Well here we are and a month has gone by since my last blog. I would love to have included a few more blogs before the end of January 2007 but the reality is that I had a 31 Jan deadline to meet, in relation to the design of a synchronous lesson on the use of wiki’s. So I have not had a wasted month, I have been through the rigour and thought processes of designing for the synchronous classroom and at the same time I have continued with developing my understanding of how wiki’s work/ don’t work both from a technical point of view and from a human point of view.
Ideally I would have wrote this blog entry in the middle of January, but when you are in the heart of battle, it is difficult to break off to give updates when you are on the brink of victory or near the edge of failure.
That said I am here now telling my story and I like the fact that my commitment to blogging draws me back and gets me thinking about the next subject i can usefully blog about. So for me this blogging escapade that I am embarked upon is useful to me in that it helps to:
• Consolidate my knowledge
• Recheck facts that I am not sure of
• Think though the implications of what I am writing and therefore try and understand ideas, concepts and facts that I am writing about.
This is all very well, fine and dandy. As my blogging is in the context of a long haul approach over a two year period and will culminate in a reflective essay on my blogging activities perhaps it is ok that I use my blog to aid my learning as laid out in the three points above.
Practically though on a 12 week module how can reflective blogging be used to benefit the learning of students. Unless some deep thought(learning) is part of the process, then the blog can just become a desperate attempt to get the appropriate number of words, links, images etc etc to meet the assessment criteria. Effective Blog learning strategies – this is a subject for another time....
Further to my recent activities on using wiki’s my next blog will look at the strengths of wiki’s and what teaching/ learning strategies will lead to effective use of a wiki.
Footnote1: As I have just finished writing this blog, it occurs that it is good to give readers an expectation of what to expect in the next blog- hopefully to heighten expectation so that readers will be keen to return and read the next installment.
Footnote 2: I only intended to write a couple of paragraphs just as an update, but it has rekindled my desire to return to the question of “what is the point of blogging?”
Ideally I would have wrote this blog entry in the middle of January, but when you are in the heart of battle, it is difficult to break off to give updates when you are on the brink of victory or near the edge of failure.
That said I am here now telling my story and I like the fact that my commitment to blogging draws me back and gets me thinking about the next subject i can usefully blog about. So for me this blogging escapade that I am embarked upon is useful to me in that it helps to:
• Consolidate my knowledge
• Recheck facts that I am not sure of
• Think though the implications of what I am writing and therefore try and understand ideas, concepts and facts that I am writing about.
This is all very well, fine and dandy. As my blogging is in the context of a long haul approach over a two year period and will culminate in a reflective essay on my blogging activities perhaps it is ok that I use my blog to aid my learning as laid out in the three points above.
Practically though on a 12 week module how can reflective blogging be used to benefit the learning of students. Unless some deep thought(learning) is part of the process, then the blog can just become a desperate attempt to get the appropriate number of words, links, images etc etc to meet the assessment criteria. Effective Blog learning strategies – this is a subject for another time....
Further to my recent activities on using wiki’s my next blog will look at the strengths of wiki’s and what teaching/ learning strategies will lead to effective use of a wiki.
Footnote1: As I have just finished writing this blog, it occurs that it is good to give readers an expectation of what to expect in the next blog- hopefully to heighten expectation so that readers will be keen to return and read the next installment.
Footnote 2: I only intended to write a couple of paragraphs just as an update, but it has rekindled my desire to return to the question of “what is the point of blogging?”
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