like minded people about what works and what doesn't work.

Happy to do so! Last night, after a day exploring educational blogs and wikis with my boss from my previous seconded position, I realised I needed a second blog - aimed at other primary educators - rather than intersperse education issues with my Star Trek and pets stuff. My new education blog is at:
http://ianmclean.edublogs.org/

I used to be editor of "Scan", you see, the teacher-librarians' journal published by the NSW Department of Education & Training. ICT is big in schools! "Scan" covered some Web 2.0 aspects in recent issues - and I have a (very) brief article, re my Kindergarten students' wiki (mentioned in an earlier post in this thread),  in the upcoming issue. I'm also working on a longer piece about the unit of work. If you're associated with QUT, I have a feeling they still subscribe to "Scan".

The DET's "School Libraries and Information Literacy" team is testing some innovations with blogs and wikis at the moment. More news to come.

Before blogs were possible, we did quite a number of book raps each year, in which groups of students use email and listservs to communicate with schools all over Australia, and sometimes the world. Programming and planning is supplied, and teachers were supported with a separate (not archived) teacher rap.

You might enjoy checking out the students' responses at:
http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/pipermail/readiscover07_rap/2007/

or the archive of past raps at:
http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/raps/rapsarchive.htm

[peterblackqut]

This was an interesting post I saw from the US as to whether legal academics should require student participation on blogs - http://3lepiphany.typepad.com/3l_epiphany/2008/01/should-law-prof.html

[therinofandor]

Last night, after a day exploring educational blogs and wikis with my boss from my previous seconded position, I realised I needed a second blog - aimed at other primary educators - rather than intersperse education issues with my Star Trek and pets stuff. My new education blog is at:
http://ianmclean.edublogs.org/

The first week closes on my new educational blog.

In the typical hurly burly of the working week, the data collected in my post for 1st February 2008 would be lost, probably forever. I retold the (otherwise quickly forgotten) anecdote to a table of work colleague guests last night, at another colleague's 60th birthday celebrations - and that's the way it would have happened pre-blog, too. However, because of the blog, that little story - an insightful snapshot as to how and what students learn - is still there to share with everyone, for as long as... well, who knows?

In the previous post to that one, I listed some emailed-in comments. It seems my innocent little blog is already inspiring others to start doing heroic things in their schools. I'm feeling very chuffed.

[kylie_m]

Sort of a bit off topic .. but

I have just started a blog with my 9 year old .. its through my typepad account so I still have 'control', I fibbed about his age and he is a guest author .. so there controls his own posting ..

nows its not just a blog, my son suffers from clinical depression (and quite possibly bi-polar, although it is extremely hard to diagnose in children) .. we have used a number of mediums such as journals that act as way to express feelings .. now they are not meant to be a dump all emotions type of thing, but by being given specific topics or questions .. not unlike a lot of the life story questions .. you create blog entries .. these are then reflected on ..

I am hoping to turn this into a project ..  I have started putting together online workshops that are about recording your life stories .. and one of those will be kids & blogs, so many people are scared of letting kids/adolescents use blogs but if they are taught the 'safe' ways to use them, and to communicate with others it can be a powerful learning tool ..

so like I said .. a little off topic, but the value in blogging is immense, is just ensuring the right mix and the right situation

[therinofandor]

I have just started a blog with my 9 year old .. its through my typepad account so I still have 'control', I fibbed about his age and he is a guest author .. so there controls his own posting ..

He's sure to enjoy following the upcoming "Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge" book rap, which will take the form of a blog this time. Check out:
http://rapblog.edublogs.org/ Follow the links back to see archived class responses of previous book raps, too.

Run by the NSW Department of Education & Training, the rap will be aimed at Year 1 and 2 students, but older students can certainly participate. Usually, a class of students, their teacher and teacher-librarian participate (so please do mention it to the school; interstate and international schools are welcome), but we've had little family groups on previous raps too.

You just need to choose a neutral group name, such as "The Super Rapping Family" or something. No personal names; groups negotiate on the wording of their blog posts. "Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge" is a well-known picture book by Mem Fox & Julie Vivas. Raps support a deeper reading of visual texts. Amazing stuff.