Entries for May 2005
What is a blog; what is the use in higher education?
I am teaching an intensive this week to doctoral level students and one of the questions on the one minute evaluation is "what is a blog?" so the short answer is--a personal or professional collection of notes and sundry other writings. Most are textual, although there are increasing blogs that include multimedia and graphics. What are the educational uses in higher education? The most obvious is the reflective pieces that we try to encourage (force?) students to provide in the thought that by writing about one's reactions to the world and events, we can develop a certain amount of introspection. It's like the old saw: you can lead a horse to water but cannot make him drink.
We can force students to develop these kinds of written pieces but cannot make them thoughtful or reflective. (Although we may be encouraging good fiction writing!)
There are increasing numbers of faculty using weblogs for educational purposes. The evidence for their effectiveness is what I have not seen. Have any of you? I am looking for beyond the anecdotal.