Learning Team B has chosen to highlight blogging as our
asynchronous learning technology tool of choice because it is a very popular and
useful way for people to share information including their thoughts and interest
in a way that is accessible to a great number of users quickly. The word blog
comes from combining the two words “web” and “log” because a blog is how people
share a log of their thoughts via the World Wide Web. World Wide Web is not
just a catchy phrase; it implies that information once placed on the Internet is
accessible anywhere in the world that has Internet access. In our culture of
global education this is important because the internet allows us to import and
export information from everywhere in virtually no time therefore learners can
productively collaborate and interact via the tool of blogging whether in a
classroom, plane, train, or in a café. Blogging is present in various forms of
social media as Facebook and Twitter are forms of micro blogging.
Maheridou, Antoniou, Kourtessis & Avgerinos (2011) in
their study on the use of blogs in a distance learning settings quoted (Instone,
2005) stating that blogs, “enable sharing and collaboration between
geographically remote users and offer the opportunity for new forms of
student-centered pedagogic practices”. Blogging allows learners to be creators
and exporters of information not just merely consumers and importers of
information. This ties in to student-centered learning because the learner is a
more active participant in their learning. When we look at how various people
learn, we know that you engage a learner the more they are able to retain
information learned from their learning experience.
Blogging as an asynchronous learning tool allows learners
produce information that is accessible to the world and in the production of
information the learner is first required to research the subject then create a
product that will be available be viewed and commented upon by others. When
someone’s work is published for the masses to view and openly criticize, they
usually put much more thought and care into its production because our work is a
representation of ourselves to people who will probably never meet
us.
Video below gives information on how the asynchronous
technology tool of blogs can be used in education.
MAHERIDOU, M., ANTONIOU, P., KOURTESSIS, T., & AVGERINOS,
A. (2011). BLOGS IN DISTANCE EDUCATION: An Analysis of Physical Educators'
Perceptions of Learning. Turkish Online Journal Of Distance Education
(TOJDE), 12(1), 95-107.
Palm Breeze Cafe. (n.d.).
Blogs in Education. Retrieved from Youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7XiCg_wpzE
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