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A study about the effectiveness that students see in the use of blogs at college level 

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A study about the effectiveness that students see in the use of blogs at college level 

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This study looks at the perspective that students have on the effectiveness of blogs used to engage in conversation in larger lecture classes.

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Abstract

Blogs have the potential to increase reflection, sense of community and collaboration in undergraduate classrooms. Studies of their effectiveness are still limited. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the use of blogs in a large lecture class would enhance students' perceived learning. Students in an undergraduate nutrition course were required to engage in blog conversations over the course of the semester to promote reflective learning. Sixty-seven undergraduates responded to a survey with dimensions on perceived learning and sense of community. Sense of community and computer expertise were identified as significant predictors of perceived learning, when controlled for age, gender, and previous blogging experience. While a majority of the students reported that blogging enhanced their learning and led them to think about course concepts outside the classroom, fewer perceived value in peer comments. Implications for integrating blogging into undergraduate classrooms are discussed.

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To blog or not to blog: Student perceptions of blog effectiveness for learning in a college-level course

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Blogs have the potential to increase reflection, sense of community and collaboration in undergraduate classrooms. Studies of their effectiveness are still limited. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the use of blogs in a large lecture class would enhance students' perceived learning.

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This blog is for science and technology within the classroom. It can be helpful for teachers but it can also be useful for parents. The blog also gives teachers suggestions for lessons such as creative tools and subject resources. The blog also have a YouTube channel which offer educational videos on science and technology at a primary school level.

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CPD for interactive whiteboards and other educational technology including iPads, iPods and more. Guides, reviews, tutorials and free downloads. Training resources for Smartboards / Smart Notebook and Promethean Boards / ActivInspire.

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This is a blog for maths teachers in secondary schools, providing them with materials and resources to use to aid learning.

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Resourceaholic - free resources and ideas for teaching secondary school maths

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WORD Workouts to see better Social, Emotional HEALTH AND learning.

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WORD Workouts to see better Social, Emotional HEALTH AND learning.

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This is a blog created by a teacher to show other teachers a simple activity to help students connect and cope with their emotions, which effectively leads to better teaching and learning. Short YouTube clips are uploaded to support the blog, and illustrate the importance of students emotional wellbeing during the learning process.

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Social emotional health matters. WORD Workouts are a fantastic way to help students connect with their emotions. Additionally, these quick lessons promote student social emotional health. In these times, we know that helping students express how they are feeling can help them better cope with their emotions. Furthermore, better coping can open up the door to better learning as well. Additionally, when you add physical exercise to the mix, you've got an excellent brain break for your classroom which is much more than just a break.

Today's sponsor is NaliniKIDS, creator of wordworkouts.org . All opinions are my own.

WORD Workouts are a simple superpower that help you get the most out of the moments you have to help students reset, connect, and regroup. The free and simple WORD Workouts at wordworkouts.org can help you get started connecting to your students in new ways. Additionally, I'll also share how WORD Workouts works and help you get started.

What are WORD Workouts?

WORD workouts connect common emotional words, physical movement, and reflection to help students have a brain break and an experience that matters in the classroom. A daily WORD Workout is a perfect addition to every classroom. The promote good social emotional health in students.

Words Matter. They can lift us up or tear us down. The emotions in the WORD library represent common emotions that kids 4-18 feel every day according to educators.

Physical movement helps. Sometimes students just need to get up and move. When meaningful words connect with intentional movement, it helps students consider important emotions that matter in their life right now as they reset and connect with their classmates.

Emotional connections engage students. When students reflect on their emotions, they can become more self-aware as they work to cope with the complex world.

3 Steps to Engage Students with a WORD Workout for Good Social Emotional Health

Step 1: Choose a Word

First, choose a word from the Pre-K - 12th grade WORD Workouts library that resonates with your classroom culture. Also consider what your students are experiencing right now. In particular, your insight as a teacher will help students move towards good social emotional health.

In this example, we'll choose the word "SAFE."

Play the 2-minute video. During the exercise, this video will connect the word with your students' bodies. In this example, the students will learn what SAFE means to them and how it relates to their bodies as they experience the "SAFE" Workout.

Step 3: Reflect

In this step, students can choose from one of twelve question prompts to reflect as they think or to reflect in a writing assignment or journal. Then, these reflections will help students draw connections to how this emotion connects to their lives now.

How can teachers use WORD Workouts in their classrooms to promote social emotional health?

Elementary teachers use WORD Workouts as students transition from one subject to another.

Middle and high school teachers use WORD Workouts during advisory periods or even in counseling.

You can create collections of words around a topic. For example, the word could be an emphasis for your school or classroom during a period of time. Often, some schools emphasize a topic during a month. So, WORD Workouts makes it easy to quickly add the WORD Workout to your day relating to your theme.

Some lessons can introduce a variety of topics from history to ICT. For this reason, explore the words to determine which ones fit with your upcoming lesson plans.

WORD Workouts make a fantastic addition to your classroom. I believe these lessons can improve and help students move towards good social emotional health.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a "sponsored podcast episode." The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Discover 10 stress-busting secrets for healthy teachers. What simple routines will help you handle the stress?

Simple advice for coping with stress at work.

Learn tips to help you deal with difficult colleagues and students (even those who "hate" you -- yes it is possible!)

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3 Steps for WORD Workouts to See Better Social Emotional Health and Learning

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Social emotional health matters. WORD Workouts are a fantastic way to help students connect with their emotions. Additionally, these quick lessons promote student social emotional health. In these times, we know that helping students express how they are feeling can help them better cope with their emotions.

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Teacher blogs and education policy in a publicly private world: filling the gap between policy and practice

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Teacher blogs and education policy in a publicly private world: filling the gap between policy and practice

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K-12 teachers who write about their daily work on blogs and other social media platforms share local knowledge and wisdom from the immediate view of the classroom. These first-hand retellings of everyday classroom life offer a unique critique of educational policy from the teachers’ perspective. Reporting on the analysis of 14 public-facing blogs written by New York City public school teachers, this paper highlights the possibilities held in these digital narratives by painting a picture of how teachers respond to the implementation of new educational policies.

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Teacher blogs and education policy in a publicly private world: filling the gap between policy and practice

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ABSTRACT K-12 teachers who write about their daily work on blogs and other social media platforms share local knowledge and wisdom from the immediate view of the classroom. These first-hand retellings of everyday classroom life offer a unique critique of educational policy from the teachers' perspective.

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The implications of a connectivist learning blog model and the changing role of teaching and learning

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The implications of a connectivist learning blog model and the changing role of teaching and learning

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This study implies that blogs have become increasingly popular among higher educational students because they promote learning. The study suggests that a connectivist learning model was created and has been developed to consider the implications of how the use of blogs may change the manner in which teaching occurs.  During the research process many case studies were used and they found that connectivism does provide a theoretical model for the way in which teaching and learning may change as a result of the use of blogs by learners.

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Introduction

While the use of Web 2.0 tools and specifically blogs is becoming increasingly popular within higher education (HE) and has been shown to promote learning, relatively little is known about the manner in which such tools may affect how teaching and learning may change as a result of the use of such tools. It is within this context that a connectivist learning model was created and has been further developed within this paper in order to consider the implications of how the use of blogs may change the manner in which teaching and learning occurs. Within this research, a case study of the use of collective student blogs utilized as part of a formally assessed module, undertaken within an HE institution, is utilized to explore the manner in which teaching and learning can be seen to change through a connectivist learning model of blog usage. From this case study, it appears that connectivism does provide a theoretical model for the way in which teaching and learning may change as a result of the use of blogs by learners. However, the experience of staff and students who undertook the project suggests that while a number of elements of the connectivist model can be identified, these are not seen universally among all students.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2014a), Web 2.0 is defined as the second stage of development of the Internet, characterized by the change from static web pages to dynamic or user-generated content and the growth of social media. Web 2.0 could also be defined, however, as web applications that erase the barriers between the production and consumption of information. The use of such web applications within the classroom could result in the reduction of these barriers to such a degree that they are almost eliminated entirely. Furthermore, Web 2.0 tools allow connections to be formed between learners, teachers, subject expertise and general audiences which are dynamic and allow information to flow in many directions, and as a result, learning can occur according to the learner's needs, regardless of space or time.

One aspect of Web 2.0, the use of blogs and social media within higher education (HE) teaching and learning, has become increasingly popular in recent years. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2014b), a blog is defined as a website or web page which is personal and on which individuals, on a regular basis, record links to other sites and individual opinions. However, within this research, it is shown that blogs are also defined by the interaction and discussion that occur within them through activities such as posting, commenting, reading and replying. As a result of the rise of blogs, much has been written concerning the manner in which such tools can be used to enhance teaching and learning (Duffy, 2008; Redecker, Ala-Mutka, Bacigalupo, Ferrari & Punie, 2009). What has been less clearly explored however is the manner in which such tools can fundamentally change the manner in which learning occurs and can change focus from formal training and instruction toward peer-to-peer learning and informal learning (Boud & Middleton, 2003). This occurs not only as a result of the use of technology but also as a result of the ability such tools have provided for this type of learning to occur. The changing focus of learning toward a greater range of ways in which learning can occur, particularly with the rise of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, has led to the development of new forms of teaching, learning, pedagogy and learning theories.

One of the most relevant theories to come to prominence due to the rise of Web 2.0 is connectivism. Connectivism is not an area in which a great deal of empirical research has been conducted particularly in relation to the use of blogs within teaching and learning and the effect the use of such tools may have on both student and teacher roles (Garcia, Brown & Elbeltagi, 2013). The roles of both teacher and students are particularly important within a connectivist learning model as learning now occurs in a variety of ways and not just through formal lectures (Siemens, 2004). The implications of the changing nature of teaching and learning, as a result of the use of blogs, are areas that require further investigation. This research shall therefore consider the further development of a connectivist learning blog model (Garcia et al, 2013) in which the theory of connectivism can be used to explain and assist in understanding how teaching and learning can be considered to change as a result of the introduction of Web 2.0 tools and specifically collective group blogs.

Before considering the extent to which blogs reflect a connectivist learning model and the manner in which a connectivist learning model affects teaching and learning roles, it will be first necessary to consider the nature of connectivism as a teaching and learning theory.

The learning theory of connectivism is most often attributed to the work of Downes (2005) and Siemens (2004) and was developed as a result of a belief that there was a need for a learning theory which took into account the manner in which society has changed as a result of the new technologies of the digital age (Siemens, 2004). The new technologies of the digital age can be seen to have affected teaching and learning in two key ways.

First, the rise of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, wikis and other collaborative tools, is affecting the manner in which learning can occur. This results in a greater two-way collaborative process and a less linear learning experience (Marhan, 2006, p 215).

Second, the digital age has resulted in an exponential growth in knowledge that can now have a much shorter half-life. In some cases, the relevance of knowledge can now be measured in months and years as opposed to centuries (Siemens, 2004). As a result of this proliferation, knowledge is becoming increasingly subsymbolic, distributed, interconnected and personal (Covello, 2010). Consequently, many learners are expected to move into a variety of different fields and be hybrid learners over the course of their working life (Siemens, 2004), resulting in the need for learners to be more agile and able to adapt to not only the changing knowledge and information received but also to understand the reasons and circumstance behind this change which is a lifelong continual process.

It is within this context that connectivism has come to prominence; in reality, it is not possible for an individual to acquire and experience all knowledge working independently, so instead, knowledge has to be obtained by forming connections with others (Marhan, 2006). The focus in a connectivist learning model is thus less concerned with the nature of knowledge as a commodity which is acquired as if it were a "thing" (Downes, 2007) and more concerned with the "know- where" as opposed to the "know-how" and "know-what" of traditional learning theories (Siemens, 2004). Additionally, within a connectivist model, knowledge is considered to be highly personalized and no longer something which is certain but is instead "tentative, fragmented, multifaceted, and not necessarily rational" (Kilgore, 2001, p 54). Within this model, individuals must learn to manage their knowledge through considering the validity of the knowledge transmitted by connections made. This leads to a highly learner-centered environment which can at times even result in individuals holding contradictory views of knowledge (Kilgore, 2001).

