wikis blogs podcasting

Title:

How and why professors use wikis, blogs and podcasting
Short Description:

Podcasting, wikis and blogs are becoming increasingly popular in teaching and learning in higher education. We conducted extensive interviews with five professors from three universities about the use of these tools, specifically focusing on 1) why they chose to use these tools in their courses, 2) how the tools were used in their teaching, and 3) what role the tools had on student achievement. We will discuss the results, common themes, and future directions.
Abstract: (Click here to enhance readability)

In this roundtable session we will discuss the results of our qualitative study on instructors’ use of current Web 2.0 tools, namely podcasting, wikis and blogs, in teaching and learning. This session is designed for instructors who are interested in using these tools, instructors who are currently integrating these tools into their courses, and instructional designers that support instructors integrating these tools into the curriculum.
The purpose of this study was to determine 1) why professors would decide to incorporate these tools into their courses, and 2) the effect using these tools has on student learning outcomes.
Background
As these technologies become more popular, their use in higher education continues to rise. Yet as adoption of these tools increases, we contend that the pedagogical potential of the tools is still evolving. The significance of using tools such as podcasting, wikis and blogs in higher education is the potential to incorporate a collaborative approach to teaching and learning. A learning environment designed for collaboration carries the potential for student learning to be socially constructed through conversations and interaction (Brown & Adler, 2008). This design can support self-regulated learning that occurs when students are able to reflect on what they know and construct meaning from information (Akbulut, 2007). The tools provide the potential for students to function as both learners and teachers, (Rogers, Chan, & Isom, 2007) sharing their knowledge with others while creating a deeper understanding for themselves. The collaborative nature of these tools allows for the harnessing of “collective intelligence” (Sreebny, 2007) of learners, where learners collaboratively achieve understanding of the content via discussion and reflection. The use of wikis, blogs and podcasts in a learning environment encourages learners to create new knowledge and continue to refine what they know over time (Richardson, 2006). Because these tools are relatively easy to use and require minimal formal training to learn, students can engage and share ideas with classmates and teachers quickly. Students are empowered to share their ideas, reflections, and understanding of the content (Brown & Bussert, 2007). These student artifacts can be published online to disseminate the constructed knowledge to a wider audience of peers and potentially the entire Internet community. Methodology
Professors from three Tennessee Board of Regent universities were interviewed about their use of blogs, wikis, and podcasting. These five professors represented four disciplines--science, business, English literature and education. The research questions focused on a) why they chose to use these tools in their courses, b) how these tools were used in their teaching and c) the role these tools had on student learning outcomes. Professors were interviewed at length, either face to face or through audio conference tool about the selection of the tools they used and the implementation of the selected tools. The transcribed interviews were analyzed for relevant themes as they supported the purpose of the study.
Conclusions Several themes emerged from this qualitative study. These themes included a) the overall shared experiences that learners had with each other and the instructor b) the experiences with the use of these tools in learning, c) student as teacher and technology mentor, d) the ability for technology to transcend the classroom and time, e) the interaction learners had with the content, f) technology safety, g) technology difficulties, and, h) selecting the appropriate technology. The participants also attempted to describe characteristics of instructors who choose to use these tools in their instructional design as well as why they would take the initiative to continue experimenting with these tools. We will discuss specifics about the wide range of instructors using these tools, and about how they use the tools. Interestingly, each of our five participants used the tools in markedly different ways. We will also discuss ideas for future research related to instructor variables and instructional strategies connected with these tools.
References
Akbulut, Y. (2007). Instructional use of weblogs. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 8 (3), 6-14.
Brown, J.S. & Adler, R.P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail and learning 2.0. Educause Review, 43(1), 16-32.
Brown, N.E. & Bussert, K. (2007). Information literacy 2.0: Empowering students through personal engagement. Paper presented at the International Educational Technology (IETC) Conference, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Rogers, P.C., Liddle, S.W., Chan, P. & Isom, B. (2007). Web 2.0 learning platform: Harnessing collective intelligence. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 8(3), 1, 16-33.
Sreebny, O. (2007). Digital rendezvous: Social software in higher education.Educause Center for Applied Research, Research Bulletin, 2.
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.