online blogging and voting

Transforming Learning and Instruction through an Online Blogging and Voting Environment

Using blogs in higher education is becoming commonplace. Many educators are using blogs to increase student interaction with their peers. However, is there a right way to design and implement an online blogging environment? This presentation introduces a blogging environment that allows students to comment and vote on their peers’ entries, thus enabling them to dictate the classroom discussion based on their votes. The environment is created using Pligg: an Open Source Content Sharing and Rating System.
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INTRODUCTION Blogging (i.e. web logging) as an educational tool is a hot topic. Many researchers have commented and provided research on how we blog and the uses of blogs as learning spaces in higher education (Nardi et. al., 2004; Williams and Jacobs, 2004). In their article, Williams and Jacobs state that “blogs have the potential, at least, to be a truly transformational technology in that they provide students with a high level of autonomy while simultaneously providing opportunity for greater interaction with peers” (2004). The benefits for using blogs and commenting on blogs in higher education are apparent. There is evidence that the blogging world and educational uses of blogging are continuing to expand (Williams and Jacobs, 2004). All educators, not only higher education, must respond to this evidence by becoming familiar with the design and implementation of online blogging environments. However, what does the design of a blogging system for use in higher education look like? There are several similar questions that must be answered. How do we design a blog system that provides an "opportunity for greater interaction with peers" (2004)? How do we enhance the class discussion utilizing topics that are discussed and commented on in the blogging environment? How do we provide students with the resources and skills needed to easily acclimate with a blogging system and buy-in to the use of a blogging system as part of the classroom environment? This presentation will provide the answers to these questions through the demonstration of the design and implementation of a blogging system used during the spring 2009 semester in an educational technology course. The course entitled Instructional Technology for Educators was comprised of twenty-five undergraduate education majors. In a pre-use survey, twenty of the students had never heard of or never used blogs before. There were three goals in the design of the online blogging system. The first goal of the blogging system was to create an environment where students could login, view, and comment on every blog entry from class on one site, eliminating the need to enter multiple URL addresses to comment on their peers’ entries. The second goal was to create an environment where students could vote on entries that they would like to discuss in class, thus leading to student participation in the class discussions. Finally, the third goal was to provide students with the resources and skills needed to easily access and gain familiarity with the blogging environment. The design of the system relied on the use and knowledge of open source content management systems. Two open source systems were selected for use. First, Movable Type was used as part of the university blogging system to allow students to submit blog entries on their own personal university space. Second, Pligg was used to aggregate student blog entries to one website and provide the tools to vote and comment on the entries. Each week during the semester, students were required to submit a blog summary and critique in response to a reading on a topic in instructional technology. Student entries were aggregated using the Pligg site. Once aggregated, students were able to go into the open source system and vote on and comment on blog entries from other students. The voting system was then used to lead and guide class discussions during the in-class portion of course. In other words, each week the instructor would highlight posts that had multiple votes and use them as conversation starters in class. METHOD In-use, and post-use surveys will be completed by the students about their experiences with and perceptions of using the blogging system by the end of April. This presentation will include the results from the survey data. The student responses will provide valuable information on students’ perceptions and uses of an online blogging environment. Attendees will gain valuable information on how to design, set up and implement an online blogging environment that enables commenting and voting on student blog entries. In addition, attendees will be given the knowledge and tools to stay current with the use of blogging in education and will leave knowing how to design a blogging system that provides an opportunity for "greater interaction with peers", enhances the class discussion utilizing topics that were voted on in the blogging environment, and provides students with the resources and skills needed to easily acclimate with a blogging system and buy-in to the use of a blogging system as part of the classroom environment. SOURCES Nardi, B.A., Schiano, D.J., Gumbrecht, M., and Swartz, L. (2004). Why We Blog. Communications of the ACM. 47 (12), 41-46. Williams, J.B. and Jacobs, J. (2004). Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher educator sector. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 20 (2), 232-247.