Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Artifact 1: The One About Blogging and Learning

My first artifact centers around my idea of blogging and learning based on a task given by one of the facilitators of my HMLT 5203 course.

Question: 

Choose an online example of a tool or resource used to support learning. 
1.  Which theory or theories of learning support the example chosen?
2.  Is this an appropriate approach in today's world?   
3.   How would you use the type of tool or resource in your own classroom/training or learning and teaching environment?

I chose blog as one of the tools to support learning and my justification is as follows:

Blogs are part of the concept of Web 2.0 which is a new generation of web development and design that functions to "facilitate communication, secure information sharing, interoperability and collaboration through the World Wide Web" (Wikipedia). In its simplest sense, a "blog" (also known as a "weblog") is a website maintained by an individual in which the writer will pen down his or her thoughts on events, hobbies, commentraries etc. Blogs can also incorporate creative multimedia tools such as video and music clips as well as animations to enhance the contents of the blogs.

You can easily create a blog by registering an account at WordPress.com or Blogspot.com if you have a Google Mail account. These two websites are among the most common websites for blogs and blogging.

At present, technology has become part of our lives. We depend on technological advancements to ease our daily routines and assist in creative human development skills. The definition of a blog as stated above translates the main idea of learning with technological support.  As you may have observed, learning takes place when a writer composes and organises their thoughts. Technology comes in when the writer wishes to publish their work online and adds multimedia to enhance the contents of their work. As such, blogs uphold the essence of connectivism. Blogs have created an impact on learning by using the World Wide Web as its host whereby viewers of blogs around the globe are able to compose, share, comment and review their published works online.


Blogs are exceptionally useful in the learning and teaching environment as it functions to facilitate collaborative learning among students. In other words, it allows asynchronous collaborative learning especially in the distance learning context. In the learning/teaching environment, teachers may create a "class blog" where the students in the class are the members or subscribers to the blogs. The teacher can then post activities and questions in the blog and the students are able to view and answer the questions posted. Besides that, students are also able to comment on each others post with guidance provided by the teacher. The concept of collaborative learning may relate to the concept of scaffolding introduced by Vygotsky in the sense that students are able to learn something new from their peers or teacher based on the review and feedback received from the class blogs.

Reflection

I never thought of the idea of using blogs to learn before I enrolled in HMLT 5203. This task initiated me to think in terms of how blogging can assist learning hence forming the basis of my research paper in which I deem to evaluate Web 2.0 tools that facilitate English language learning. Kindly view my full reflection on Artifact 1 here.



Stay tuned for more updates ...

8 comments:

  1. Dear Khoo (Reno)

    I think it would be good if you could give a little more information about your research project in the 'reflection' section. You may want to share your project proposal!

    what do you think?

    Best regards
    Sarah

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  2. Sarah is correct Khoo (Reno). You need to share the actual artifact for us to make comments. Please do so that we can comment on same my friend.

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  3. Hi Sarah and Steve,

    Thank you for your replies. I'll try load my proposal via Google docs later.

    Well, as I prepared my first artifact, I thought of reflecting on how I came up with my research which is why I wrote on the HMLT 5203 course.

    Hmm, I need to transfer my reflection section to another page itself since it looks jumbled up here. Sorry for that >.> Getting used to writing education reviews.

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  4. Hello Reno (Khoo)

    As you are suggesting, Blogs can truly be a great tool if used appropriately in English classes. The advantages can also be seen in other subject ares especially where feedback is needed important nd learners are afraid to speak out loud. Imran has a video on the use of Twitter in classrooms and it can also be used for blogging.

    Your reflection is also true of myself as I was not in anyway seeing the use of blogs possible in teaching and learning.

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  5. @Steve,

    Thank you for your feedback.

    @Dear all,

    I have reorganised my "Reflection" section on another page. Please go to this link to view my reflection: http://myworlde-portfolio.blogspot.com/p/reflection.html

    Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience caused.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Khoo (Reno)

    The STAR-L style gives your reflections a more organized look. However, I was wondering if you could present to us your actual artifact 1.

    The most interesting part is that you took the assignment to heart and set out to understand the blog as a means to support teaching and learning completely; trying to uncover the learning theories behind it. Besides, it is good to learn that you took the opportunity to learn from Dr Zoraini’s blog that she made for our HMLT 5203 course. It was your interest, motivation, clear understanding of the task and hard work that led you to make your own blog, I have visited it with delight and enjoyed reading your reviews on the fine details of your toy collection. I am truly glad to learn that the task required for artifact 1 has enriched your world and also given you the opportunity to carry out a research project on the use of blogs as a learning tool. It is indeed a good learning experience for you.

    Regards
    Sarah

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey Khoo

    Cool name maan. I just have a quick question. In our reflection, do we explictly explain the current state of our mind also? For eg. we might have taken a stand in the sessions and now might feel otherwise. How do we go about the process?

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  8. Hi Shriram,

    Sorry for the late reply. I have been busy. The name is just my persona. Well, IMO, it would be good to explain our state of mind so as to show our progression of thoughts at the end of the reflection exercise. In this way, you get to reflect on what you have learnt throughout the learning process i.e., what that you have come to know about concepts/ideas pertaining to the particular course. I think the STAR-L format provide this sort of pedagogy for our reflection exercise.

    ReplyDelete