sue watling

It is a fact universally acknowledged that every learning experience will somewhere include reference to a blog. If you are new to blogging and wondering what all the fuss is about, try the Guardian article The world’s 50 most powerful blogs (2008) and see Edublog awards for examples of educational bloggage.

Blogging tools are easily available; free software includes WordPress and Blogger. If you have an internet connection then you too can blog. Blogs are Web 2.0 tools for self publishing – free of quality controls and censorship. They’re an example of the power of the internet to link virtual identities and personal life stories, to build virtual networks which may or may not translate into off-line relationships.

So why do we blog? Is it because we can? Or we’ve been asked to? Or we’re being assessed and the marks count towards the end of year exams? Or is it evidence of CPD? Behind every behaviour there lies a motivation.

This blog is a mirror that reflects my role in the Centre for Educational Research and Development at the University of Lincoln, UK. It’s not a reflective blog. I’m unconvinced that reflection should be located in a public arena. Nor is it a diary – for the same reasons. It’s meant to be functional; a Web 2.0 toolbox; a repository of bits and pieces of technologies; postcards of my virtual travels across the Internet. Although reflection has gone into this statement; it’s all behind the scenes; the blog is the end result not the process of getting there. To me, that’s what blogging is about.

So why do you blog?

Project Gutenberg is a free collection of e-books which everyone can take part in producing. Volunteers are invited to scan or key in pages from books printed prior to 1923, or proofread scanned pages. Anyone can become a volunteer to help preserve history one page at a time. This is an excellent example of how the Internet enables virtual cooperation on an international scale. Distributed Proofreaders coordinate the project and offer a pre-registration online Walk Through demonstrating how it all works.

Tim Berners Lee talks about the Semantic Web on BBC 4’s Today programme, 9 July 08.

• Listen to a podcast of the interview here. (9 minutes, mp3)
• Read the Semantic Web article by Berners-Lee, Hendler and Lassila here

Not a web tool as such but still indicative of a Web 2.0 environment eg featuring user generated content and based on the philosophy that the more it’s used then the better it gets – this is BookCrossing.

Described as the world’s biggest book club, this is an way of not only swapping books but also tracking where they go and who is reading them. It’s easy.

• Sign up for an BookCrossing account at http://www.bookcrossing.com/
• Find the nearest BookCrossing zone
• Register the book you’re going to give away
• Download a free label, fill in the details and stick it in the book
• Send the book out into the wild
• Sit back and wait….

The real value of networking events is the wider picture; the chance to compare progress and ideas, find solutions and get confirmation that you’re doing ok. I came back from the regional Bb event with a list of software to investigate – they all contained the same issues – accessibility. Echo 360 is a lecture recording/videoing system – not so different to Boxmind – but I’m not convinced that tranferring the traditional mode of delivery to an online environment is the answer. It seems fraught with potential download issues and there were no obvious transcripts – even on the example from Galloudet – a university for the deaf where only one of the speakers signed. Video lectures are only as good as the lecturer and the demonstrations didn’t convince me this was the way forward.

The key to learning online is interaction so I was interested to hear about Engage. Part of the Articulate software package it claims to create ‘dazzling interactions’ but is fundamentally a watch and listen experience. The Quizmaker looked good but being Flash based it rang warning bells. The blurb says it is accessible to virtually anyone. Mmm…. bit of a get out clause there. Apart from being able to customise the appearance with some jazzy buttons and backgrounds, it didn’t seem to offer a great deal more than the Blackboard assessment tools – which reinforces my philosophy of look at alternative ways of using what you already have.

There were some fans of Wimba software; Course Genie converts Word documents into websites. I have a copy and it was reassuring to hear that the code it produces is functional. It also plugs into Bb – we should be investigating this further – in the scheme of VLE skills the next step on from uploading a Word Document is to convert it into web pages and incorporate the activities features.

It’s less about how you present the content – it’s what you ask the students to do with it. Creating online resources is time consuming because existing f2f materials need to be dismembered and restructured. So for me the event helped reinforce my ideas and investigating the software didn’t do a great deal to change my mind – I always thought Course Genie had value anyway!