Within a connectivist learning environment, the use of networks to support informal information exchange is considered to be of increasing importance. Learners are considered to be able to significantly improve the efficiency of their learning when it is carried out within a network (Bessenyei, 2008). This is due to the fact that information is distributed across a number of connections, and it is in the ability to be able to construct and traverse these networks that learning occurs (Downes, 2007).

One of the key features of connectivism is that learners are able to use technology that has become available within the digital age to create networks for themselves, which are open and filled with information and knowledge sources that the individual chooses. Networks are comprised of connections between "nodes" which can consist of individuals, groups, ideas, communities, systems, resources or fields (Bell, 2009). It is important to note that connections within this model must occur naturally through a process of association (Downes, 2007) and are not considered to be able to be artificially created or manipulated. The manner in which the individual creates the network results in the network being highly personalized to each individual student, and as a result, the maintenance and upkeep of the network must be the responsibility of that student (Guder, 2010). Consequently, individuals are required to filter information when building their network, deciding what is of most importance. The ability of learners to additionally be able to judge when a network may no longer be useful is also a vital element of connectivism (Siemens, 2004).

It is clear within connectivist learning that the individual and their network are of key importance. This is partly due to the manner in which connectivism considers how distributed cognition occurs. Distributed cognition assumes that no individual or device has all the information required to complete a task, and therefore, information must be spread across a network (Boitshwarelo, 2011). This appears to suggest a fundamental change in the role of teachers and learners within a connectivist learning model. Within connectivism, learning is seen to occur when peers collaboratively share opinions, viewpoints and critiques through conversation and dialogue on a more mutual basis than the traditional teacher/learner relationship (Friesen & Lowe, 2011). In fact, where teachers are present within a learner's network (although this cannot be assumed), their role will be of a peer (Friesen & Lowe, 2011) rather than as an authority figure or source of absolute knowledge.

The nature of the networks formed also places the emphasis for making and choosing connections on the learner rather than the teacher (Guder, 2010). This places a greater emphasis on the learner's role within the learning process, and where teachers are involved, their role will be determined by the learner rather than by the teacher themselves (Guder, 2010).

In addition, it is important to note that when learning occurs within a connectivist learning model, the manner in which students are responsible for learning allows learning to not only take place within the classroom but also outside of it. Often, this is made possible due to mobile digital technologies (Guder, 2010) and the connections formed with others who may wish to also continue to learn outside of the classroom. In this way, students may be encouraged to move beyond the boundaries of the institution and form connections outside of the institutional community (Bell, 2009).

While connectivism clearly has its advocates, its critics consider it to be less clearly applicable to learning and potentially lacking in rigor (Bell, 2011, p 98). Verhagen (2006) believes connectivism should be considered to be a pedagogy rather than a learning theory due to it being based at a curriculum level rather than an institutional level. This is a criticism that is further supported by Kerr (2007), who claims that there is something interesting happening but that this is not necessarily at the level of a learning theory. Bell (2011) also agrees that connectivism should not be considered a learning theory but proposes that it should be considered an influential phenomenon as it does not as yet have significantly enough qualitative studies to inform its development as a theory (Bell, 2011).

While critics do not consider connectivism as a learning theory, advocates consider that connectivism is a new form of learning theory and is an attempt to replace rather than complement existing theories (Bell, 2009) As a minimum, connectivism can be considered to reject some aspects of some traditional learning theories (Al-Shehri, 2011; Siemens, 2004) and to be influenced by other previous theories including social constructivism, network theory and chaos theory (Couros, 2009). Connectivism is therefore considered to represent a successor to theories such as cognitivism, constructivism and behaviorism (Al-Shehri, 2011). Connectivism is considered by its advocates to better meet the needs of learners in the digital age than other theories as the majority of other learning theories concentrate on the individual aspect of learning, failing to consider learning which may occur outside the individual (Al-Shehri, 2011). By contrast, connectivism highlights the importance of learners making connections with others, which allows the flow of information and knowledge to occur between the learner and their learning community (Kop & Hill, 2008) and additionally through both human and nonhuman channels (Bell, 2009).

It is important to note however that the majority of learning theories are considered to be accurate only in some cases when certain conditions are met (Marhan, 2006). For example, constructivist approaches are considered to be applicable to learning new ideas or concepts, whereas rote learning is more applicable in compliance training (Marhan, 2006). Furthermore, Kerr (2007) considers that issues arise from connectivism when consideration is taken of "nonuniversals" which are skills that are not learnt spontaneously such as reading and writing. In terms of "nonuniversals," the connectivist learning model does become difficult to apply, and relatively little consideration has been given to such issues to date. Despite these criticisms, connectivism still continues to be thought of as a new way of considering learning within the digital age (Boitshwarelo, 2011). In order to explore the manner in which a connectivist learning model may be a means by which to consider learning within the digital age, the effect that this model will have on teaching and learning roles will now be considered in more detail.

If the principles of connectivism are considered to be valid, the manner in which learning occurs and is designed when a connectivist theoretical position is taken will clearly have implications for the roles of both teachers and students as the boundaries between them become increasingly ambiguous (Bessenyei, 2008). The manner in which learning and information management becomes primarily the responsibility of the learner results in the need for the teacher to think more carefully about how the learning environment is designed in order to ensure that learning is encouraged (Marhan, 2006). To this end, learners should be encouraged to connect to other people, organize themselves, create discussion groups and create communities of practice (Marhan, 2006). Learning can therefore in this environment occur in a much wider range of formal and informal ways.

The implication for teachers within connectivism therefore is that they are no longer playing a central role within the learning process once it has begun (Bessenyei, 2008). However, while this represents a shift in the power dynamics between the teacher and learner, the success of this approach will be dependent upon learners being sufficiently mature to be able to undertake this role and teachers being sufficiently confident to accept that their role may change (Marhan, 2006).

While the onus is now on learners to make connections and build their own networks, there is still an important role for teachers to play. Teachers need to ensure that learners are able and have sufficient skills to function in these new spaces, particularly in relation to knowing how to seek out and judge the importance of new information and fostering the development of new learning communities (Boitshwarelo, 2011).

The role of the teacher may also be affected by the manner in which learners will now be expected to seek out expertise from a range of sources, including external experts, alumni and people from other institutions (Bessenyei, 2008). The role of the teacher will therefore no longer be to be seen as the single source of expertise and knowledge. Students will instead be encouraged to seek opinions from a range of sources although teachers will still remain as authority figures both before and after the learning activity. Teachers will for example still be required to set the task and subsequently grade, but during the learning activities, roles may change. During the learning activity, the teacher's role within a connectivist learning model is expected to fall more heavily toward the scaffolding and facilitation of learning as opposed to the central role traditionally undertaken (Ozan & Kesim, 2008).

The use of blogs, as previously defined, would appear to support a connectivist learning model due to the manner in which blogs are considered to provide opportunities for individuals to collaborate and communicate online with others (Richardson, 2010). Furthermore, blogs enable the creation of social structures (Efimova & Hendrick, 2005) particularly where collective blogs are used as a learning tool.

Collective blogs, as opposed to individual blogs, are important as they provide opportunities for key connectivist learning activities to occur, such as allowing interaction (Ferdig & Trammell, 2004) and peer and social communities to be promoted to support learning (Glogoff, 2005) and have a continuity of conversation (Macduff, 2009). While the use of blogs can be seen to meet the needs of a connectivist learning model, it is important to consider the effect this will have on teaching and learning roles.

Figure 1 provides a detailed conceptual model of connectivist learning within a collective blogging environment (Garcia et al, 2013). This model consists of three layers in which individuals may become involved in the process of connectivist learning within a collective blogging environment. It is important to consider each of the layers within this model as learning based on the activities that occur within this model could occur within each layer of the model and could occur in both formal and informal ways. For example, even those who are outside of the blog learning community and those who are simply observing the activity may get value and learn from the community. The community itself will also receive value from knowing the blog is of interest to others and has reached external audiences. In this way, again, it is shown that the connectivist learning blog model will change the role of learners so that they are not only responsible for their own learning but also become an active member in the learning community supporting all of those involved in the community. The degree to which this occurs is however likely to depend on the preferences of learners within the community.

Before the model is considered in more detail, it is important to note that any of the actors within this model may hold similar or differing roles within a range of differing communities enabling a complex and wide-ranging network of connected individuals to be formed through the use of blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies.

The model shown in Figure 1 demonstrates how the connectivist learning model and nature of collective blogs enable students to become a community of learners through the interaction and discussion that happen within the blog not only between learners but also between learners, staff and external experts. It is proposed that this interaction and the nature of the community motivate students to be more responsible for their own learning and that of others within the community in addition to solving their own learning problems through discussion, interaction and reading of others experiences. This differs from a more traditional learning model in which teachers would be expected to take responsibility for learning. From the perspective of students, this could be successful in both the short and long term. Short-term success can be achieved through the creation of empowered students who will be able to continue to work within the designed workplace even where teams could be separated by both time and space. This however could create both challenges and opportunities from the perspective of the teacher as learners may require availability from the teacher to support and interpret activities on a flexible basis (Lujan-Mora & Juana-Espinosa, 2007). Furthermore, this also results in the need for learners to be able and comfortable with using blogging technologies because without confidence in using the technology, it is expected that there will be a lack of interaction within the blog, and as a result, the learning community will not be successful.

Within the connectivist educational blog model, the nature of interaction with external experts and audiences through collective blogs provides a learning medium through which the creation of a number nodes is able to connect to thousands of networks due to the online nature of blogs. This enables the enhancement of the connections among not only students but also allows external audiences, experts and teachers even when blogs are closed to the general public as individuals can be invited to participate within the community of learners. These diverse connections can also be enhanced by the anytime-anyplace nature of learning in this model (Garcia, Brown & Elbeltagi, 2012; Siemens, 2008). While external audiences, experts and teachers may become involved within the model, it is important to note that they will remain outside of the core blogging community and only the learners themselves will be the fully functioning members of the learning community. Teachers, experts and external audience will therefore sit outside of the blogging environment and will instead sit within the collective blogs' teaching environment or external environment as shown in Figure 1.

The Collective blogs' teaching environment is represented as the second layer within the model shown in Figure 1. Within this layer, teachers and other learners may reside. Individuals within the blog teaching environment may interact with the community or simply observe the community and the interactions that occur within it. It is important to note that while teachers will be expected to reside in this layer of the model, initially, in order for collective blogs and a connectivist approach to be adopted, teachers must firstly be willing and able to use such tools (Kvavik, 2005).

This is due to the manner in which it is usually the decision of the teacher to use the specific technologies within a teaching and learning session that there will be a need for teachers to have the appropriate information relating to these digital tools and their effectiveness in teaching and learning. However, teachers reside at the second layer of this model as while they may need knowledge of the technology being used in this model, control of both the digital and learning environment moves from teachers to students once blogs have been chosen as a method of teaching and learning. This therefore changes the role of both teachers and learners, particularly within collective blogs where students become accountable to each other rather than the teacher. The role of the teacher becomes concerned with ensuring that students are actively engaged and responding in a timely and relevant way to each other's posts rather than replying directly themselves (Livingston, 2011). It should be noted however that this monitoring process could be hard for the teacher to achieve, especially if blogs are busy or large numbers of students are involved.

The final layer within the model relates to the collective blogs' external environment. Within this layer, external experts and audiences may interact or observe the collective blog learning community through either synchronous or asynchronous means. It is important to note however that the decision to involve or invite external audiences and experts to participate or view the collective blog will reside with the learners themselves who, as previously stated, are in control of the blog learning community in this model. This should not suggest however that teachers could not seek to enhance learning by encouraging the invitation of external experts or audiences to the community. In fact, the teacher as facilitator could ask learners to invite internal or external expertise locally or globally to participate within the blogs, or learners themselves could invite external experts and audience to the blog. In both cases, this could add an another important dimension to the interaction of the formed learning communities. The inclusion of experts and audiences could also result in the learning process becoming multidimensional as all individuals involved within the blog may undertake learning to some degree. The nature of blogs and the ability to reach audiences across the Internet also allow students to focus on specific communities that may be most relevant to them. The manner in which students, staff and experts may interact within the connectivist learning blogging model is shown in Figure 1 and is provided to assist in the understanding of the relationships that exist within the blogging environment from a connectivist learning viewpoint.

