A Series of Reflections: Blogs

Throughout this course we have been encouraged to experiment with blogs and discover the various ways they can be used as a learning tool, to eventually aid us [as pre-service teachers] in creating our own pedagogy and increasing the chance of successful and positive learning outcomes from our potential students. In taking on this challenge I will discuss below:

• the technical aspects I have found to be particularly useful and have made use of myself in either this post or previous ones,

• the potential for positive learning outcomes and possible ways of making use of this tool [blogs] in the areas of Business and Mathematics,

• and finally I hope to outline some evidence of my experimentation and show the extent of my technical skills regarding this particular prospective learning tool.

The technical aspects

A blog enables its user/author to share their content (most commonly thoughts or opinions on a particular topic) with their readers. The content of a blog is generally only edited by the one person, however additional authors can be added in the "permissions" section of the settings. Readers can comment on, like, or +1 etc. this content to in some way provide feedback for the author. On examining my own blog the main medium of feedback seems to be based on views which can be seen via the 'overview' section. This section shows how many views there were 'today' or 'yesterday' and so on. I interpret views as feedback in the sense of a sign of interest.

Google blogs have a wide range of customisation options which aid the user to entice their target audience or to help create a certain feel or encourage a particular feeling, one of which compliments their content. As well as these options there are also simple tools within which allow you to change adapt your text and include links, images or videos, there is also a really interesting "quote" function which allows and encourages you to be creative when incorporating quotes.

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter" 

~ Dr. Seuss

Overall, throughout my use of the blog i have found it to have a high level of usability. It has enough features to be useful without having an over abundance of features the average user may never touch or make use of (the same can not be said of some of Microsoft Word's features) The options available in regards to commenting and viewing are simple and reasonable (can people comment? yes or no. From which sites can one view this blog? Are the posts public or can they only be viewed by followers?). Google's "Blogger" is a comfortable program one of which requires only minutes to figure out. 

The potential for positive learning outcomes in the areas of Business and Mathematics

Immediately i can think of applying the use of blogs to both areas as a way of checking on my students. I can envision my students blogging about their thoughts on a lesson, how it went, what they had hoped to get done in class today, posting any questions they may be struggling with and having them help each other out, when i might not have time to check their posts often enough. This would encourage a higher rate of understanding across a wider range of topics, where usually a student would need to rely on whether a teacher had time to get to their queries physically in the classroom. However this may pose a problem with large classes, for example a high school teacher may have up to or more than 5 classes with student numbers ranging anywhere from 12 to 30 students. It may be difficult to keep up with everyone online. This method may best be suited with select classes of perhaps only seniors where the set work is generally open to interpretation, this might encourage discussion and collaboration of ideas between the students. 

This would also provide a better method for constant teacher feedback, as opposed to a small survey at the end of the term as i have seen many teachers do. I can surely see myself using blogs in this way.

Incorporating blogs into a business pedagogy, can be done with ease in my own opinion. Business is all about moving forward and experimenting with new ways to increase marketing outcomes, finding newer and more efficient ways to increase organisational productivity, and as a whole create more convenient ways to communicate and collaborate ideas to aid in the success of a business or organisation. Blogs can be incorporated in such a way that students can practice these skills they can post their assessment ideas and experiment with the features as discussed earlier to display their marketing pitches for example; complete with links to their research, graphs via the 'insert image' tool, or display their advertisements via the 'insert a video' tool. Such use could have positive learning outcomes in the form of: the encouragement of creativity in their work (consider Ken Robinson's ted talk, appendix 1) and a higher comfort level concerning ICT and other methods of communication that students wishing to pursue the business path will inevitably encounter.

It is my belief that this ITC method is best suited to business when compared with mathematics, where it may only be used in one or two ways (consider suggestions discussed in the first paragraph under this heading).

The SAMR Model

Blogs in business using the SAMR model:

Substitution: Using a blog to share notes instead of handwriting everything into a note book or using Word where it gets stored away and is forgotten about. This allows for others to see and catch up on anything they might have missed, whilst also allowing a teacher to see who is engaging in the classroom.

Augmentation: Elaborating on substitution through adding video's and images to demonstrate further understanding.

Modification: Elaborating on augmentation through adding external uses, such as homework or assignment brain-storming and collaborating, allowing students to further consider class topics.

Redefinition: As well as including the above points, a blog could redefine assessment items which require multiple steps. For example marketing students may need to create an advertisement; they can add their image, discuss its components below, maybe add their speech as an audio file or video as well- and all through the one program. This is much more convenient as otherwise there would need to be printouts of both the image and the speech as well as class time put aside for the speech to be delivered. This is a lot of paperwork to keep track of and mark, where as were it submitted through a blog the teacher only has to view it online.

A brief demonstration of technical skill

I hope i have been able to demonstrate a sound knowledge of some of the features within a Google blog, i believe i have covered the main text options such as headings, alignment, font and font size. I have also experimented with bold/italic/underline/highlight, as well as the image, video (below), quote and link options. I have also adjusted the look of my blog by customising the background colour scheme and layout further. Privacy and permissions settings were also discussed briefly. 

To conclude i would just like to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed this embedded task and the challenge of incorporating as much of the features as reasonable in a professional blog. I look forward to 'A Series of Reflections: Wikis' next week.

Appendix

Appendix 1: Ken Robinson's Ted Talk