Blogs as a Tool for Teaching

Krause, Steven D. (2005) Blogs as a Tool for Teaching. Information Technology: The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Steven is a lecturer in English language and literature.

In his paper, Steven discusses his experiences having been using blogs in his teaching over the last three years, not always successfully. He has come to the following conclusions:

• Even though students are given the opportunity to use new technologies (e.g. blogs), they may not want to;
  
• To blog requires the author to have a “desire to reach an audience”;
  
• Blogs do not necessarily promote interaction between writers; and
  
• Blogs are best used to publish finished pieces of writing rather than encouraging “process writing”.

Steven’s most successful use was to have students keep a journal using a blog. The advantages he cited for doing this electronically were both practical and pedagogical:

• Easy of collection and transporting for assessment purposes;
  
• Ease of checking relevant active links; and
  
• Availability of peer assessment and review by other members of the teaching/learning group.

Quantum Diaries

Quantum Diaries - 'follow physicists from around the world as they live the World Year of Physics'.

2005 is the International Year of Physics to recognise the 100 year anniversary of Einstein’s “Miraculous Year”. To help celebrate the International Year of Physics, 33 physicists from many countries are keeping a diary of their everyday activities. These are the Quantum Diaries. Entries are varied and while it is interesting to experience the ordinary (and not so ordinary) life of a physicist, the references to actual physics is sparse and somewhat difficult to find.

Quantum diaries can be found at http://interactions.org/quantumdiaries/index.html.

Another Blog from a Scientist in Antartica

Jessica Dempsey has just completed her PhD at The University of New South Wales and is currently spending nearly a year in Antarctica working as an astronomer. She is based at the Admundsen-Scott Base working on the VIPER telescope (a microwave radio telescope).

Her blog, ‘Jess’s South Pole Diaries’ can be found at http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/%7Ejtd/blog1.html

The entries in the diary cover a range of topics from her professional work, the social life at the base and the problems associated with the cold and isolation. Her writings on Saturday, April 23, 2005 describe the wonderment that even an astronomer can experience at seeing a scientific phenomenon such as the Aurora Australis.

A weblog to document Scientific Research

In December, 2004, Ashley Below from the University of New England undertook her second journey to Antarctica as part of a research team. The team was investigating the effects of high level of UV radiation on the development of fatty acids, amino acids, and carbohydrate in phytoplankton and the impact in the food chain.

Regular entries to a weblog documents the daily activities that are undertaken by a research scientist. What information is collected and what instruments were used to collect it? What will need to done at the end of the expedition. What is life like on board the research vessel.

It provides a valuable resource for school students in NSW who are expected to study a variety of science based careers. It gives students an insight into modern scientific research and life as a scientist.

Below’s weblog can be found at Ashley Below: Antarctic Blog Entries

Wiki in teaching and learning article

UniServe Science conducts an annual symposium on issues relating to the teaching and learning of science at a tertiary level. This year the symposium will be held in late September and the theme is Blended Learning.

I have been sourcing articles to be included in a bibliography to support this year’s conference, focusing mainly on the use of information and communication technologies in science teaching and learning. Bibliographies produced for previous conferences are available from our our conference web page.

In my searching, I am locating occasional papers on the use of blogs and other direct publishing and content aggregation tools in tertiary education and in science education in particular.

A presentation on one such project was given at the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education ASCILITE conference last year. It was entitled Teaching and learning online with wikis.

Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, has a long and well established role as a provider of distance and online education. Within their degree course in IT, one subject must be undertaken entirely online. In previous years, students had expressed some dissatisfaction with the course and online learning. In an attempt to counteract this dissatisfaction, the authors carried out an ice-breaking activity at the beginning of semester via a Wiki. This paper discusses the results of the activity although at the time of writing, the effect on student satisfaction had not been established.

The paper also gives a good summary of what wikis are, things to consider when selecting a wiki for educational purposes and a justification for making the selection they did. It also covers some of the conditions they established to ensure a positive experience for users.

While this unit of study was IT, the concept could be used in most subject areas.

The whole paper can be found in the ASCILITE 2005 Proceedings.

I attended the “Blogtalk Downunder” conference last weekend which was held in Sydney, Australia. I was representing the organisation for which I work, UniServe Science, which is based at The University of Sydney. Our role is to support good science teaching at all levels and in particular the use of information and communication technologies in science teaching.

Before attending the conference, I new a little about blogs. I had set up a couple using one of the web sites available (e.g. Blogger) and I knew how easy it is to do. I have also been maintaining a web page for science educators which lists sites, examples and articles on blogs in science education. But I certainly was not an active blogger.

I went to the conference hoping to find out how blogs are being used in three areas: science education; science research; and research into science education. When I say science, we broadly cover physics, chemistry, biology, biochemistry, geosciences, mathematics and statistics, psychology and computer science.

There were several presentation on the use of blogs in courses at a tertiary level. The only science example presented at the conference was the use of blogs to monitor and assess the progress of the Software System Design at University of Technology, Sydney.

For a full report on the conference and papers delivered, visit the Blogtalk Downunder web site.

On returning to the office on Monday, I spent a bit of time searching for examples of the use of blogs in science education. While there are many good examples of science blogs (e.g Real Climate) which discuss current issues in science and science research, there does not appear to be many examples of blogs being used as a tool within science education.

At the conference, I was a bit of a lurker, but today I am jumping into the Blogosphere!

Through this blog, I hope to build up a picture of how blogs are being used in science education.

If you are using blogs in any way, please contact me. I welcome any contributions that fall into the three categories: science education, science research or research into science teaching.