I agree that the deep, connected, ongoing reflective process invited by blogs is a huge gift–I like the way you asked them to consider their n with others, too. My students, when coming up with the course rubrics, decided upon growth, participation, risk, effort and quality–and they realized that all of these areas involved their individual efforts to write, and their interaction with the others in the class, online and in person. In a culture that prizes the individual’s efforts, it is not so easy moving students from thinking about self first, to thinking about learning first, and when they do that, they see how serving the group means serving the learning means serving the self.

bg

One of my major themes was social learning. This occurred during synchronous times but more deeply away from class. I required them to reflect on this in terms of how the helped others and how others helped them. For the most part, this was the most satisfying part for me. These blended models of learning are becoming more and more appealing for reasons you suggest.