Blogs @ anywhere: High fidelity online communication, James Farmer, Anne Bartlett-Bragg
In the new version of blackboard that the university is implementing ('Bb9') there is a good inbuilt blogging tool. I have felt for sometime on talking with staff particulalrly from Education that they are often reticent about talking about their favourite wiki or blogging tool - almost as though they are defensive about their right to choose a tool. The job I have is often interesting and there is often a fine balance of beating the Blackboard drum, and respecting and promoting and kindling educational intellegence. I can't hap hoever see that Blackboard will recognise a feature and want to take ownership of it and encorporate it into their system. Blogging is a particluarly web2.0 thing - open readership, rss subscription, commenting. And Blackboard isn't. In fact with Blackboard's 'mash-up' tool they are trying to give some access to youtube/flickr/slideshare content.
Blackboard 9 Blogging tool
- No method of subscription in third party aggregator (RSS/Atom etc.)
- Firewalled - Not available outside of Blackboard 9 course (not publicly accessible)
- No customisation (background pic etc.)
Another thing that Blackboard makes it easy to do is start blogging. They have used quite an easy (and cut back) interface. The tool fits very nicely into the rest of Blackboard's stable of tools and assessment. However there are so many good hosted blogging options out there, I think it could be argued that any one is easy to use for the learner, whereas Blackboard makes it easier for the instructor.
Farmer and Bartlet-Bragg, highlight the importance fo students to be able customise the look and feel of their blogging spaces in order to express themselves. This is something that Blackboard does not do. I think that you can change font in indivisual posts, but can't make a consistant change, and forget choosing a theme or changing a background pic. By looking at look and feel students are able to get to know each other better.
Blackboard 9 doesn't do RSS. Because it's hosted behind a firewall with no public access, therefore no rss functionality built-in. If you did have an RSS feed, your agregator (Reader etc.) would have to be able to log into Blackboard for you, which isn't very nice. So this means that you can't build up a collection of subscribers who are able to consume your posts on their own way - they HAVE to log into Blackboard to go out of their way to catch up. Farmer and Bartlet-Bragg point to successful trials of Blogging who use individual posted blogs that are aggregated into one feed.
A major point for me is that Blackboard 9 doesn't have the features that make it appealing for me which I could enjoy from other web2.0 hosting options. For example Blogger allows me to send it emails which it converts to posts. So that makes it easy to do my blogging from the train on my qwerty mobile. Blackboard, as O'Reilly says, will never have a similar release cycle as web2.0 sites. So by giving students the option to find their own solutions and for a teacher to make an over all feed offers benefits.
The one argument that I think seals the fate for BB9's blogging tool from the way that we on this course would want to use such a tool is that your blog contributions are locked into Blackboard and once the year is out you lose those reflections. Who's going to put the time in?
Other stuff:
Course blogs seem really interesting. In Bb9 it's possible to change over time the page that students see first once they log into the course unit, and many of the users we've had so far like it to open at the Announcments page (reverse chronological) which is kind of the same thing as a blog. Indeed this blog could contain every type of resource that the students might need that they could then digest and use and reorder in their own spaces. PLE (Personal) over VLE.
Hi Will
ReplyDeleteI don't know BB 9 at all, other than downloading the iPhone BB9 app that allows me to log on to the University BB9 site and then do ....nothing (I have no courses on BB9!). However, after reading you informative post Will I wonder what was the point of having a, so-called, “blogging” tool in BB9. It doesn’t seem to be a blogging tool at all as it misses out most of the features that define a blog. I suppose it was just another feature that they could add on to the list of tools to help sell the new version of BB but I guess that’s just being cynical.
Thanks so much for this post, Will. I think we'll be returning to this - for example, next week when we focus on learning environments...
ReplyDeleteThere's so much to respond to here. But I'll just focus on this for now: "...is a non-public, walled-garden VLE hosted blog better? [...] But aren't students missing out by not allowing external networks to engage with their posting?" These are great questions. The debate here (in the literature) is around whether privacy gives students a feeling of a 'safe space' in which to share their thoughts, or whether a public space will make students more motivated to contribute, or perhaps 'raise their game' (because of a more public audience). Again, there isn't a definitive answer - but these are certainly some of the questions we should ask when we are considering what technological platform(s) to use for our courses.
As you say, many university staff see BB as a "safe option" - or one that doesn't require them to do much of this type of thinking. Should we blame people for taking the safe or easy option? But overall, the question is: what are the implications of the technological choices we make for teaching/learning? (Interesting also to note the commercial interests James raises...)
Cormac
Bb9 has tools that are on the same feature tree: Discussion boards, wiki, blog and journal. I think the difference between the last two are that journal is definately private between the tutor and the student, whereas the blog tool can be made shareable to the rest of the cohort. It's possible that group memebers can equally submit posts to a group blog, where as a journal again is just for one. Maybe there is a distinction made here - the word 'journal' apparently is popular in the US.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens when a course finishes? Is all the reflecting, discussion, debate and not to mention the content "lost" because you can't access it anymore because the course has finished(and you're no longer a student at that institution)?
ReplyDeleteWhat happens to the Emtech 2011 wiki when we finish this course?
I missed this question - sorry James. The EmTech wiki will remain where it is - and you'll all still be able to access it and edit it just like now. I'd be happy to make any of you site admins if you like - but not until the course finishes, I don't think...
ReplyDelete