Week 10 Blogs

I like Lisa’s visual map about the pedagogical use of blogs. It gives us some good hints and guidelines on how to determine the specific forms and ways of using blogs for class. I agree that teachers need to be very sure about their pedagogical goals of using blogs, or other social networking tools. I even think setting clear goals is the most important thing in the process. My personal opinion is that teachers should avoid using blogs or other social networking tools if their goals are vague, or their goals are just to spice up the class. After all, whatever technology tools that teachers use for class, the ultimate goal is to facilitate and enhance instruction, that is to say, to make instruction more effective.

Blogs can play different roles according to different pedagogical purposes. Just like Lisa stated in her presentation, it can be a forum, a resource center, a place for class presentation and interaction etc. As a student, I have used blogs, Google sites and wikis for my online courses. The teachers usually asked us to post reflections on our blogs and they commented on them. I also worked with other classmates to do group projects using Google sites and wiki. Overall, I enjoyed the experience of using these tools. Blogs, Google sites and wikis become additional communication bridges and platforms between teachers and students, between students and their classmates. They make the whole online learning process more convenient to some extent.

Speaking of communication, I start to think about the interesting questions Dr. Major raised about blogging: how do you know if someone has read it or not (and is that important?)? If no one reads it, have you communicated? If no one responds, have you connected? How do students feel if they blog and no one responds? From my perspective, it is important to know if someone, no matter the teachers or classmates, has read my blog or not. In most cases if people don’t leave comments, it is not likely to know all the readers. However, I could still see the hit count of my blogs. I don’t think I have really communicated if no one reads my blog. Communication is two-way. If no one read my blog, I can only say my blog is just a place to achieve my thoughts, but not a place to interact with others. Theoretically speaking, I should feel connected if someone has read my blogs even without commenting. But in reality, I will feel a little disappointed and frustrated. After all, we need others’ feedback and comments which are actually important in the communication process.