The model created here and its key characteristics will now be used to consider a case study of connectivist learning using blogs.

The research is undertaken using a qualitative approach. This approach is considered to be most useful in this case as it allows the collection of research data within a natural setting and seeks to gain an understanding of participants and the relationships that exist between participants (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2012).

According to Creswell and Clark (2011), the advantages of such an approach include the following:

It aims to describe and interpret participants' personal experiences of a phenomena.

It allows participants to share their view.

It provides a way of understanding a complex phenomena.

It tries to understand the interactions between people.

This helps to ensure that the validity of the results is relatively high (Creswell, 2009).

A case study is a qualitative research method, which allows the researcher to extensively examine a single instance of a phenomenon (Collis & Hussey, 2003). Case studies are a useful method where a researcher wishes to gain a detailed understanding of the context in which the phenomena is occurring (Saunders et al, 2012). One of the key advantages of a case study is the manner in which it can deal with a variety of evidence (Saunders et al, 2012), resulting in a more detailed view of the phenomena (Yin, 2009).

The Bachelor of Arts with Honors Degree Illustration course is a 3-year degree program, which runs at Plymouth College of Art. The use of collective student blogs occurs within a module called "Illustrative Practices" within the second year of the course. Within this module, a simulated work-based learning project called "The Great Editorial Race" runs for 3 weeks. This project requires students to work in groups to create a number of illustrations in a relatively short time span. The course team assigns teams, and each team is responsible for setting up a group blog within Google's "blogger" blog platform. The use of "blogger" was chosen, as this platform was familiar to both staff and student having been used for the creation of individual blogs as part of the first year of study. Due to the previous use of blogs within the course, students were aware of the nature of blogging and the differing types of participation that can occur within a blog (ie, reading, writing and commenting). The collective blogs created were all private and not available to public audiences. In order to read or participate within the blogs, individuals would require an invitation from an existing blog/team member. In all cases, the learners were required to provide access to the blogs in use; however, the staff did not write posts or comment on the blogs and would instead simply observe the interactions and activity occurring. A total of six teams were created which were comprised of between six and seven members. Each was assigned by staff in order to be evenly distributed in terms of characteristics and performance.

The aim of the blog was to create a flexible, asynchronous online space in which students could post ideas, research and sketches, which could be commented on by others in the team before submission. This space would not be an area in which academic staff would actively participate as it was hoped that the blog would enable students to create an online community that would provide peer support and build on offline activities undertaken in the studio. Students did not have access to blogs within the classroom, and therefore, all interaction within the blog occurred outside of the classroom. All students participated within the blogs by joining the blog to which they were assigned, creating posts and leaving comments. It is not possible to assess the degree to which students read the blogs in this case.

It is important to note that students were shown examples by staff of collective group blogs from previous cohorts. Students were also briefed by staff on the manner in which the blog could be used to enhance communication and collaboration through the differing aspects of blogging, such as reading, writing and commenting, and how this had proven to be effective for student groups who had previously undertaken this project. Student were not however given information relating to connectivism or the changing roles that were expected to be seen in both staff and students as a result of the manner in which this project was conducted.

All 33 participants within the class were asked to participate in this research, and a total of 33 students and the full academic staff team (two staff) were asked to complete a survey, which utilized open-ended questions. A separate student survey and staff survey were created in order to reflect the differing roles undertaken by staff and students within the model. Copies of these surveys can be found in Appendix. In addition, the staff team wrote both personal and team reflection throughout the project, and staff were interviewed following the project. Staff were included within the data analysis as their views were considered to be critical to the connectivist learning collective blog model and were considered to be able to give greater depth to how the learning process was conducted. Student surveys were returned from members of five of the six teams (IJ, TF, FFF, TI and WWSY). In addition, results from both staff interviews (STIN1, STIN2) and staff surveys (STS1, STS2) were received.

The qualitative data were analyzed using narrative analysis. This method was chosen as it allows an account of the experience individuals have to be told in a sequential manner. This provides an opportunity to explore events, which may be related to each other and which may provide an indication of areas of importance for researchers (Saunders et al, 2012). Narrative analysis was undertaken following the identification and agreement among the researchers on the key aspects of the connectivist learning collective blog model shown in Figure 1. Following this, the interviews and surveys were analyzed by all researchers in relation to each of the areas identified from the model in order to extract themes that were emerging from both staff and students. To increase the reliability and validity of the results and the analysis process, an intercoding process has been executed. For that, transcripts were given to all the researchers involved in this research to code individually. This resulted in a high percentage of similarity of codes. By undertaking narrative analysis individually, the researchers were able to consider commonalities and differences that existed between participants' individual results, and patterns that emerged were then brought together (Fraser, 2004). The results of this research will be presented in the following section.

In order to consider the degree to which the use of collective blogs within this case study reflects the model shown in Figure 1, the results shall be considered in relation to each layer of the model starting with the collective blogs' learning community and the creation of the blogging community, followed by the collective blogs' teaching environment and finally the collective blogs' external environment.

It is clear from both the interviews and surveys undertaken that both teachers and learners have had previous experience with the use of blogs. Blogs have been used as part of the course since the first year of the program using Google's "blogger" platform, and staff appear to embrace the use of blogs within the course:

During the first few weeks on the Illustration Programme the (staff) team support all students in setting up blogs as a means of evaluating their practice. ... Blogging is used in a variety of ways by both staff and students, from presenting module research to course marketing ... By the time year two is underway blogging is familiar to the cohort ... and this module opens up the potential of blogs as a means to give and receive peer feedback. (STIN1)

It is therefore clear that the technology in itself does not represent a barrier to the formation of a blog learning community as seen in Figure 1.

However, while teachers considered that blogs provided a useful and beneficial tool for undertaking group work and recommended this as a means of communication for the group, some students felt that other means of communication were more useful. This possibly indicates that the interaction between learners was not only being maintained through the blog learning community shown in Figure 1 and was instead also occurring through other means as well.

For a small minority of students, it appeared that a face-to-face communication was preferred to communicating using technology:

We tended to do more in class/face-to-face than on blog ... we did (show really early ideas) in person so no point in doing on blog for the sake of it. (TI1) For other learners, while communicating using technology was preferred, the use of the blog did not appear to be their chosen primary method of communication. Both Facebook and text messaging were stated as being the main methods by which some of the groups communicated and the networks were built. This may indicate that the blog learning community within Figure 1 was not successful in this case or represented only part of the community's communication methods.

It is interesting to note that all teams discussed the use of a variety of forms of communication including face-to-face and other mediated methods, even where the blogs were considered to have worked well and were used successfully. The majority of learners did consider that the blogs did work well and enabled interaction and learning to occur:

We all used the team blog to display and discuss work as it progressed. It allowed us to critique each other and make suggestions. (TF1)

Teachers' views additionally appear to reinforce these views with staff commenting that the use of blogs worked well and was easy for students within this context. While it appears that the technology does not represent a barrier to use for teachers or learners, and the use of technology in fact appears to be preferred by the majority of learners, the extent to which blogs allowed learners to create a community in which they were able to interact and support each other as expected in Figure 1 needs further consideration.

Within the connectivist learning model shown in Figure 1, the use of a blog should allow learners to create a learning community in which interaction is occurring and connections between individuals are being made resulting in the creation of a network of learners. From the surveys conducted, it would appear that through the use of collective blogs, learners did appear to make connections with others as would be expected in Figure 1.

The connections formed "... were very valuable ... They were all positive and friendly and made you feel part of a team and not working all alone." (IJ1)

Furthermore, it appears that learners found that the connections made and interaction that occurred within the blog provided a supportive environment in which critique, comment and constructive feedback were given, hence allowing learning to occur:

It was really helpful in deciding what improvements to make. (TF1)

It is reassuring. Letting me know I'm going in the right direction and am valued by the group. (FFF1)

However, while many of the learners reportedly made connections and interacted through the blog learning community as shown in Figure 1, there were some concerns expressed by learners that posts and responses often came from the same individuals. This may indicate that some learners within the blog learning community were observing or lurking rather than interacting as expected within the community:

Comments were usually from the same people it would have been nice to have feedback from all members. (WWSY1)

In some cases, students stated that there were some individuals who were not active at all:

Some members were active and some were not. It was the inactive that concerned me. (TF2)

However, while some learners noted that others within their group were inactive, it is important to note that inactivity was minimal and all learners did participate in the blog to some extent. It is therefore not so much a concern of nonengagement or a lack of connections being made between learners within the community that is of interest but instead the manner in which some learners considered this an issue. This provides a further indication that students are taking responsibility for both the learning community and their own and others' learning as shown within Figure 1. This indicates that new roles are being formed within the community as a result of the use of blogs as predicted in the literature. From these comments, it is also clear that learners have not considered the relevance of observation or lurking within the blog learning community at any layer within the model shown in Figure 1. None of the learners suggested that individuals who may not be posting themselves may still be benefiting from reading others' posts and comments and learning in this way. It should be noted however that learners that are not posting or commenting can be considered to have moved to the second layer of the model, the collective blogs' teaching environment, rather than remaining within the blog community itself. It is interesting to note also that the manner in which the community is reliant upon one another to be successful may result in some learners encouraging others to utilize the blog even if they are not particularly interested in doing so.

This also highlights not just a lack of engagement but also a lack of timely engagement and learner concerns relating to the inability this gave the community to provide feedback:

A lot of people in our group didn't post their work up on the blog until it had been submitted leaving no opportunity for other people from the group to suggest improvements. (WWSY1)

In this case, rather than lurking, there might be an indication that not all learners were actively engaged or interacting with the blogging community and may instead be residing within the collective blogs' teaching environment layer of the model rather than in the blogging community layer. However, if enough learners are not actively engaged within the blog learning community layer, it is expected that the connections required for learning to occur will not be sufficiently strong within the communities created. Staff considered that the lack of engagement by some learners within the blog could affect the success of the project and the learning that occurs:

It is clear that some students learnt so much more from the blog than others largely because as a whole group they were ensuring the blogs worked effectively for them. There's that moment when an effective online critiquing community is completely dependent on that need for that community to be fully engaged. (STIN1)

Furthermore, this lack of engagement may indicate that while some learners were taking responsibility for their own and in some cases the communities' learning, this was not universal as would be expected in a connectivist learning model. The responsibility for learning within this model will now be considered in more detail.

Within the connectivist learning blog model (Figure 1), it would be expected that the responsibility for learning would reside within the community or with the individuals within the community. In this case, it does appear that in the majority, responsibility for learning did pass from teachers to learners as staff remained within the teaching environment and did not enter the learners' collective blogging environment unless they were asked to do so. In all cases, staff were able to view the activity of the collective blog learners' environment and therefore could intervene and comment if they considered it necessary to do so. Within the blogs observed, as expected in Figure 1, this did not occur, and teachers did not become members of the learners' blogging community. It was considered that learners did provide feedback to each other which was considered to be constructive and useful:

We were all honest and appreciated useful feedback as to why certain things were not working. (WWSY1)

However, while this reportedly occurred in most cases, this success was not universal and did not occur automatically or immediately:

At first we were all too polite, but before the end we had relaxed a bit and were still positive, but offering proper feedback. (IJ1) For some learners, the academic staff role was required initially within the project in order to initiate discussion and critical feedback:

We needed prompting to use it as more than a "look at what I've done!" blog and were giving each other constructive comments towards the end. (IJ1)

This appeared to be for some learners an issue of confidence in their own opinions and the ability to share their views with other learners. Learners were however able to invite teachers into the blog learning community initially, and as their confidence grew, they were able to rely less and less on teachers within the teaching environment and instead focus on other learners within the blog learning community.

