BLOGGING FOR REFLECTIVE LEARNINGBEST PRACTICES & WORST MISTAKES

Anand RamchandDepartment of Information Systems

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The Context - IS1103 Computing & Society

! Global ethical, social & legal vacuums around use of IT

! Objectives:

! Awareness, Sensitivity

! Exploration

! Need for reflection

FISHEYSTREAM

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Reflective Learning

! Form of deeper mental processing in learning

! Active & critical thinking, understanding

! Draws out personal experiences and assumptions

! Forces reorganization of thoughts for application & analysis

! Catalyst for sense-making

! Several forms - concept maps, essays, forums, wikis, blogs

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Blogging

! Online publishing platform

! chronological

! easily updated

! interaction via readers

! Write once, read anywhere

! web, RSS readers, aggregators

ANNIEMOLE

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Platforms5

Blog.NUS6

Why Blogging?

! Social interaction to support knowledge construction

! Ownership over thoughts and understanding

! Informality promotes engagement

! Enhance writing and communication skills

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Guidelines for Students

! Group blogging - 3 to 4 students (44 groups)

! Each student had to make 4 posts in the semester

! Group blog accounted for 10% of grade

! Comments counted toward individual participation (10%)

! Wide umbrella of topics or focused on a single domain

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Results

! 668 vs.

1200 posts & 600 comments

! Creative output

! video, audio, text

! jockeying for eyes

! Deeper insights and reflection?

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Best Practices - #1 Easy Access

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Aggregated on NetVibes

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Best Practices - #2 Grading Criteria

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Relevant - bare minimum, irrelevant posts won’t get any score.

Descriptive - description of current state of affairs

Analytical - draws a logical sound conclusion

Normative - identifies ethical principles and values being affected, evaluates effect, claims of good/bad and ethical justification

Multi-Perspective - considers different perspectives involved before making claims

Engaged - demonstrates thorough involvement

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Best Practices - #3 Use Lecture Time

! 10 minutes set aside during each lecture

! Highlight both good and bad posts

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Best Practices - #4 Student Feedback

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Other Best Practices

! #5 - Group Effort instead of Individual

! internal group improvement efforts

! #6 - Use of Checkpoints

! avoid end of term crunch

! #7 - User Identities

! essential for grading

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Worst Mistakes

! #1 - Keeping up the momentum

! Spent 12 hours a week reading and commenting - it wasn’t enough

! Heavy reliance on tutors, but hours are a problem

! Momentum is vital

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Worst Mistakes

! #2 - Blogging by instructors / tutors

! Capability constraints! Time constraints

! #3 - Discussing the legal issues

! students need to realizewho is reading their content

! awareness of NUS IT policies

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Success? Failure? Recommended?

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