Thursday, April 15, 2010

Educational Blogging

In terms of social media, blogging is sitting at the top of the tree. From personal diary style sites to topical news and features pages, blogging has become a firm favorite for disseminating news and information around the web. When it comes to keeping my finger on the pulse I turn to my personal favorite blog sites such as TechCrunch and Mashable to help me stay up to date with current events in social media, internet developments and the latest tech releases.

For education, blogging represents a unique challenge. While teachers, lecturers and students alike can identify blog sites that are useful to their curriculum, ensuring the quality of information can be more difficult. Many universities and their lecturers have personal blog sites on which they post articles related to their respective fields and these have quickly become another form of scholarly article sources for anyone who is interested.

Traditionally, scholarly articles would be published through industry publications or journals and potential authors would need to prove their credibility to stand any chance of being published at all. Blogging however has changed that and now offers opportunities for scholars, academics and experts alike to publish papers, articles and research quickly and without the need for explanation. You could say blogging has taken freedom of speech to another level.

Whether it is a blog site dedicated to the faculty or a course resource, blogging is quickly becoming a valuable addition to educational resources and sites are now a common appearance on students reading lists and cited as references in academic work.

2 comments:

  1. Do you feel many students use blogs as a resource for their courses? I'm thinking of using them in class next year but am afraid that the social aspect will supersede the learning aspect.

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  2. I'm not sure how worried you should be about blogs...I guess it would just need to be managed so that the students are writing and following relevant and informational blogs instead of the latest celebrity mishaps, etc.

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