I found the comments valuable but I think because of the 'newness' of the group it was a bit difficult to be completely honest. Also I'm sure that one's opinions are only subjective, so I did not want to comment on the blog, lest it be misunderstood -- would have preferred to discuss it in person with the others on a one to one basis. (FFF1)

From a teachers viewpoint, it is evident that academic staff felt their role within this project had changed from their usual role and a greater responsibility has been passed to the community and the students themselves. Staff did see themselves as existing outside the learners' collective blog community and more within the wider teaching environment as seen in Figure 1. This therefore enables teachers to undertake a differing type of role, as the model would suggest:

The teaching team "played" the role of art director rather than tutor throughout. (STIN2)

In this way, academic staff considered that as learners established their networks and the collective blogs started to mature, the traditional teaching role was no longer needed or was as a minimum diminished to more closely reflect the role of the teacher shown in Figure 1.

We realized that we are no longer the first port of call for asking for advice and feedback (as students) have each other for feedback outside of the classroom and are able to get feedback on their own ideas through peer critique. (STS2)

Teachers therefore considered that learners were largely self-managing their learning and considered that

Students not only learn individual skills in terms of working to briefs but they also develop critical thinking and reflection skills in terms of critiquing their own and others work. (STIN2)

However, while this generally worked well, it did result in a loss of some degree of critical review that learners might receive as students were "sometimes just too polite" (STS1).

This reflects the views of learners who noted that peers were too polite and did not wish to be critical of each other, thereby indicating that full responsibility for learning had not entirely passed from teachers to learners. It does however appear that these issues decreased as the community strengthened its connections.

It is also interesting to note that the communities did not continue to be maintained online following the end of the project:

The blogs setup for the race were not continued after the game had ended ... and most students returned to their own peer group of friends to discuss their work. (STIN1)

This may indicate that connections made were not strong or enduring or were perhaps not of high value to learners. Alternatively, however, within a connectivist learning model, this could be expected as the specific relevance of the network did not necessarily exist any longer, and so, learners choose to revert or build new more appropriate networks.

Within the connectivist learning model, it is expected that external experts and audiences will be invited to join the community when this is appropriate as shown in Figure 1. In this case, students did not feel it was appropriate to invite external experts or audiences to be part of the blog learning community.

As teaching staff had, within this model, become external to the learning community, it is interesting to note that students also did not invite teachers to become involved within the blog learning community. In fact, despite being able to seek advice from staff, relatively few students took the opportunity to do this:

Although students could approach staff for art direction whenever they wished only a handful of students took this opportunity consistently. (STIN1)

This demonstrates the manner in which teachers considered themselves to no longer be directly involved in the learning process. It appears that teachers instead remained in the collective blogs' teaching environment as shown in Figure 1. This however does not indicate that teachers remained outside of the learning community entirely:

There was still a sense that we were still seen as authority Figures with the race -- setting the work, judging the editorials, providing critical feedback. (STIN1)

While teachers were still part of the learning process, although not necessarily the learning community, external experts and audiences were not invited to join the learning community and did not feature as connections or an extension of the network within the learning community or as part of the learning process.

From the findings, it does appear that there has been a shift in society in relation to the use of digital tools as suggested by Downes (2005) and Siemens (2004). In this case study the increased use of digital tools is shown through both staff and student willingness to use tools such as blogs (both teachers and learners had previously used blogs) but also the preferences both teachers and learners expressed to use digital forms of communication such as blogs, social networking sites and text messages.

It would also appear that the influence of teachers and their willingness to adopt blogging within their teaching was important in achieving the success of the blogs as although some learners indicated their preference for other forms of online or offline communication, the blogs were used in all cases. It is important to note that even when other forms of communication were used, this was in addition to the use of blogs and did not represent a replacement of the collective blog. This indicates the importance of teachers' views when using such technologies within teaching and learning as would be expected in a traditional formal teaching model (Kvavik, 2005).

In relation to the creation of a community, in this case, the connectivist learning model as shown in Figure 1 is largely delivered through the use of blogs although connections are also enhanced through other online or offline forms of communications in some cases. Learners do appear, as the literature and connectivist learning model would suggest, to have been encouraged through the use of blogs to create connections with others (Kop & Hill, 2008) and share opinions, viewpoints and critiques through conversation and dialogue (Friesen & Lowe, 2011).

However, unlike the connectivist model shown in Figure 1, it is important to note that learner group interactions were not strong or as self-initiated as would be expected (Guder, 2010), and greater numbers of learners resided within the teaching environment layer of the model shown in Figure 1 rather than the learners' blogging community layer. Networks did not grow significantly during the length of the project also as would be expected within this model (Siemens, 2004). It also does not appear that external audiences, experts, other learners or teaching staff were interacting with the community or observing the community's interactions.

Therefore, it seems that academic staff did maintain an authoritative role within the learning process, and while not engaging within the blog, as would be expected within a connectivist learning model, they were still involved within the teaching environment as seen in Figure 1 and were looked to as an authoritative source of learning by students (Friesen & Lowe, 2011; Guder, 2010).

Additionally external experts and audiences were not invited to interact with or observe the community, suggesting that responsibility for engagement required to build the network (Kop & Hill, 2008) and blogging community did not occur in this case. This would indicate that this aspect of the connectivist learning model was not delivered or was not relevant in this case.

It would certainly appear that within this study, responsibility for learning and knowledge management did become more focused toward the learner and the peer group (Guder, 2010) who formed the blogging community; however, students did not appear to be able to fully engage with the level of peer critique and feedback that would to be required, although this did occur in some cases.

The teacher's role appeared to largely relate to a role within the teaching environment shown in Figure 1. The main activities undertaken by the teacher concerned the creation of the learning opportunity and the judging of final work as opposed to the usual guidance teachers would give students throughout. This placed a greater emphasis on the need for peer assessment and feedback and students becoming accountable to each other rather than to the teacher (Livingston, 2011).

Learners who engaged within the blogging community appeared to benefit, particularly as confidence grew and critiquing became easier, as the social structures of the group were created (Efimova & Hendrick, 2005). Where some students failed to engage, staff noted that this negatively affected the learning of all within the group, demonstrating the need for a strong network to be created (Siemens, 2004). Within this case study, teachers did not check the engagement of learners and therefore self-managed groups, or the blogging community, needed to be accountable for themselves, something which students perhaps found hard to adapt to, especially initially.

Overall, it would appear that blogs do reflect many of the principles of the connectivist learning model shown in Figure 1 and largely was a successful model in this case. In terms of the learners role, the need for learners to take responsibility for their own learning and the creation of their own networks has, on the whole, occurred successfully in relation to the blogging community but not to wider networks, however, due to the blogging community learning did occur. Learners however still appeared to look to teaching staff as authority figures and appeared to do little to extend, manage or continue the network following the project, thereby reducing the extent to which a diversity of opinions can be used to aid learning (Siemens, 2004).

Within a connectivist learning blog model, the manner in which teachers would be expected to be indirectly involved in learners blogging communities or involved only as an invited participant did appear to occur to some extent but not entirely. Teachers were still required to play an authoritative role within the teaching environment, although there does appear to be a degree of greater freedom for academic staff to be removed from each individual student's learning process and to be able to critique on a more formal basis. For teaching staff, this role allowed a greater focus for learners on the need for self-reflection and peer critique within the blogging community, and this in turn allowed teachers the opportunity to become removed from the individual learning process although not entirely from the blogging community.

This research has examined the manner in which staff and student roles can be considered to change when using a connectivist learning blog model as outlined in Figure 1. The model presented provides the first opportunity to consider the use of blogs within a connectivist learning environment and as a result has provided an opportunity to consider the use of blogs within teaching and learning from a new perspective. This study has found that the roles of staff and students clearly change as a result of the use of blogs, and these would largely appear to meet the expectations of a connectivist learning model but not entirely.

The implications from this case study would suggest that the use of blogs results in a learner role which is more focused toward seeking and providing peer critique, support and guidance, and as a result, there is a need for learners to be fully engaged and be willing participants within group learning. The learner role when using collective blogs therefore appears to meet the requirements of a connectivist learning environment as the learners' role becomes increasingly concerned with self-management, knowledge management and network building within the context of the blog- ging community, and the need to take greater responsibility for individual learning, which does not necessarily occur naturally.

The implications of this model for teaching staff appear to be the way in which staff roles change as a result of the use of blogs in a connectivist model. Due to the changes seen in learner roles as a result of the use of blogs which creates conditions for a connectivist learning model, teaching staff become less involved in the individual learning process of each student and instead focus on providing the opportunities for learning and overall summative critique at the end of the task within the teaching environment. This change will also not necessarily occur naturally, and the implications of this will be that this role may need to be practiced and refined by teaching staff.

While the case study demonstrate that some elements of connectivism can be seen, it is clear that the roles identified were not adopted in all cases, particularly among learners. As a result, some learners may have failed to actively or fully engage with the project, and consequently, their level of learning may have been affected. This is likely to be resolved if the project were assessed, and this would need to be carefully considered in the future when setting such activities.

From this case study, it is possible to see that blog usage had a positive effect on the manner in which teaching and learning took place. However, this was a relatively a short project following which learners appeared to disengage with the blogs created. The implication of this case study therefore suggests a need for further empirical research to be conducted within this area.

Future research may consider the use of blogs within a longitudinal study, within other disciplines and with greater learner numbers. In terms of the connectivist learning model created, the use of blogs should be continued, and the use of external experts and audiences and self- organized groups could be utilized in order to further develop the positive changes seen as a result of the connectivist learning blog model.

What is already known about this topic

Connectivism is a relatively new learning theory which seeks to take into account the manner in which society is changing as a result of the availability of Web 2.0.

The use of Web 2.0 is becoming increasingly popular within teaching and learning.

Blogs are becoming an increasingly popular tool within teaching and learning in higher education.

What this paper adds

New empirical research in the area of connectivism.

A newly validated conceptual connectivist learning blog model is provided which explains the changing nature of teaching and learning using collective blogs in HE.

This paper concludes that the use of blogs in a connectivist learning model results in greater degrees of peer critique, support and guidance.

The implications of the use of blogs results in teaching staff becoming less involved in the individual learning process of each student.

Implications for practice and/or policy

This paper provides a new model of blog use for teaching and learning from a connectivist learning perspective.

This paper demonstrates that the connectivist learning blog model is successful, but students do not adopt new roles universally.

References Marhan, A. (2006). Connectivism: concepts and principles for emerging learning networks. Proceedings of The 1st International Conference on Virtual Learning, Bucharest, pp 209-216.
1. Why did you decide to run the project in this way?

