Blogging in Academic Teaching

7/29/2019 Blogging in Academic Teaching.

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New ways to communicate with students. Blogging in academic teaching.

Mihai Deac, MA, Babe -Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca

Ioan Hosu, PhD, Babe -Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca

Introduction

As technology moves towards more and more integrated solutions for using the web, the

telephone or the computer, there is a natural tendency to decrease the amount of time and

attention people give to conventional ways of reading, studying and communicating. The

development of Web 2.0, social media, e-books and phone applications for using the internet

means that nowadays, the difference between an internet user and an administrator of content

is virtually inexistent and also that online communication has become accessible to

everybody, from anywhere, at any time. Actual dialogue, rather than reading what others

publish, is now, more than ever, possible. To add to this, the fact that the web and new media

are more likely to be used by members of the younger generation is also difficult to debate

against.

In this context, academic teaching is bound to be one of the areas where new media of all

kinds would make an impact. Using it for learning and for directing students preoccupation

with the internet towards online platforms where they can actually find relevant information,

where they can try collaborative studying and sharing their knowledge and resources, is vital

for having an interested and informed group of students. Blogging can be one of the best tools

to be used in such a direction.

Literature review (short version)

While there has been some interest towards the use of social media and Web 2.0 within

universities (Tait, 2010, offers what can be called a small textbook for using online

instruments in teaching) the focus has been mainly on the way lecturers and students use

social networks such as Facebook. Bosch (2009) is one of the authors to research the problem

on a small group of South African students, trying to describe how student networks relate to

Facebook networks of friends, as well as determining how lecturers and students

communicate through Facebook. In order to achieve the research objectives, Bosch analyzed

200 profiles and had 50 interviews taken with students and teachers. The results show that

students use the network in a variety of ways, some of them being more active than others.

Furthermore, those who are active do not always integrate academic preoccupations within


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their Facebook social contact experience. However, some of the subjects report that using the

social network makes their lives easier, as checking academics on the same platform they use

on a daily basis, for social reasons, turns out to be very practical. Also, using Facebook for

academics enables students to help each other with learning resources, advice and

administrative information, such as assignments, course venues, and time-table changes.

There is also a discussion on benefits that teachers might draw from being able to contact

students more efficiently, and in a more informal, comfortable environment.

There is also some level of research directed towards using online videos for teaching. Al-Jarf

(2011) shows the benefits of using online videos to help pre-med students stay in touch with

what is being taught, and for understanding procedures in spite of language barriers.

Scholarly blogging has been the focus of some innovative research, as early as the first few

years after blogs were developed (Flatley, 2005, Gregg, 2006). Even though the technology

had been available since the late 90s, blogs had become large-scale online instruments only a

few years after the turn of the millennium. Flatley used blogs as platforms where students

could work together, noticing that the teachers job was, in some concerns, much more

efficient. She was able to evaluate the level of involvement in group work and discussions in a

much easier way. Students used the academic blog from out-of-town, at various times of day

and night, they were active, brainstormed and shared ideas. On the other hand, Gregg (2006)

sees blogging as a way to invigorate academic discourse, and to encourage scholarly debate.

Context and objectives for the current research

As teachers at the department of Communication and Public Relations in Cluj-Napoca, we

have had the chance to use various online instruments in order to reach students in the most

efficient ways. There are three possibilities through which mediated teacher-student

communication occurs in our case: (1) posting information and resources on the official

website of the institution, which is not very time-effective since access to the server is

restricted and a limited number of employees have access to it, (2) using yahoo groups, which

have been the favored channels for communication by most teachers and students for the past

10 years, (3) using blogs, such as the one we have had running for the past year:

blogdeseminar.wordpress.com.


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The blog specified earlier (3) is established as a high profile website, currently reaching a

total of almost 40,000 page views, with daily averages that span between 150 and 350 views,

and a record of 806 views in one day. During the past year, we have gathered traffic data that

allow us to understand the way students use the blog for their courses. The increase in use of

the blog is correlated with a decrease in the use of the yahoo groups, which were considered

to be somewhat ineffective due to a series of reasons, such as (a) the huge amount of

unstructured information that was preventing the system from working properly, (b) the lack

of discipline and rules for using the group, (c) the difficulty to properly organize and archive

messages. As such, much of the information and resources concerning part of the courses was

moved onto the wordpress platform.

The objectives for the current study are to determine patterns of use of the academic blog by

the students. More particularly, determining:

- schedules and periods of intense use

- the type of content that is accessed - whether administrative information (assignments,

time tables) or scholarly content is preferred

- the purpose of use, be it for mandatory assignments or for other academic discussions

- the level of involvement by the users passive readers or active contributors

-the level of cooperation between peers

- whether using the blog is an alternative to yahoo groups and other channels of

communication

- student perceptions on the efficiency of the blog as teaching instrument

- whether the blog can become a platform for a larger user community, reaching beyond

the students from the Communication department and contributing to general

scholarly debate

Methods

Two research methods will be employed in order to reach this papers objectives: (1)

analyzing traffic data from blogdeseminar.wordpress.com, (2) collecting qualitative data

through semi-structured interviews with students from the Communication department.


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Documents

Blogging in Academic Teaching