bloggin' your brains out in higher ed

Blogs and higher education? First, a few lines about my own teaching experience of blogging at a high school in Québec.
Second, comments on blogs in higher education. Then, general comments on the significance of the study of blogs in a sociology of the internet class. I could write a 50-pages essay on this... I'll try to be succinct. (I said TRY.)

PROTIC (click here for their website)

When I was 20, I started a project with high school students in my city, project called "Le Portfolio de A à Z". I went every week to Les Compagnons de Cartier, a large-size high school in Sainte-Foy, and discussed with 15-16 y.o. their life projects, carreer goals, etc. Students had to use a sort of pre-blog technology to track their evolution through the project. They were evaluated both on the process (blog-like traces) and on the final product (a final artefact and a presentation in front of a panel).

Generally, projects were good. For the very strong students, blogging was very useful, allowing them to plan, discuss, get feedback, evolve, and then reflect back on their learning process. For weaker students, though, blogs added to a task that was already overwhelming to them. They were not able to write regularly on it, and found it useless and painstaking. It certainly did not improve their learning experience, but rather increased their frustration with school. Bad news for high school kids.

Higher-Ed Blogs

I have been to a few educational conferences where professors and researchers discussed projects including blog or forum components analysis. Very few were bringing positive results: students were rarely participating at the minimum required level, showed little enthusiasm, and the most vocal students "monopolized" the space (they were either extremely forward or prolific, which shied away the more timid ones).

Education blogs, which display information on educational content, have an altogether different purpose, and consequently very different stories to tell. One of my past employers has one that is very (inter)active, very up-to-date, and quite thought-provoking. There is a fast link to it in the left-side bar (Remolino). I visit and contribute sporadically. My own "histoirelise" blog also discusses issues of education once in a while (I am going to study International Comparative Education next year...). As suggested, I visited http://weblogg-ed.com, and found it very interesting. Clearly, this blog is put together by someone who is really passionate about learning and freeware. I share the enthusiasm, and will visit regularly. I quickly glanced through http://www.educause.edu/, a website to which I will indubitably return to for my paper (it doesn't really look like a blog to me... more an NGO website, no??). I added both it to my webroll.

As for the actual use of blogs in classroom settings, in higher ed. I do think it is a marvellous idea, because:

I am comfortable with the technology;

I am used to doing it, and have used a blog for research planning before;

I love to write, and to have an audience;

They help me clarify my thoughts, share them with others, and get feedback on it.

In this light, the whole blogging experience is totally worth it for me. I appreciate to take the time to write these entries. They force me to think, and express myself in a coherent manner. I understand, however, why some students might be "allergic" to mandatory blogging. My sister, for example, HATES to sit in front of a computer. She LOVES the feel of paper. Therefore she would hate to have to do such a thing as blogging. Blogging IS time consuming. And for many, it is nothing but a drop of water in the ocean. Aren't we, ALREADY, flooded by useless information online? Why yet ANOTHER non-reliable source?

Why bother bloggin' about bloggin'?

Yes! Why bother about blogging at all?

Blogging is a growing phenomenon. From what we have seen in class, the number of blogs has been increasing exponentially since 1999. Youth from all over the world has been bloggin' their way to the net, sharing their lives, beliefs, learning experience. (Note: I include online journals in my definition of blog here...) Blogging is then, clearly, a social phenomenon, just as much as the Internet is.

More importantly, blogs are self-publishing tools that have the possibility to be subversive to mainstream media or (more or less) authoritarian governments (see this article, hinted at on the class blog, and this story from the New York Times about blogging control failures in China, as referenced by http://weblogg-ed.com.) Remember the publication ban on the Gomery report, and how a US blogger made it know to Canadian citizens? They are a new means of letting one express herself about whatever happens to be on her mind, of crucial importance to her, or even of democratic appeal. (Let us remember, however, all the issues of differentiated access to ICTs...)

Ok, Folks. This is WAY enough.
Time for some serious stuff: ODEs! Yessssssssssssss!