2. How do you think your role changed as a result of running the project this way?

3. Did you play a role in creating connections?

4. Did you play a role in team building?

5. How big a part did the technology play within the way the students undertook the project?

6. Did students learn because of the technology used?

7. Were connections made between students?

8. If connections were made between students, did they remain in place after the project?

9. Did any of the students continue to use blogs after the project?

10. Do you feel you took on the role of a peer within the group?

11. Were students motivated to learn because of the use of technology?

12. Did the academic role of staff change because of the use of technology?

13. Did the student role change because of the use of technology?

14. Did all the students engage with the use of blogs?

15. Would you do anything different next time?

16. Has this affected the manner in which you generally teach?

17. Have the students been affected by this project long term?

18. What are the key benefits of learning in this manner?

19. What are the key disadvantages of learning in this manner?

20. Do you have any further comments?

1. How well did you work together to achieve your goals?

2. Did all individuals participate in team blog equally within your team?

3. What were the consequences -- positive or negative -- of the way in which individuals participated in your team blog?

4. As a team, how did you try to ensure everyone participated in the team blog?

5. How did you assign roles and responsibilities to members of the team and what were they?

6. As a team, did you review how well you were doing and make any changes as a result?

7. What have you learned about Editorial Illustration?

8. What have you learned about your own strengths and limitations as an illustrator?

9. How can we improve the Great Editorial Race the next time we play? 10. Do you have any further comments?

DIAGRAM: Figure 1: Connectivist educational collective blog model, →, interaction; →, observation

~~~~~~~~

By Elaine Garcia; Ibrahim Elbeltagi; Mel Brown and Kerry Dungay

Elaine Garcia is an Associate Lecturer and is currently undertaking a PhD at the Plymouth Graduate School of Management, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK. Email: Elaine.garcia@plymouth.ac.uk. Research interests include Web 2.0, teaching and learning, information and knowledge management systems, and social media.

Ibrahim Elbeltagi is a senior lecturer in information and knowledge management at Plymouth Graduate School of Management, University of Plymouth. Dr Elbeltagi's research interests include cyber terrorism, knowledge management, innovation management, B2B e-commerce in SMEs, online banking, social networking, ICT adoption and organizational learning. Additionally, Dr Elbeltagi acts as a member of a number of journal and conference review boards and has published in excess of 40 papers in both national and international journals and conferences.

Mel Brown is programme leader for BA (Hons) Illustration at Plymouth College of Art. Her research interests relate to the combining of old and new technologies in art and design teaching, learning, and practice.

Kerry Dungay is currently studying a masters degree in Business Administration. Research interests include business psychology, business sociology and HE business processes.

Copyright of British Journal of Educational Technology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

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The implications of a connectivist learning blog model and the changing rol...: EBSCOhost

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Introduction While the use of Web 2.0 tools and specifically blogs is becoming increasingly popular within higher education (HE) and has been shown to promote learning, relatively little is known about the manner in which such tools may affect how teaching and learning may change as a result of the use of such tools.

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This is a parent- led blog, which shares help and resources regarding children with special educational needs and disabilities. It has regular posts, with topics such as politics on SEND, personal stories and the difficulties faced by children in education.
It is a helpful tool for a variety of different stakeholders such as parents, teachers and even possibly politicians.

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Special Needs Jungle provides parent-centred information, news, resources and informed opinion about SEN, disability, children’s health and SEN politics

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Kidblog pioneered authentic student publishing in a safe, teacher-moderated space. As Fanschool, we take student ownership and identity to the next level. a space to create, showcase and connect.

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Fanschool is a learning platform that helps students own their learning. It is a place where students can share their work, get feedback from their peers and teachers, and connect with other learners. Fanschool is designed to be student-centered, and it gives students the power to control their own learning journey. Fanschool offers a variety of features that help students own their learning. These features include: Fanschool is a powerful tool that can help students own their learning. It is a place where students can share their work, get feedback, and connect with other learners. Fanschool is a great resource for students of all ages, and it can help them reach their full potential. Here are some of the benefits of using Fanschool:

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The future of student publishing - Fanschool

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Student publishing that works. Purposefully share your work. Publish to your portfolio. Own your learning.

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Social media in second and foreign language teaching and learning: Blogs, wikis, and social networking

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Social media in second and foreign language teaching and learning: Blogs, wikis, and social networking

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This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily since 2009 and mid 2018, on the formal and informal use of social media—blogs, wikis, and social networking—for second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL), including studies on the use of educational sites like Livemocha and Busuu and vernacular sites like Facebook and Twitter. The article frames the review in the development of social media and the history of social computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research. Synthesis identifies common findings, including that social media can afford the development of intercultural, sociopragmatic, and audience awareness, language learner and user identities, and particular literacies. Presentation of the focal pieces and common findings is intertwined with discussion of problematic issues, and each section concludes with a summary and implications for future research and practice.

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Understanding student perceptions and motivation towards academic blogs: An exploratory study

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Understanding student perceptions and motivation towards academic blogs: An exploratory study

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This certain study by Deng and Yueng (2012) suggests that the success of academic blogs depends on student participation and the engagement of students. The study also aims to grasp a better understanding of the perceptions of teachers towards blogging. The study found that individual, social and academic aspects perceived the values of blogs.

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Understanding student perceptions and motivation towards academic blogs: An...: EBSCOhost

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About Blog Teachers Pay Teachers is the world's first open marketplace for educators to buy, sell, and share original resources. Its mission is to empower educators to share original educational materials and make teaching an even more rewarding experience. Frequency 3 posts / month Blog blog.teacherspayteachers.com
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Washington, District Of Columbia, United States About Blog Inside Higher Ed is the online source for news, opinion and jobs for all of higher education. Whether you're an adjunct or a vice president, a grad student or an eminence grise, we've got what you need to thrive in your job or find a better one. Frequency 30 posts / week Blog insidehighered.com
Facebook fans 111.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 251.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 80 ⋅ Alexa Rank 16.8K

London, England, United Kingdom About Blog Latest Teacher Network news, comment and analysis from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice. Most of our blogs are written for teachers by teachers, and experts in the world of education. Frequency 8 posts / day Blog theguardian.com/teacher-network
Facebook fans 20.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 176.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 95 ⋅ Alexa Rank 168

About Blog From interactive digital textbooks to learning communities, we are transforming classrooms, empowering teachers and captivating students by leading the way in providing high quality, dynamic, digital content to school districts large and small, rural and suburban and everything in between. Frequency 3 posts / week Since May 2010 Blog blog.discoveryeducation.com
Facebook fans 83.9K ⋅ Twitter followers 400.8K ⋅ Domain Authority 75 ⋅ Alexa Rank 14.8K

New York City, New York, United States About Blog Teaching and Learning With The New York Times. Frequency 2 posts / day Blog nytimes.com/section/learning
Facebook fans 17.4M ⋅ Twitter followers 49.7M ⋅ Domain Authority 95 ⋅ Alexa Rank 89

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States About Blog The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss writes about everything that matters in education. It is a school survival guide for parents (and everyone else). Frequency 7 posts / week Blog washingtonpost.com/news/answ..
Facebook fans 6.5M ⋅ Twitter followers 46.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 94 ⋅ Alexa Rank 179

Mountain View, California, United States About Blog Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. We tackle math, science, computing, history, art history, economics, and more, including K-14 and test preparation (SAT, Praxis, LSAT) content. We focus on skill mastery to help learners establish strong foundations, so there's no limit to what they can learn next! Follow to get updates from this blog directly to your inbox. Frequency 1 post / week Blog blog.khanacademy.org
Facebook fans 1.6M ⋅ Twitter followers 725K ⋅ Domain Authority 92 ⋅ Alexa Rank 509

New York City, New York, United States About Blog The most comprehensive and interactive Web destination for education news and opinion about U.S. schools, teaching and education reform. Its mission is to inform and empower Americans to make a difference in the field of education. Frequency 2 posts / day Blog huffpost.com/news/education
Twitter followers 434.9K ⋅ Instagram Followers 2.4M ⋅ Domain Authority 94 ⋅ Alexa Rank 762

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States About Blog U.S. Department Of Education aims to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. Frequency 1 post / day Since Sep 2009 Blog blog.ed.gov
Facebook fans 167.3K ⋅ Twitter followers 1.4M ⋅ Domain Authority 91 ⋅ Alexa Rank 980

Oakville, Ontario, Canada About Blog Make math learning fun and effective with Prodigy Math Game. Free for students, parents and educators. The math blog built for teachers, admin, and students success. Get inspired by strategies and tips for school, math, leadership, and more! Frequency 4 posts / month Blog prodigygame.com/main-en/blog
Twitter followers 12.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 57 ⋅ Alexa Rank 5.2K

United States About Blog Join Pearson experts and partners to explore ideas, trends, and research education that influence learner achievement. Frequency 5 posts / quarter Blog pearsoned.com/blog
Facebook fans 38K ⋅ Twitter followers 28.5K ⋅ Domain Authority 63 ⋅ Alexa Rank 11.6K

Sacramento, California, United States About Blog Larry Ferlazzo talks about websites that will help you teach ELL, ESL and EFL. I teach English, Social Studies and International Baccalaureate classes to English Language Learners and mainstream students at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento. Frequency 4 posts / day Also in ESL Teacher Blogs, TEFL Blogs, High School Blogs Blog larryferlazzo.edublogs.org
Twitter followers 74.8K ⋅ Instagram Followers 1K ⋅ Domain Authority 57 ⋅ Alexa Rank 13.9K

About Blog ViewSonic is a world-leading visual solutions provider. As an innovator and visionary, ViewSonic keeps the world connected with a portfolio of professional level visual solutions that enhance the way we compute, collaborate, communicate and connect. Our products include LED monitors, interactive commercial displays, touch displays, projectors, thin client, zero client and smart displays. Frequency 1 post / week Blog viewsonic.com/library
Facebook fans 592.2K ⋅ Twitter followers 467 ⋅ Domain Authority 75 ⋅ Alexa Rank 24.2K

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada About Blog BusyTeacher provides free printable worksheets and lesson plans for every busy teacher. Find printable worksheets on any topic, vocabulary, grammar, listening, reading, writing and speaking. You will get All sorts of free printable worksheets carefully sorted into grammar/vocab categories for easier navigation. Frequency 1 post / day Blog busyteacher.org
Facebook fans 150.1K ⋅ Twitter followers 16K ⋅ Domain Authority 57 ⋅ Alexa Rank 27.1K

Palo Alto, California, United States About Blog EdSurge is an independent education technology information resource and community. Find K12 and HigherEd Edtech News, Research, Jobs, Products and Events. Frequency 8 posts / week Also in Technology Blogs, Education News Websites Blog edsurge.com
Facebook fans 30K ⋅ Twitter followers 149.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 77 ⋅ Alexa Rank 38.6K

About Blog We are striving to collect all possible information about all possible education fields in one place. The aim is to give any prospective student a future peak into what he will be looking at during and after his higher education. Frequency 10 posts / month Blog getgraduation.com
