The Use of Blogs and Wikis in the Classroom

My focus this week as part of our online discussion was to examine whether tech tools such as blogs and wikis would be a good fit for the online classroom. Blogs and wikis are excellent examples of asynchronous learning tools.

There are a number of benefits and potential difficulties with using blogs and wikis in the online classroom. The benefits include the richness of learning experience that the student is able to experience as they access vast resources available online. EduBlog Insights refers to numerous benefits including giving students a voice through the use of a blog, encouraging a larger body of knowledge on a subject, a gathering place of sorts for students to come together to share ideas. One aspect that I was particularly excited about was the opportunity for students to collaborate with others around the world who share an interest or passion for a particular topic, assess research that has already been published on the subject and engage in critical reflection with potentially thousands of others around the world, thus contributing to a growing body of knowledge. It is also likely that public blogs would offer the student such diversity of opinions and new ways of looking at topics that they would be forced to step outside their own comfort zone and familiar learning style. When I think about the idea of students moving from passive to active learning, the blog or wiki appears to hold a lot of possibility!

Blogs that I have followed over the past few years, on a variety of topics, have invited constructive dialogue from readers and a sharing of ideas and resources, and may offer a type of peer review that, while informal, might benefit the learning experience in an online classroom.

There are also potential problems in relying too heavily on public blogs and wikis because of the potential for students to interpret opinions as facts and forget that these opinions are not subjected to the same level of peer review and academic standards that one might expect to find on a moderated, educational blog. The tendency of bloggers to connect to each other might also feed an information frenzy with ideas that are rarely challenged on their merits, potentially reducing the learning experience for the online student. I'm also concered with the issue of privacy, as students may link to blogs that put them, and their role in the course, in a more public spotlight than they would have wished for. Comments posted on blogs may be taken out of context and there is the potential for online bullying to occur. If an issue like online bullying were to occur, what role does the professor then play in terms of managing the situation? At what point does one draw the line between offensive comments being made on a public blog that is being promoted as a learning tool for a course?

"Blogs are reshaping our environment. They are beginning to emerge in large numbers in the educational field and offer great potential to transform learning and teaching. Its about new literacies appropriate for this
time." (Edublog Insights)