Educational applications of Web 2.0: Using blogs to support teaching and learning

Churchill, Daniel

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00865.x

Cited by 262 publications

(156 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…If students are going to be able to improve and grow as learners they need to develop this capacity for self-evaluation. A number of writers and researchers have built on Sadler's work by suggesting ways that the classroom can be developed as a community of co-learners such as via the use of blogs (Churchill 2009). Sadler's concept of connoisseurship speaks directly to the treatment of students as members of the academic community giving them access to the insider knowledge that they are often denied in conventional approaches to learning and teaching.…”

Section: Attendance Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-framing student academic freedom: a capability perspective

Macfarlane

2011

High Educ

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The scholarly debate about academic freedom focuses almost exclusively on the rights of academic faculty. Student academic freedom is rarely discussed and is normally confined to debates connected with the politicisation of the curriculum. Concerns about (student) freedom of speech reflect the dominant role of negative rights in the analysis of academic freedom representing 'threats' to academic freedom in terms of rights which may be taken away from a person rather than conferred on them. This paper draws on the distinction between negative and positive rights and the work of Sen (1999) to re-frame student academic freedom as capability. It is argued that capability deprivation has a negative impact on the extent to which students can exercise academic freedom in practice and that student capability can be enhanced through a liberal education that empowers rather than domesticates students.

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Section: Attendance Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-framing student academic freedom: a capability perspective

Macfarlane

2011

High Educ

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“…Kim (2008) found that blogs are advantageous over traditional computer-mediated communication (CMC) applications in terms of their affordances of interactivity, openness, visualization, and decentralization. A vast multitude of other studies (e.g., Churchill, 2009;Glogoff, 2007;Halic, Lee, Paulus & Spence, 2010;Huck, 2007;Kang, Bonk, & Kim, 2011;Yang, 2009;Williams & Jacobs, 2004) have also acknowledged the educational advantages of integrating such a social media tool into the curriculum. For instance Makri and Kynigos (2007) investigated blogs applied in a graduate course.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of blog-mediated peer feedback on learners’ motivation, collaboration, and course satisfaction in a second language writing course

Zhang

Song

Shen

et al. 2014

AJET

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This paper reported on a study of using blogs as out-of-class assignments for the development of learners' writing competence. There were 36 students of English majors from an intact second language (L2) writing class participating in this study. A mixed method design was employed to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data. The results showed that blog-based peer feedback had a statistically significant positive correlation with learners' motivation, collaboration, and course satisfaction. The findings also revealed that the feedback was conducive to learners' self-reflection and self-confidence in L2 writing and could give rise to an enhanced L2 writing experience. The study concludes that group collaborative writing via blogging can not only encourage collaboration and self-reflection but also engage learners in noticing and co-construction of knowledge. Pedagogical implications and challenges are addressed and suggestions for future research are advanced. IntroductionThe use of weblogs, more commonly known as blogs, for social communication has been growing in popularity in recent years across the globe. The number of blog users is increasing at an exponential rate each year. Take the case of China. By the end of December 2011, the total number of blog users had climbed to 319 million, an increase of 8.2% for the same time period in 2010 (Tencent IT, 2012). The active users of micro-blogs arrived at 254 million in 2011, an increase of 150.7% over 2010 (NetEase Tech, 2012). Chinese netizens are taking advantage of this novel form of communication to enjoy freedom of speech, to a larger extent, and blogs have become a crucially important avenue for the netizens to express their own views about personal interests, politics, and social issues. The same phenomenal growth of blogging can also be seen elsewhere. For instance, in the United States, an estimated number of blog readers reached 122.6 million in 2011, with a 2.5% increase over the previous year (Reese, 2012). In South Korea, most of the Internet users (89.7%) were social networking service (SNS) users, and more than 70% of these SNS users used blogs in 2011, which accounted for 84.0% of the respondents surveyed (Korea Internet & Security Agency, 2012). Obviously blogging has, at least to some extent, become part of social life for people in the digital era, without the demarcation of physical boundaries, social ideologies, race, and complexion.In the educational sphere blogs have been explored for promoting teaching and learning (Brescia & Miller, 2006;Ellison & Wu, 2008). Kim (2008) found that blogs are advantageous over traditional computer-mediated communication (CMC) applications in terms of their affordances of interactivity, openness, visualization, and decentralization. A vast multitude of other studies (e.g., Churchill, 2009;Glogoff, 2007;Halic, Lee, Paulus & Spence, 2010;Huck, 2007;Kang, Bonk, & Kim, 2011;Yang, 2009;Williams & Jacobs, 2004) have also acknowledged the educational advantages of integrating such a social media tool into the c...

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“…For instance, Churchill (2009) reported that students were encouraged to blog by the facilitator's own blogging activity. There is an opportunity for the instructor to become more active in future iterations of the class, and test whether the impacts of blog participation on student performance are different when the instructor is more active.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gullett and Bhandar (2010) found that 77 percent of MBA students found it easy to use blogs, but that just 25 percent agreed that it was easier to follow the discussion in blogs than in discussion boards. Churchill (2009) found in a Masters in Information Technology in Education class that 83 percent of students agreed that blogging facilitated and contributed to their learning; and that accessing and reading the blogs of other students and the facilitator contributed most to their learning. Similarly, Ellison and Wu (2008) found in an upper-level undergraduate information technology class that reading other students' blogs was the most helpful for understanding course concepts.…”

Section: The Effect Of Blogs On Student Learning Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Economics with Training Wheels’: Using Blogs in Teaching and Assessing Introductory Economics

Cameron

2011

SSRN Journal

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Blogs provide a dynamic interactive medium for online discussion, consistent with communal constructivist pedagogy. This paper explores the use of blogs in the teaching and assessment of a small (40-60 students) introductory economics paper. The role of blogs as a teaching, learning and assessment tool are discussed. Using qualitative and quantitative data collected across four semesters, students' participation in the blog assessment is found to be associated with student ability, gender, and whether they are distance learners. Importantly, students with past economics experience do not appear to crowd out novice economics students.Student performance in tests and examinations does not appear to be associated with blog participation after controlling for student ability. However, students generally report overall positive experiences with the blog assessment. Keywords economics education blogs teaching assessment JEL Classification A20, A22Acknowledgements

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Educational applications of Web 2.0: Using blogs to support teaching and learning

Cited by 262 publications

References 3 publications

Re-framing student academic freedom: a capability perspective

Re-framing student academic freedom: a capability perspective

The effects of blog-mediated peer feedback on learners’ motivation, collaboration, and course satisfaction in a second language writing course

‘Economics with Training Wheels’: Using Blogs in Teaching and Assessing Introductory Economics

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