Domain Authority 1 ⋅

Missouri, United States About Blog The Unplag tool helps educators, students, writers and all those willing to generate plagiarism-free content to timely spot similarities and prevent accusations of cheating long before you may receive them. Frequency 1 post / week Blog unicheck.com/blog
Twitter followers 16 ⋅ Instagram Followers 65 ⋅ Domain Authority 51 ⋅ Alexa Rank 45.6K

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia About Blog InformED is your learning and ideas hub. It's a resource for curious minds and a platform for passionate voices. It's an island of educational insight diligently researched and carefully curated in a sea of endless, often repetitive information. Frequency 2 posts / month Blog opencolleges.edu.au/informed
Facebook fans 427K ⋅ Twitter followers 4.7K ⋅ Instagram Followers 5.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 61 ⋅ Alexa Rank 54.6K

About Blog Education Technology Community for students, teachers, decision makers, & parents where they can find useful news, trends & insights, product reviews, resources, events, training and consultation on education technology to improve teaching, learning and hence education. Frequency 9 posts / week Also in Indian Education Blogs Blog edtechreview.in
Facebook fans 19.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 14.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 55 ⋅ Alexa Rank 79.5K

New York City, New York, United States About Blog DonorsChoose.org is an online charity that makes it easy to help a classroom in need. This blog is the place to get DonorsChoose.org news, tips for project creation and reaching your project goal, success stories, and outstanding student thank-you notes. Frequency 1 post / week Blog donorschoose.org/blog
Facebook fans 212.7K ⋅ Twitter followers 250.5K ⋅ Domain Authority 80 ⋅ Alexa Rank 83.7K

About Blog Getting Smart supports innovations in learning, education & technology. Their mission is to help more young people get smart & connect to the idea economy. They generate news coverage of events, relevant buzz, timely market trends and thought-leading reports on their blog to reach an audience focused in the edtech and edreform community across all levels of learning. Frequency 7 posts / week Blog gettingsmart.com
Facebook fans 11.5K ⋅ Twitter followers 67.1K ⋅ Instagram Followers 1.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 76 ⋅ Alexa Rank 88.9K

About Blog NextinCareer.com strives to provide you a platform to solve your queries and doubts related to your career. Frequency 1 post / day Blog nextincareer.com
Facebook fans 753 ⋅ Domain Authority 33 ⋅ Alexa Rank 100.5K

Indiana, United States About Blog Ditch That Textbook is a blog focusing on less reliance on the textbook with an emphasis on educational technology and creative teaching. Frequency 1 post / week Blog ditchthattextbook.com
Facebook fans 13.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 96.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 44 ⋅ Alexa Rank 102.1K

Abuja, Nigeria About Blog FlashSchoolGist is an Educational website that serves as a source of reliable educational news, information and career guide with the sole purpose of inspiring, Motivating, Guiding, Educating and impacting students and helping them maximize their potentials. Frequency 2 posts / day Also in Nigeria Education Blogs Blog flashschoolgist.com
Facebook fans 183 ⋅ Twitter followers 132 ⋅ Domain Authority 19 ⋅ Alexa Rank 109.1K

Oakland, California, United States About Blog EdSource is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization whose mission is to clarify complex education issues and to promote thoughtful policy decisions about public school improvement. Frequency 9 posts / week Blog edsource.org
Facebook fans 11.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 20.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 66 ⋅ Alexa Rank 109.5K

Canada About Blog Educational Technology and Mobile Learning blog provides all the tips, tutorials, and guides that you need to effectively integrate technology in your teaching. Frequency 1 post / day Also in Canada Education Blogs Blog educatorstechnology.com
Facebook fans 179.8K ⋅ Twitter followers 30K ⋅ Domain Authority 64 ⋅ Alexa Rank 116.5K

Madison, Wisconsin, United States About Blog Faculty Focus publishes articles on effective teaching strategies for the college classroom, both face-to-face and online. Frequency 5 posts / week Blog facultyfocus.com
Facebook fans 2.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 11.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 55 ⋅ Alexa Rank 122.4K

Dallas, Texas, United States About Blog The Shake Up Learning Blog by Kasey Bell offers educational technology and digital learning resources, tips and tricks, tutorials, Google cheat sheets and more to educators across the globe. Frequency 4 posts / week Also in Dallas Education Blogs Blog shakeuplearning.com/blog
Facebook fans 21.3K ⋅ Twitter followers 82.5K ⋅ Instagram Followers 5.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 48 ⋅ Alexa Rank 123.1K

Kentucky, United States About Blog Cult of Pedagogy is a community of people obsessed with education with Jennifer Gonzalez, the editor-in-chief. Visit the blog to discuss and solve problems, share ideas, and support the growth of other educators. Frequency 1 post / week Blog cultofpedagogy.com
Facebook fans 122.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 150.9K ⋅ Instagram Followers 23.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 56 ⋅ Alexa Rank 125.3K

New York City, New York, United States About Blog The Hechinger Report is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that covers U.S. education from preschool through college. Their mission is informing the public about inequality and innovation in education through quality journalism. Frequency 8 posts / week Blog hechingerreport.org
Facebook fans 9K ⋅ Twitter followers 46.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 67 ⋅ Alexa Rank 135.1K

United States About Blog eLearning Infographics is the no.1 Source for the Best Education Infographics. They add the Best Education Infographics from K12 to Higher Education Institutions every day. Frequency 1 post / month Also in Infographics Blogs Blog elearninginfographics.com
Facebook fans 53.3K ⋅ Twitter followers 54.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 55 ⋅ Alexa Rank 139.9K

About Blog Dedicated to global education and lifelong learning, Moosmosis is an award-winning international education organization that provides original open-access lessons and unique e-learning games in the arts and sciences. Frequency 1 post / week Blog moosmosis.org
Facebook fans 36 ⋅ Domain Authority 18 ⋅ Alexa Rank 135.6K

Westchester, Illinois, United States About Blog Emerging EdTech is one of the Internet's fastest growing Education Technology resources. Kelly aims at engaging students and enhancing learning outcomes with Internet & instructional technologies. Frequency 2 posts / week Blog emergingedtech.com
Facebook fans 9.8K ⋅ Twitter followers 9.9K ⋅ Instagram Followers 387 ⋅ Domain Authority 55 ⋅ Alexa Rank 167.4K

Hyderabad, Telangana, India About Blog Educational Blog- scholarship guidance, career tips and advice for students. Get educational info, scholarship guide, career tips, admission info and more at Univariety blog. Frequency 2 posts / week Blog blog.univariety.com
Facebook fans 53.1K ⋅ Twitter followers 244 ⋅ Domain Authority 35 ⋅ Alexa Rank 170.4K

Maryland, United States About Blog eSchool News connects you to the latest on how today's K-12 educators are using technology in the classroom. It is your daily source for technology news and innovation in education. Frequency 17 posts / week Blog eschoolnews.com
Facebook fans 8.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 80.8K ⋅ Domain Authority 65 ⋅ Alexa Rank 182K

Portland, Oregon, United States About Blog Created to elevate the work of educators, BlogLogic features pieces written by teachers and school leaders globally, as well as professional development facilitators. BlogLogic focuses on school leadership, curriculum development, teaching strategies, and student assessment data literacy, and aims to promote student achievement by supporting curriculum processes. Frequency 1 post / week Blog rubicon.com/blog
Twitter followers 30 ⋅ Domain Authority 43 ⋅ Alexa Rank 241.9K

Atlanta, Georgia, United States About Blog The American Board is a non-profit organization that offers an innovative, online teacher certification program. Founded in 2001 via a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, It addresses the need for knowledgeable and dedicated teachers in every classroom. Frequency 1 post / week Blog americanboard.org/blog
Facebook fans 28.8K ⋅ Twitter followers 2.1K ⋅ Instagram Followers 207 ⋅ Domain Authority 42 ⋅ Alexa Rank 244.1K

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada About Blog George Couros is a learner, educator, and Innovative Teaching, Learning, and Leadership consultant. He is also the author of 'The Innovator's Mindset'. He believes people need to inspire their kids to follow their passions, while letting them inspire us to do the same. Frequency 1 post / week Also in Leadership Blogs Blog georgecouros.ca/blog
Twitter followers 266.7K ⋅ Instagram Followers 11.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 53 ⋅ Alexa Rank 265.7K

Brooklyn, New York, United States About Blog Angela Watson created this site in 2003 because she loves sharing practical classroom ideas and helping teachers build a positive mindset so they can truly enjoy their work. Frequency 1 post / week Blog thecornerstoneforteachers.com
Facebook fans 161.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 21.5K ⋅ Instagram Followers 17.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 50 ⋅ Alexa Rank 288.6K

Lakeville, Minnesota, United States About Blog Learners Edge creates remarkable experiences, that inspire educators and ultimately improve the quality of teaching and learning. It uses The Chalk Blog to highlight some of the coursework it receives and shares teacher advice that may be helpful to you. Frequency 3 posts / week Blog learnersedge.com/blog
Facebook fans 22.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 36 ⋅ Alexa Rank 324.6K

Malibu, California, United States About Blog Language Magazine is a monthly publication that provides cutting-edge information for language learners, educators, and professionals around the world. Frequency 6 posts / week Also in Education Magazines Blog languagemagazine.com
Facebook fans 25.7K ⋅ Twitter followers 4.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 52 ⋅ Alexa Rank 347.6K

Chicago, Illinois, United States About Blog We are a nonprofit, non-partisan communications organization dedicated to building support for student-focused improvements in public education from preschool to high school graduation. Frequency 6 posts / week Also in Chicago Education Blogs Blog educationpost.org
Facebook fans 105.5K ⋅ Twitter followers 61.9K ⋅ Domain Authority 55 ⋅ Alexa Rank 391K

Switzerland About Blog MiddleWeb is all about middle school and the middle grades, with a sharp focus on teaching and learning in grades 4-8. Its mission is to support educators and others dedicated to the academic success of young adolescents and students in grades 4-8. Frequency 5 posts / week Blog middleweb.com
Facebook fans 4.7K ⋅ Twitter followers 13.5K ⋅ Domain Authority 53 ⋅ Alexa Rank 404.3K

About Blog Qualitative Research in fields of heritage, dance, travel and tourism, wayfinding and sports. Latest news on doing interviews and data collection. Training provide of bespoke and off the shelf training programs and packages. Frequency 3 posts / week Blog symondsresearch.com
Facebook fans 117 ⋅ Twitter followers 49 ⋅ Domain Authority 16 ⋅ Alexa Rank 429.4K

San Diego, California, United States About Blog Frequency 1 post / day Since May 2009 Also in Classroom Blogs Blog smartclassroommanagement.com
Facebook fans 23K ⋅ Domain Authority 47 ⋅ Alexa Rank 434.5K

Mitchell, Georgia, United States About Blog The Cool Cat Teacher Blog helps you be an excellent educator everyday with advice, ideas, and inspiration. Vicki has 18 years of experience teaching teachers how to use technology in the classroom. She has been teaching students with new tools, enthusiasm, and belief that teaching is a noble calling. She is a full time teacher and the IT director at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia. Frequency 1 post / week Since Dec 2005 Blog coolcatteacher.com
Facebook fans 15.2K ⋅ Twitter followers 165.9K ⋅ Instagram Followers 3.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 56 ⋅ Alexa Rank 443.9K

Atlanta, Georgia, United States About Blog Our vision is a world where politicians, parents and the general public recognize that teachers are an integral part of the educational reform and their opinion is desperately needed. Therefore, in this new world teachers should be empowered as the experts in education. Frequency 4 posts / week Blog theeducatorsroom.com
Facebook fans 107.3K ⋅ Twitter followers 10K ⋅ Domain Authority 52 ⋅ Alexa Rank 457.6K

About Blog Education IT Reporter produces and publishes stories, features, and news about education IT, as well as opinions and guest editorial from the industry's thought leaders. The site is dedicated to telling the best stories about education's backend and administrative IT technology and the people that make those stories possible. On rare occasions, the site sprinkles in views and news about a variety of other, non-education-related topics. Frequency 6 posts / week Since Jul 2019 Blog educationitreporter.com
Twitter followers 1K ⋅ Domain Authority 19 ⋅ Alexa Rank 482K

London, England, United Kingdom About Blog TeacherToolkit has reached 4 million classrooms worldwide and is the most influential blog on education in UK and one of the leading blogs across the world. This blog aims to distil common-sense ideas with a dollop of sparkle, ensuring every teacher can work cognitively with the minimum of fuss, to ensure the greatest impact in the classroom. Frequency 3 posts / week Blog teachertoolkit.co.uk/blog
Facebook fans 26.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 245K ⋅ Instagram Followers 7.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 54 ⋅ Alexa Rank 483.5K

New York City, New York, United States About Blog Monica Burns is an Curriculum and EdTech Consultant, Apple Distinguished Educator and Founder of ClassTechTips.com. She started ClassTechTips.com to provide a resource for educators and administrators on implementing EdTech in the classroom. Frequency 1 post / day Blog classtechtips.com/blog
