I am a little surprised at what I read this week for class. Three very good articles about the upside for publishing on the web in a format known as blogging, all with very good points about student interaction, sharing information, and enabling students to be heard were consistent in Santos(2011), and Wittle(2007). In King and Cox's text, "The professors guide to taming technology.", the authors outline the foundations of blogging from the students and the instructors perspective, and give examples of how blogs can help build a community of learners.
But, I am surprised that none of these three sources of information addressed common problems with digital content that I am used to hearing about. Example, on p.98 of King and Cox's text the authors mention that foreign language students were introduced to blogs to help envelope the students in the language they were trying to learn, but were the students seeing the best examples of language and grammar on those blogs? Did the instructor have to screen the blogs before the students read them? I would hate to ask my students to observe the blogs of nurses and then find out later that they stumbled about a blog of nurses who not being honest about work or medical practices.
What about privacy? I would not want people to judge me by things I posted on the internet when I was in my mid-20's. The postings that students make, including this blog, maybe around for a very long time, perhaps forever. Can student post comments freely and express opinions without repercussions on a blog in the same way that they would on a closed message board...are other bloggers going to attack me for my opinion on public blogs?
Content and accuracy ever since I was young I was told that the internet was a generally unsafe place to find information, I understand that most blogs will have a reflective, opinion theme based on the writers on preference and experiences, but I still believe that facts found on blogs should be taken with caution, people in blogs who share information in the form of statistics without using citations can lead learners astray. As an example, I have posted a quote from Joseph Stalin, which is fake.
Please do not misunderstand me, I am NOT saying I will never use blogs, there is a lot of support for using blogs, in a brief article from the Journal of Occupational Therapy, Samia Ezzamel pointed out in her article on using blogs for occupational therapy, "blogging offered a sense of reassurance, as peers in similar settings read my posts and commented about shared difficulties and triumphs.", there is value in allowing peers to openly communicate with each other in an unrestricted manner, but I feel that we should at least consider some of the "Cons" to blogging before implementing.
Ezzamel, S. (2013). Blogging occupational therapy; knowledge sharing, professional development, and ethical dilemmas. British Journal of Occupational Therapy. 76(11), 515-517
King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Santos, A.. (2011). Blogs As A Learning Space: Creating Text Of Talks. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 4(6), 15-19.
Wittle, S. (2007). That's online writing, not boring school writing: Writing with blogs and the Talkback Project. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(2), 92-96.
Koul,
ReplyDeleteI think you made a really interesting point when citing the example of how foreign language students were using the blogs to be further immersed in the education process, but may have been limited by the examples of language and grammar they may have experienced. King and Cox (2011) also remind us that "expectations for content, quality, and 'voice' are specific to genre" (p. 92). So not only may the students have been challenged by the language examples they faced, just the process of GETTING to experience the language must have been an impressive feat to overcome. I often struggle with learning new things; I can only imagine what it mist be like to try and learn a new form of technology (with its own language, features, and style) without the comfort of my native language to guide me. After reading that example in the book, my immediate response was to stop and wonder just how valuable the learning experience proved to be.
King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Yes, I agree. There is a difference between highly educational, and highly entertaining. If the language blog stuff was just entertaining then I would not recommend it.
ReplyDelete"There is a difference between highly educational, and highly entertaining." This is an interesting point. Could you elaborate on this a bit more? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteYes, I believe that while students who are entertained my rate an activity as "useful" what they are really saying is that it was fun and they remember it, but because something is enjoyable and rememberable, it does not always mean that it was effective educationally.
DeleteWondering out loud if a blog can be both entertaining and educational. Surely this seems reasonable. If I compare this to reading a physical book, there's no guarantee there that it has a standard format, language or is "educational" regardless of the genre. Maybe (tongue in cheek) we need a label on a blog describing the content to be of a certain sort? We do that with movies. And, it's an interesting consideration to think about how you 'sift' for those nuggets of knowledge that are relevant to you which may not be as relevant for others.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate your comments- thought provoking!
If it is entertaining, it will probably be memorable. Maybe that is just a good first step towards reflection.
DeleteAs a further response, I'm going to refer back to something that was in the article by Santos (2011) that was in our reading this week. He referred to Engagement Theory and the idea that Relate-Create-Donate is a model for technology based learning and teaching. As I apply this to the idea of entertainment, it occurs to me that for both entertainment and education to truly take place, you need all aspects: the collaboration, the submission of content by others and also the creation of relevant ideas or the expansion of the already mentioned topics. It's critical in an educational situation that there is active involvement with the subject matter to ensure transfer of learning. I'd use as a contrast what one might "learn" from a popular gossip site versus what we're learning here in this forum by exploring each other's responses and contributions.
DeleteSantos, A.N.E. (2011) Blogs as a learning space: Creating text of talks. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 4-6, 15-20.
Koul, you have really interesting perspective on this issue. I had not considered many of these ideas previously. For example, you suggested that introducing international students to learn English through a blog or message board might not be the most practical as most people who use those forums often do not use correct English. I have worked with several international students and I never really took this idea into consideration. Most of my international students preferred message boards to in class discussion as it would allow them plenty of time to process their responses using better English than they would have used if forced to speak in class on the spot. One con that I would notice is that international students would not pick-up on sarcasm or American "sayings". Since many of my American Students would use this type of jargon, my international students were often confused and unclear as how to respond.
ReplyDeleteI also, like your comment about privacy. In order to safeguard privacy the Electronic Frontier Foundation (2005) suggests bloggers not to give away personal identifiers or be Googleable and to use ping servers, anonymous technologies, to limit his or her audience, and register his or her domain name anonymously(para 7-14).
Electronic Frontier Foundation.(2005). How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else). Retrieved September 9, 2016 from: https://www.eff.org/wp/blog-safely
Koul,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog post. I am a huge proponent of all things technological, and sometimes, I forget to take a step back to view technology with a critical eye. You addressed some valid issues with blogging as an adult learner. The point that I found myself agreeing with was King and Cox's (2011) claim that blogging is useful to students with a language that is non-English. It is true that many blogs, at least the ones I have read, tend to be filled with incorrect grammar and spelling. It would be important for any facilitator to preface the use of blogs with the caveat that oftentimes the writing style is not a correct example of formal English. I also agree with you that discussion boards are a safer place to post controversial material that one may not want future employers to access.
King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Yes, I have recently seen first hand how digging through social media can disqualify people from jobs. Example, a message board from a KU student was full of Anti-Trump/Anti-Republican slogans and pictures(most of them were meant to be funny), but does the student really feel this way about the Trump? Is it WRONG to un-include people from job opportunities based on politics?
DeleteGreat insight there- since there's a deliberate look by employers regarding an interviewee's social media presence. There's a fine line in the evaluation of what people post and determining whether there's hiring discrimination based on those comments. Appreciate this thought Koul!
ReplyDelete