(the new) bgblogging

To open our interactive session on blogging in the higher ed classroom this afternoon, we will have participants respond to the following writing prompt via the comments section:

Do you have a vision of where social software fits into learning?

What is it that you need in order to understand the integration of blogs into the learning?

Responses pulled over from the version of the question on Héctor’s blog:

Comments: EDUCAUSE NLII MEETING

** Do you have a vision of where social software fits into the learning?

I have some ideas but am interested in learning more about how other people are incorporating social software into higher education and student learning.

** What is it that you need to understand the integration of blogs into the learning?

Many students are familiar with blogs in a social, informal context but we are interested in how blogs can be used for _learning_. How do we structure learning activities, curricula, etc. for students to help them understand this change in purpose?
Posted by Helen at January 24, 2005 04:13 PM

vision that fits into learning:

social software allows learners to find and communicate with other learners and/or get different viewpoints on a topic

integration of blogs:

– how can you effectively use a system that is loosely structured to easily find what you are looking for.
– how do you integrate blogs with the traditional, socratic, method of teaching.
Posted by paras at January 24, 2005 04:12 PM

My worry is that if favors the typing literate rather than the vocal literate inordinately.
Posted by Carl Berger at January 24, 2005 04:12 PM

Collaborative blogs enable learners to communicate with each other in an informal, conversational format. They are simultaneously entering other conversations as they link to other sites. At the very least, they introduce ideas of public discourse as fundamental to a particapatory democracy.
Posted by Dolen at January 24, 2005 04:12 PM

Vision: Social software fits into learning as a tool used for effective communication from one-to-one and/or one-to-many.

Need: For the experience. My schedule prevents me from doing diddly so I am happy to devote time to researching this methodology at NLII. Novice.
Posted by Jenny at January 24, 2005 04:10 PM

I think it will make students at easy in many ways. Social software is a fast and relatively cheap way to share, collaborate, and learn.
Posted by Olga Trusova at January 24, 2005 04:10 PM

I don’t have a vision yet of social software and learning, other than the immediacy that blooging affords can lead to some very un-reflective comments. Such as this one.

I need to understand the writing process that will help allievate the above statement.
Posted by Bill Corrigan at January 24, 2005 04:10 PM

Being a conservative social constructivist, I think this forms the basis for student rapid and creative construction of learning in a course or any informal setting.
Posted by Carl Berger at January 24, 2005 04:09 PM

My vision is of a rich, shareable, persistent intersubjective space that demonstrates the way in which teaching and learning must be pervasive in order to be authentic. I’m also delighted by the way blogs are a) personal research managers and b) ways to see thinking in process.

My questions have to do with something quotidian but important: should classroom blogs be locked down a la CMS? I don’t like that, but I do understand the need for a “safe space” and also (especially?) the way some students feel personally at risk from stalkers and other kinds of unwanted attention if they are visible to the world in this way.
Posted by Gardner Campbell at January 24, 2005 04:09 PM

Social software is absolutely essential if we are to engage the digital natives and give them the skills they may need to succeed in the information world. Structured activities with social software will acquaint them with a wider range of skills.

I want discipline-specific discourse within the blog, not the diary-style. How do I shift my students to that mode?
Posted by Kathy at January 24, 2005 04:09 PM

1. I see weblogs as a tool to further the discussion and back-and-forth that is valuable in any education. I see weblogs as a method of establishing or continuing the dialog or debate.

2. What are the legal pitfalls, such as FERPA, that need to be addressed? What about students’ comfort with exposing their ideas to the rest of the world and the potential for interaction with entities outside the classroom?
Posted by Chris at January 24, 2005 04:09 PM

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