5 Ways Blogging Can be Used in Various Adult Education and Training Environments

Luehman and MacBride (2009) in their study defined a blog as:

               

A frequently updated personal online space (a type of web page) where an author publishes a series of posts, engages others in discussion about her posts, and collects and shares resources. These posts are searchable by categories and archived sometimes over a long period of time, usually in reverse chronological order thus presenting the most recent work first. (p. 6)

Given the definition above, there are several uses for blogging in adult education. Adult education and training has many facets such as corporate training, ESL, community education, adult basic education, religious education, higher education, and various forms of informal education. The members of Learning Team B facilitate within a wide range of areas and the following are 5 uses for blogging in out various teaching environments in adult education and training.

Creating a Marketplace to Share Materials and Exchange Additional Resources

Sometimes learners during the course of the classroom discussion will bring up resources that can further everyone’s knowledge on the subject matter. A blog can provide a place where learners and facilitators can freely add hyperlinks and upload documents that everyone can use as a resource.

            Giving Learners a Chance to Continue Discussions Beyond the Classroom

Facilitators have a certain amount of time allotted to go through the material and meet their objectives. Sometimes the time restraints force the facilitator to cut good discussions short so that all of the items can be covered. A blog is a place where those good conversations can be continued over an extended period. This also helps because learners have more time for reflection outside of the classroom.

            Encouraging Learners to Produce a Higher Quality of Work

Even adult learners are tempted to put in a little less effort when they feel no one will ever see their work. Since blogs are public spaces were the world, or at least the entire class can view their work requiring learners to submit writing assignments via blogs can encourage them to represent themselves better due to the observer effect.

             

             Online Collaboration

Blogs are tools that can allow learners to collaborate online. In a team scenario work can be easily edited making it easier to arrive at a finished product. Care must be taken because passwords must be guarded and logs should be kept of updates just in case someone make corrections that are not so correct.

  

              Integrating Multimedia

A facilitator can use a blog the central class website where they upload additional resources such as audio and video and require learners to watch and post their thoughts on what they have seen or heard. The facilitator’s knowledge may be limited, but there are many credible experts with free podcast. These podcast and multimedia resources can be inserted into a blog entry. This tool enhances the learning.

Luehmann, A., & MacBride, R. (2009). Classroom blogging in the service of student-centered pedagogy: Two high school teachers' use of blogs. THEN: Technology, Humanities, Education & Narrative, (6), 5-36.