blogs in education

Papers that talk about blogs in education.

1. Weblogs as dynamic learning spaces
2. Using blogs in EFL writing class
3. Experiences of Adopting In-class Blogs in the Teaching of Hands-on Computer Laboratory Courses, IEEE International Conference of Advanced Learning Technology (ICALT) 2007 (EI)

Lecture Outline for 3/10/2007

Today we have spent most of our energy and time on basics of mobile web services and Web 2.0 fundamentals. We talked about context-aware technology, sematic web, and ontology. For Web 2.0, we went through today's major players who shape the Internet in a Web 2.0 way. Some discussions went to the characteristics of Web 2.0 in the last part of today's lecture.

For next week, we will continue on Web 2.0 with more illustrative examples. Some time will be spent on going deeper into blogs, such as elements of social media, making subscriptions, comparisions to bullentin boards, what's inside a blog, and blogging styles for persons and corporates as well.

Useful readings:
10 Ways to Use Web 2.0 to Change the World. Marnie Webb.
10 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs and Bloggers to Support Their Cause. Britt Bravo.

部落格與論壇中的版權與 ID

由於部落格有明確的作者，因此Blog天生具有版權的概念，很多部落格都有Creative Commons 的註記。例如Copyleft vs.
Copyright, Some Rights Reserved等等。
放在論壇的文章，因為論壇是眾人的，而且有些意見可能是從別人的意見得到的靈感，因此比較像是眾人腦力激盪，因此鮮少有論壇註記個人版權的。不過如果有
人故意抄襲他人的意見，通常很快會被發現，遭到網友群起攻擊。
從這個角度來看，部落格比較適合專欄作家，個人記事，模式上接近Column(專欄), Journal(日記)，但是大多允許回應。論壇相對來說比較
像社群(Community)，每個人只是其中一份子，藉由論壇，大家在其中對等交流與分享。
通常很珍惜自己文章，或是擅於長篇大論的人，多半會選擇Blog，這樣容易建立Identity，塑造風格與論點。貼在論壇就不容易做到這點。
但是Blog也不乏隨性短文，或是趣味極短篇。像是
http://guineapigtv.blogspot.com/
童言童語配合影片說故事，雖然文章形式上較弱，卻是饒富趣味，深受不少Blog Reader青睞。另ㄧ個例子是 http://fairycraft.blogspot.com/
(花仙子手工魔法俱樂部)

部落格與BBS有何不同

1. Web 2.0 架構，支援 Digg, Del.ci.ous 等社會書籤。

2. 支援 RSS，不需登入網站，主動通知最新張貼。省去很多登入網站的時間。

3. 支援 Atom, 可以整個網站用 XML 完整備份。不怕網站關門或當機。

4. 結合 Google 搜尋，尋找過去資料很powerful。

5. 介面操作非常容易，初學者幾分鐘內就可以上手。(大家應該體驗過了? 因為有點年紀，學東西變慢了)

6. 支援近端comments (一般) 與遠端comments (trackback) 兩種模式。在自己的部落格也可以comment 別人的意見。比較合乎 (Berkeley) Creative Commons 的精神。

7. 可以上傳圖片。看圖說故事。

8. 可以整合 Google Docs，連結Word 與 Excel 檔案很方便。

9. 自動建立 archives，不需人員維護網站。

10. 結合人員 profiles, 方便聯繫。

How blogs are Changing the Way Teachers talk with their Students

One of the teaching challenges in computer-based laboratory is tracking student progress and giving assistance on an individual basis in the lab classroom. Designing specific systems to serve this purpose can be tedious and take great efforts. In addition, traditional web-based tools that help administer a course often store student works in a class-centric fashion. Once the class is closed, student materials may not be accessible to the students themselves any more.

Blogs have been used on campus for vastly diverse purposes. They are often seen as web publishing tools and social networking vehicles. Postings, tracebacks, and comments in the blog computing model usually happen without timelines in mind. Blogs interact with each other in a loosely coupled fashion as relations among blogs are usually nothing more than URL links or RSS subscriptions.

As a solution to the teaching challenge that the author has been wrestling with for years, blogs have been used in a novel fashion for three consecutive semesters at two hands-on computer lab classes, namely Java and Internet Applications, respectively. Our approach sees blogs from a more responsive point of view, and has them serve as catalysts for in-classroom student-instructor interactions.

First of all, the instructor creates a blog for the lab class at the outset. Every student of the class is required to create a blog for the lab when the semester begins. Instructor blogs are for posting lab materials in the curriculum and making announcements to the class. So they deliver lab sheets and hand-outs in electronic version. When finishing a lab, students are asked to submit their results at their own blogs and make a notice by placing a link at the instructor's blog right under the lab. Pursuing the links and checking out students' blogs, the instructor can grasp better immediate understanding of student progress such as how many have finished labs, how good the quality of the results is and what problems may have occurred. The blog is so responsive that instructors can make quick judgments on which students to walk by and initiate further interactions with. Through blogs, this can be done without students leaving their seats or even raising their hands, reducing interferences to others who may be still busy working on the lab. Reading the student blogs, the instructor has better chances to get better prepared before approaching them.

In this study, student feedback is collected and behavior patterns analyzed. Using blogs is found to simplify the tasks of reducing piracy. The tactics to prevent students from pirating in our study is by time stamping the lab works and making them public on the web as soon as possible. Blogs by design serve such a purpose. Anyone that pirates risks being caught by the instructor as well as virtually every other student in the class. We also have success with seeing students learning from peers through blogs. Traditionally, students turn in their works to instructors and have no easy way to learn how their peers achieve on the same assignments. By browsing the comments made by instructors on students’ blogs and the selected peer works, students have better chances to stimulate new ideas to be different from each other. The study shows students who took the lab courses are satisfied with turning in lab results through blog posting, getting instructor's walk-by interactions, piracy reduction, and learning from peers.

Keywords: Teaching with Technology, Blog.