Facebook fans 9K ⋅ Twitter followers 62.6K ⋅ Instagram Followers 6.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 47 ⋅ Alexa Rank 492.2K

Pewaukee, Wisconsin, United States About Blog Fractus Learning is a global team of expert educators, leaders, makers, and creators working passionately to share the best techniques, tools, and toys for meaningful learning. With a focus on students and family learning, Our goal is to be the single best place for finding amazing techniques, tools and toys to spark a life full of fascination, curiosity, and learning. Frequency 5 posts / month Also in Academic Blogs Blog fractuslearning.com
Facebook fans 2.2K ⋅ Twitter followers 5.5K ⋅ Domain Authority 54 ⋅ Alexa Rank 500.1K

India About Blog The Tuition Teacher Blog for articles and resources on learning and home tutoring. Follow for the latest educational news and updates. Frequency 1 post / week Blog thetuitionteacher.com/blog
Twitter followers 90 ⋅ Domain Authority 20 ⋅ Alexa Rank 647.4K

Santa Rosa, California, United States About Blog Catlin Tucker is a Google Certified Teacher, bestselling author, international trainer, and frequent Edtech speaker, who currently teaches in Sonoma County where she was named Teacher of the Year in 2010. Frequency 2 posts / month Blog catlintucker.com
Twitter followers 73.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 47 ⋅ Alexa Rank 672.1K

Maine, United States About Blog Richard Byrne, at Practical Ed Tech, has been teaching teachers to teach with technology. Frequency 5 posts / week Blog practicaledtech.com
Twitter followers 113.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 37 ⋅ Alexa Rank 601.6K

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States About Blog TeacherCast is designed for both the seasoned teacher who is searching for some great resources as well as the teacher who is a unsure how to start incorporating newly developed 21st Century skills. They are here to help you get to know the latest websites and apps that are driving todays classrooms. Frequency 4 posts / quarter Blog teachercast.net
Facebook fans 1.7K ⋅ Twitter followers 26.1K ⋅ Instagram Followers 570 ⋅ Domain Authority 46 ⋅ Alexa Rank 637.3K

Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, United States About Blog A.J. Juliani believes that we need to be intentional about innovation in our schools, so we can create a better future of learning for all students. That's what he speaks and writes about on his blog. Frequency 1 post / month Blog ajjuliani.com/blog-2
Twitter followers 34.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 47 ⋅ Alexa Rank 719.5K

California, United States About Blog Ask a Tech Teacher is a group of tech ed teachers who work together to offer you tech tips, advice, pedagogic discussion, lesson plans, and anything else they can think of to help you integrate tech into your classroom for education. Frequency 4 posts / week Blog askatechteacher.com
Twitter followers 7.3K ⋅ Instagram Followers 110 ⋅ Domain Authority 44 ⋅ Alexa Rank 714.1K

Paris, Ile-de-France, France About Blog The Global Education Monitoring Report (the GEM Report, formerly known as the Education for All Global Monitoring Report) is an editorially independent, authoritative and evidence-based annual report published by UNESCO. Its mandate is to monitor progress towards the education targets in the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework. Frequency 2 posts / week Since Mar 2010 Also in International Education Blogs Blog gemreportunesco.wordpress.com
Facebook fans 15.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 91K ⋅ Instagram Followers 1.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 50 ⋅ Alexa Rank 753.2K

Australia About Blog Australia #1 Educational Blog Frequency 3 posts / month Blog tutorsfield.com.au
Facebook fans 1.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 29 ⋅ Alexa Rank 812.5K

San Jose, California, United States About Blog Moonshot Jr's Innovator Program for kids between the age 10-17 years empowers and nurtures them to become tomorrow's innovators and entrepreneurs. In the Moonshot Junior blog, you will find out about the latest education trends, insights, and get tips on how you can make your child future-ready. Frequency 2 posts / week Blog moonshotjr.com/blog
Twitter followers 24 ⋅ Domain Authority 14 ⋅ Alexa Rank 820.8K

Albany, New York, United States About Blog Doug Lemov thinks that, there isn't a problem in teaching or learning that someone somewhere hasn't solved. We just need to find them and take some field notes. So, join him for discussion and observations related to Teach Like a Champion, Practice Perfect, and whatever else fits under the banner of teaching and practice. Frequency 3 posts / month Blog teachlikeachampion.com/blog
Facebook fans 21.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 60.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 47 ⋅ Alexa Rank 916.1K

Canada About Blog The Canadian Homeschooler blog has been sharing and providing Canadian resources to homeschooling families. It provides how-to's, the curriculum ideas, and other resources homeschooler's need. Frequency 1 post / month Also in Homeschool Blogs Blog thecanadianhomeschooler.com
Facebook fans 7.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 1.3K ⋅ Instagram Followers 969 ⋅ Domain Authority 36 ⋅ Alexa Rank 916.7K

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India About Blog Edurific is founded by the Alumni of IIT, Warwick Business School, Michigan State University, New York University, London University, and many more Top Universities, to empower kids through Coding, Robotics, and AI courses. We have a unique way to offer your child relevant skills and prepare them for a better future. Our vision is to diminish the skill gap that is not being catered by our present learning system and make coding a habit for kids. Frequency 12 posts / month Since Sep 2020 Blog blog.edurific.com
Facebook fans 16K ⋅ Twitter followers 1.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 13 ⋅ Alexa Rank 976.7K

Austin, Texas, United States About Blog Bright Classroom Ideas promotes excellence and innovation in education, featuring teaching tips, classroom ideas, teaching resources, and back to school tips. Frequency 1 post / day Blog brightclassroomideas.com
Facebook fans 2.8K ⋅ Twitter followers 28.5K ⋅ Domain Authority 24 ⋅ Alexa Rank 844.1K

Manhattan, New York, United States About Blog Lisa Nielsen has been sharing ideas about the future of education. She found school boring irrelevant. That ticked her off. She writes this blog to share ideas to help change that for others. Frequency 3 posts / quarter Blog theinnovativeeducator.blogsp..
Twitter followers 31.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 55 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1M

Madison, Wisconsin, United States About Blog Blogging Through The Fourth Dimension is a community to share ideas, ask questions, and support each as they try to re-ignite students' learning. Frequency 2 posts / month Blog pernillesripp.com
Facebook fans 4.9K ⋅ Twitter followers 74.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 46 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.3M

United States About Blog Simpliv is a platform for learning and teaching online courses. We offer a rich variety of educational courses that have been prepared by authors, educators, coaches and business leaders. Frequency 4 posts / month Since Jul 2019 Blog blog.simpliv.com
Facebook fans 17.3K ⋅ Twitter followers 9.7K ⋅ Instagram Followers 2.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 32 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.4M

United States About Blog Think Inclusive is an online resource that promotes the full and authentic inclusion of people with disabilities in their school and communities through education and advocacy. Frequency 4 posts / month Blog thinkinclusive.us
Facebook fans 57K ⋅ Twitter followers 16K ⋅ Instagram Followers 1.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 46 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.2M

England, United Kingdom About Blog The Learning Spy is widely recognised as one of the most influential education blogs in the UK and has won a number of awards. Frequency 1 post / week Since Jul 2011 Also in UK Education Blogs Blog learningspy.co.uk/archive
Twitter followers 709 ⋅ Domain Authority 48 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.2M

Napa, California, United States About Blog NTN's mission is to support schools and school districts to ensure students gain the knowledge and deeper learning skills necessary to succeed in life. It offers district-wide support strategies and has fostered the spread of the model to elementary, middle and high schools. Frequency 2 posts / month Blog newtechnetwork.org
Facebook fans 8.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 22.5K ⋅ Instagram Followers 955 ⋅ Domain Authority 50 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.5M

Sudan About Blog Education Rickshaw is made up of Zach and Stephanie Groshell, and we are passionate about international education. We aim to use this blog as a platform to share our experiences from within the trenches of the international school circuit. Frequency 1 post / month Since Aug 2016 Blog educationrickshaw.com
Twitter followers 5K ⋅ Domain Authority 34 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.3M

Bangkok, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, Thailand About Blog Education blog by Neil Jarrett. Neil is a Year 6 teacher & maths coordinator at an international school in Bangkok. Neil Jarrett Interested in ideas & educational technology to support student's learning, he recently became a Google Certified Educator. Frequency 2 posts / month Blog edtech4beginners.com
Facebook fans 22.9K ⋅ Twitter followers 7.9K ⋅ Domain Authority 36 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.5M

Cypress, California, United States About Blog A blog about digital leadership, pedagogy, learning, and transformative change in education. Frequency 1 post / week Also in Educational Leadership Blogs Blog esheninger.blogspot.com
Twitter followers 153.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 47 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.6M

Clover, South Carolina, United States About Blog Instructional Technology Integration Specialist, STEM Leader, Consultant & Speaker, Apple Distinguished Educator, NBCT, PolarTREC Teacher. Frequency 1 post / month Blog edtechpicks.org
Facebook fans 204 ⋅ Twitter followers 5.8K ⋅ Domain Authority 32 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.6M

United Kingdom About Blog Creative STAR Learning Company works behind the scenes supporting and developing outdoor learning and play at a national, local and school level. The STAR stands for Support, Training, Advice, Resources. Frequency 6 posts / quarter Since Sep 2008 Also in Outdoor Education Blogs Blog creativestarlearning.co.uk/blog
Facebook fans 16.7K ⋅ Twitter followers 24.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 44 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.6M

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States About Blog Hands-on, BYOL (bring your own laptop) workshops with Wesley Fryer provide one of the best ways to not only gain a better understanding of technology integration possibilities, but also gain practical skills utilizing technology tools and strategies in the classroom. Frequency 1 post / month Blog speedofcreativity.org
Twitter followers 39.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 51 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2M

London, England, United Kingdom About Blog This blog is filled with ideas and resources for teaching secondary mathematics. With everything from Star Wars puzzles to mathematical handwriting, it's an award-winning blog for all things maths. Frequency 3 posts / month Also in UK Teacher Blogs, UK Maths Blogs Blog resourceaholic.com
Facebook fans 1.5K ⋅ Twitter followers 36.1K ⋅ Instagram Followers 476 ⋅ Domain Authority 38 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.9M

New York, United States About Blog Jose Vilson is a math educator, activist, father, and author of This Is Not A Test. This blog community consists of educators, activists, and intelligent allies from all walks of life. They respect the points of view of others, and try to find progress and positivity in a major way. Frequency 1 post / month Blog thejosevilson.com
Facebook fans 3.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 46.2K ⋅ Instagram Followers 4.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 51 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.1M

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States About Blog Frequency 1 post / week Blog shankerinstitute.org/blog
Facebook fans 870 ⋅ Twitter followers 7.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 54 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.2M

About Blog Frequency 1 post / week Blog stevehargadon.com
Twitter followers 24.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 44 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.2M

Lafayette, Colorado, United States About Blog Dangerously Irrelevant is a blog dedicated to the technology needs of principals, superintendents, and other school administrators. Frequency 1 post / month Blog dangerouslyirrelevant.org
Twitter followers 52.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 51 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.4M

Hong Kong About Blog My name is Adam Hill. I teach in a bilingual PYP school in Hong Kong. This blog is intended to be a platform for reflecting and sharing good teaching practice. Frequency 1 post / month Blog mrhillmusings.com
Facebook fans 2.1K ⋅ Twitter followers 18.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 21 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.2M

DC Metro, HoCo, & Balto, Hon About Blog Frequency 1 post / month Blog thedaringlibrarian.com
Twitter followers 34.6K ⋅ Instagram Followers 2.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 44 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.4M

India About Blog NutSpace is a new age educational company that focuses on building 21st Century Skills, Social-Emotional Skills, and other important life skills in children aged 1 to 12-year-olds. NutSpace has developed a curriculum with over 500 stories and is closely working with schools across India. NutSpace also runs a blog for parents and educators with quality articles and videos. Frequency 1 post / quarter Blog nutspace.in/education-blog-p..
