There are a number of issues to be addressed when starting to use a blog with students in a blended learning situation they parallel the five stage [pop-up] model developed by Gilly Salmon (2000).
Although all of these stages need to be addressed there will be some overlap bewtween the stages as engagement may vary considerably within the group. Some students will be much more confident in using the technology and answering cognitively more difficult questions than others. The aim is to reach stage four for all students and stage five for as many as possible.
The stages might be loosely associated with the degree levels in that:
- a student who copes with just the first two stages might be operating at grade D level
- one who deals successively with stage 3 might be operating at grade C level
- similarly engagement with stage 4 might show grade B behaviour
- and success at stage 5 might be indicitive of grade A behaviour
See the staff development page and the Ice Model for another perspective on this.
Stage 1: Access & Motivation
The main focus of this stage is on exploring the technology and access to it. Winning the learner's trust is the main goal. Time is also spent on motivating participants; e-tivities (Salmon 2002) are organised around this.
A similar process needs to be undertaken with students using a blog. Initially students are reluctant to publish their thoughts on-line for all to see and they need extensive encouragement. This requires a careful construction of activities that builds up the learner's confidence in using the technology.
This requires that thought is given to the following possible "hurdles":
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For many the technology itself is daunting and student's need to be confident in how to use it and need to be given easy access.
This is not helped by the way in which some VLEs are managed in a manner that takes control away from the tutor and learner. Issues around access such as usernames and passwords not working, or students not being subscribed to a particular course are all things which create additional anxiety.
To allow the tutor to help with developing the student's confidence these intial activities should be done in a face to face "safe" environment so that the tutor can sort out any difficulties immediately. It is not a good idea to send the students off after the face to face session and tell them to do an online activity. It simply will not happen.
Once this intial access issue has been dealt with, possibly by using a technology that gives students and tutors more control, such as an open access blog, then the learners and the tutors can focus on dealing with the intial psychological barriers of publishing on-line.
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To build up confidence in publishing on-line the intial activities need to be carefully planned.
There are two aspects to this. The first involves giving the individual student control over their activity and the second making the activities progressive in their cognitive difficulty.
To give the student control over their activitiy they need to be individually based and intially cognitively relatively undemanding so that the self publishing barrier is minimised.
An example first activity might be to ask students to access
one of a list of web sites to identify some information which might be used
to answer a specific question and to paste this information into a post or
a comment and giving the URL of the source material. This does not put do
great a cognitive or psychological hurdle in the way of the student. They
have to choose a piece of information but they do not have to explain their
reasons for choosing it.
Stage 2: Socialisation
Building on the first stage, this stage focuses on social processes and community building
At the next stage students might be asked to do the first activity in small face to face groups but this time they have to explain why they have chosen theis particular information from the page. To relieve the individual anxiety they are asked to publish as a group so that the individuals do not have to "expose" their ideas on-line.
In these first two stages the students need to build up their confidence
enough so that they can go away and make a post or comment when they are
away from the face to face situation. This activity needs to be cognitively
undemanding and relate to ideas with which they are familiar. A common activity
is to ask students to post saying what they expect to get out of the module
and why they are doing it. However some find it difficult to put personal
comments on-line so it may be better to give a choice of activity. Care should
be taken to ensure that the task set is not too time demanding and it should
be realised that not all students will succeed in doing after the first session
so these two stages need to extend at least into the second session and probably
beyond.
Stage 3: Information Exchange
This stage revolves around exchanging information and performing tasks. Interaction takes place at two levels, namely with the course content and with other participants and the moderator.
At this stage students can be asked to find information that satisfies a particular set of criteria. They can publish this information on their blog with a statement of why the information satisfies the particular criteria.
Stage 4: Knowledge Construction
Knowledge development is central to this stage. Discussion activities and group dynamics play a major role too.
Here students might extend the task to making judgements about the relative worth of the data for a particular task. Others might be asked to comment on this and promote a debate in which the group can be involved in discussing ideas. This is the beginning of the debate which reaches its fruition at the next stage.
Stage 5: Development
This stage is characterised by reflection and group learning.
References
Salmon, G. (2000) E-moderating: the key to teaching and learning online, Kogan Page
Salmon, G. (2002) E-tivities: the key to active learning online, Kogan Pag