Facebook fans 5.1K ⋅ Twitter followers 133 ⋅ Instagram Followers 1.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 14 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.7M

Arizona, United States About Blog The Arizona K12 Center is dedicated to providing teacher leadership and quality professional development opportunities for Arizona's teachers. A goal of the Center is to develop and promote the profession of teaching in Arizona by engaging in policy conversations as they relate to the profession. Frequency 3 posts / week Blog storiesfromschoolaz.org
Facebook fans 5.3K ⋅ Twitter followers 3.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 42 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.8M

Texas City, Texas, United States About Blog Our urban educational resources sparks a light in the minds of the most challenging urban students. Frequency 2 posts / quarter Blog fuelgreatminds.com/blog
Facebook fans 3.9K ⋅ Twitter followers 4.5K ⋅ Domain Authority 34 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.7M

Virginia City, Nevada, United States About Blog Eduwonk is a blog off ideas, analysis, and commentary about education policy and politics. Eduwonk is a blog written by Andrew J. Rotherham. A 2006 Education Week study found Eduwonk to be one of the most influential information sources in education and the most influential education blog. Frequency 1 post / day Since Apr 2004 Blog eduwonk.com
Facebook fans 2.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 23.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 52 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.8M

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada About Blog imaginED is a blog designed to support and enable imagination-focused teaching in all contexts, from formal to alternative learning contexts, and from primary school through higher education. imaginED provides teaching ideas, activities and resources aimed at students of all ages (pre-k through post-secondary). Imagination-focused teaching applies to all educational settings (the traditional classroom, alternative learning environments, the homeschool etc.), and to all subject areas. Frequency 2 posts / month Blog educationthatinspires.ca
Facebook fans 543 ⋅ Twitter followers 19.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 29 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.9M

About Blog Steven Singer, author of Gadfly On The Wall Blog, is a husband, father, teacher and education advocate. Frequency 1 post / week Blog gadflyonthewallblog.com
Twitter followers 10.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 35 ⋅ Alexa Rank 3.5M

Illinois, United States About Blog Hi! I am Cassandra Washington. Welcome to TTT4U. I have created a comfortable, healthy space for educators to find praise and support. It is also a place to network, collaborate and learn about the latest trends in education. I want this website to promote wellness among educators, and spread some good news about the profession. Frequency 1 post / month Blog teachandtaketime4u.com
Twitter followers 126 ⋅ Domain Authority 12 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.9M

San Diego, California, United States About Blog Distance-Educator.com is the pioneer portal for professionals in the field of distance education and elearning since 1995. Frequency 30 posts / quarter Blog distance-educator.com
Facebook fans 451 ⋅ Twitter followers 903 ⋅ Domain Authority 40 ⋅ Alexa Rank 3.7M

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia About Blog E-Learning Provocateur is the brainchild of Ryan Tracey, a member of eLearn Magazine's editorial board. Tracey hopes to 'provoke deeper thinking' in the world of eLearning. Frequency 1 post / month Since Apr 2008 Also in Australian Education Blogs Blog ryan2point0.wordpress.com
Twitter followers 10.4K ⋅ Social Engagement 7 ⋅ Domain Authority 40 ⋅ Alexa Rank 4.4M

New York, United States About Blog Arthur Goldstein is an ESL teacher and an UFT Chapter Leader at Francis Lewis High School. He is also an UFT High School Executive Board member. Frequency 2 posts / week Since May 2005 Blog nyceducator.com
Twitter followers 7K ⋅ Domain Authority 46 ⋅ Alexa Rank 5.1M

Sacramento, California, United States About Blog Cloaking Inequity is a blog focused on education policy and social justice. Julian Vasquez Heilig is currently a Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. He also serves as the Education Chair for CA HI NAACP. Frequency 1 post / week Blog cloakinginequity.com
Twitter followers 8.7K ⋅ Instagram Followers 1.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 46 ⋅ Alexa Rank 5.6M

About Blog This website is a non-profit project designed to bring education to the masses around the world. You do not need a post-secondary degree to become educated in any field. Furthermore, the boundaries of all subjects are not absolute, in that any person can learn anything about any topic. It is my sincerest hope to educate as many people as possible, at no cost to anyone so that everyone may experience the joy of learning for the sake of pure enjoyment. Frequency 1 post / week Blog learnsomethinginteresting.com
Domain Authority 9 ⋅ Alexa Rank 6M

Southold, New York, United States About Blog Diane Ravitch's Blog is a site to discuss better education for all. Brooklyn resident Diane Ravitch is an education historian and best-selling author. Frequency 3 posts / day Blog dianeravitch.net
Twitter followers 156.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 60 ⋅

Arlington, Virginia, United States About Blog The National Catholic Educational Association has provided leadership, direction, and service to Catholic educators since 1904. Frequency 1 post / week Blog nceatalk.org
Facebook fans 8.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 10.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 28 ⋅ Alexa Rank 6.7M

About Blog Knowledge & Experience Sharing Frequency 13 posts / quarter Blog muhariefeffendi.wordpress.com
Domain Authority 13 ⋅ Alexa Rank 6.9M

North Carolina, United States About Blog Thoughts on public education, politics, and life. Grab a cup. Refills are free. Frequency 5 posts / week Blog caffeinatedrage.com
Facebook fans 1.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 1.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 34 ⋅

San Luis Obispo, California, United States About Blog Wisdom Wonder Project offers homeschool and classroom curriculum filled with rich and beautiful, hold-your-hand lessons that will spark wonder and wisdom in your children. Frequency 3 posts / quarter Since Mar 2019 Blog wisdomwonderproject.org/blog
Facebook fans 1.3K ⋅ Twitter followers 1 ⋅ Domain Authority 14 ⋅

Wilmington, Delaware, United States About Blog Leadership, Innovation and Divergent Teaching. I am passionate about learning and my profession in general, but my two favorite components of my position are being able to provide professional development to teachers and present/keynote conferences. I believe that by providing these opportunities to teachers, I am in turn able to reach many more students and ultimately affect their learning experiences. Frequency 1 post / month Blog mandyfroehlich.com
Twitter followers 19K ⋅ Instagram Followers 620 ⋅ Domain Authority 30 ⋅

About Blog The thoughts on learning and education from Tim Manson. I'm wiritng a book about education - so some of my thoughts and ideas might appear here! Frequency 1 post / day Blog timmanson.wordpress.com
Domain Authority 1 ⋅

Minnesota, United States About Blog Educate Tanzania uses the window of education to help bring opportunity, clean water, and improved health to developing communities. Frequency 6 posts / quarter Since Jan 2008 Also in Tanzania Blogs Blog educatetanzania.org/blog
Facebook fans 752 ⋅ Twitter followers 2.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 16 ⋅

India About Blog Educational Initiatives (EI) is an educational products company that leverages the twin layers of cutting edge educational research and technology based solutions. EI aims at revolutionizing on how children learn between K-12 education space. Frequency 1 post / week Since Aug 2008 Also in Student Blogs Blog blog.ei-india.com
Facebook fans 5.1K ⋅ Twitter followers 1.9K ⋅ Domain Authority 35 ⋅

Massachusetts, United States About Blog Eye on Early Education focuses on the twin goals of ensuring that Massachusetts children have access to high-quality early education and become proficient readers by the end of third grade. Frequency 3 posts / week Since Jun 2010 Also in Early Childhood Education Blogs Blog eyeonearlyeducation.com
Facebook fans 2.9K ⋅ Twitter followers 18.9K ⋅ Domain Authority 38 ⋅

About Blog I'm starting the Awakened Educator blog to support the many educators out there who are tired, frustrated, burnt out (yes some even at the start of a new school year), or who just find it challenging to maintain the level of work they are committed to providing. To encourage those who feel unheard, devalued, and forgotten as a human being in the field of education. Frequency 3 posts / quarter Blog awakenededucator.com/blog
Domain Authority 1 ⋅

Ludwigsburg, Sachsen, Germany About Blog Education management includes all management and control tasks, whereby teaching and learning processes are initiated, planned, implemented and evaluated. At the Institute for Educational Management, current questions of this domain are researched and taught. Frequency 2 posts / week Since Jan 2017 Blog bildungsmanagement.guru
Facebook fans 317 ⋅ Twitter followers 152 ⋅ Domain Authority 16 ⋅

Lititz, Pennsylvania, United States About Blog Matt Bergman is the author of a blog called Learn-Lead-Grow, to help teachers find creative ways to infuse technology and UDL in the classroom.His mission is to supply teachers with educational technology ideas, which eliminate barriers and provide access to learning for all students. Frequency 2 posts / month Blog bergman-udl.blogspot.com
Facebook fans 278 ⋅ Twitter followers 6.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 33 ⋅

London, England, United Kingdom About Blog Deliver modern tools to improve and enhance the learning experience of children. Prepare for grammar school exams with 11 plus online worksheets, strengthen the foundation. Frequency 4 posts / month Since Dec 2018 Blog kidsmartapp.co.uk/content
Facebook fans 394 ⋅ Twitter followers 71 ⋅ Domain Authority 19 ⋅

Plato, Missouri, United States About Blog Welcome to Rockin' The Boat! This blog is not about boating, though we aren't against boating. Boating is fun. This blog is about changing the status quo in our classrooms and engaging students through the use of creativity and technology. Frequency 1 post / month Blog rockntheboat.com/first-blog-..
Twitter followers 14.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 14 ⋅

Arkansas, United States About Blog Hi, I'm Lynn from TiePlay Educational Resources. I've worked with children for over fourteen years. It is great to be able to create kid friendly learning & teaching tools for educators. Inspirational ideas for teachers with guest bloggers, resource links, educational materials and freebies. Frequency 1 post / quarter Blog tieplayeducationalresourcell..
Facebook fans 1.5K ⋅ Domain Authority 13 ⋅

Austin, Texas, United States About Blog Find the right fit for your kid. Educational consulting and information for families looking for innovative private elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, preschools, specialty schools, summer camps, and other learning opportunities in and around Austin, Texas. Frequency 1 post / quarter Blog altedaustin.com/blog
Facebook fans 2.1K ⋅ Twitter followers 616 ⋅ Instagram Followers 363 ⋅ Domain Authority 29 ⋅

South Africa! About Blog Mindcraft Learning offers supplemental online education and courses for school kids in South Africa. Frequency 17 posts / year Blog mindcraftlearning.com/catego..
Facebook fans 2.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 2 ⋅ Domain Authority 1 ⋅

Blackburn, Scotland, United Kingdom About Blog Promethean shares and unpacks the latest insights and resources on education and edtech. Frequency 10 posts / month Blog resourced.prometheanworld.com
Twitter followers 4.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 57 ⋅

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States About Blog Science Cheerleader has been bringing more science to the people. Darlene Cavalier is current and former NFL and NBA cheerleaders pursuing science and engineering careers. Frequency 1 post / week Blog sciencecheerleaders.org
Facebook fans 4.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 9K ⋅ Instagram Followers 409 ⋅ Domain Authority 54 ⋅

Auckland, New Zealand About Blog Richard Wells provides professional development in both pedagogy and technology and speaks on matters of future focused education. Frequency 2 posts / month Blog eduwells.com
Twitter followers 16.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 40 ⋅

About Blog I am Ethan Miller, an online ESL instructor and EdTech enthusiast. Apart from being an educator, I am a freelance writer, an aspiring blogger, a struggling author, an animal lover and a part time social worker. Frequency 5 posts / quarter Since Nov 2015 Blog essaysonline.wordpress.com
Domain Authority 21 ⋅

About Blog Posts on Teaching, Classroom ideas, Learning, Edu-issues, Management tips, college planning and educator training! Frequency 1 post / month Blog poweredutoday.com
Domain Authority 3 ⋅

About Blog Movie Principal features Lessons from the Silver Screen Applied to Education Frequency 2 posts / quarter Blog movieprincipal.com
Twitter followers 18 ⋅ Domain Authority 2 ⋅

About Blog Keep up with Special Education Teacher with Tips on How to Teach Diverse Learners. Frequency 1 post / month Blog teachingexceptionalthinkers.com
Instagram Followers 11.8K ⋅ Domain Authority 8 ⋅

About Blog The Journal addresses current topics and issues facing higher education worldwide. Edu Alliance Group, Inc. (EAG) founded in 2014 is an education consulting firm located in Bloomington, Indiana, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. We assist higher education institutions worldwide on a variety of mission-critical projects. Our consultants are accomplished leaders who share the benefit of their experience to diagnose and solve challenges. Frequency 2 posts / quarter Since Jun 2020 Also in Higher Education Blogs Blog edualliancegroup.blog
Twitter followers 849 ⋅ Domain Authority 15 ⋅

Bendigo, Victoria, Australia About Blog At The P.E Geek blog learn how to use game changing technologies in your physical education Classroom. Jarrod travels the world helping physical education teachers use technology more meaningfully in their classes. Frequency 1 post / month Since Sep 2008 Also in Bend Blogs Blog thepegeek.com/blog
Facebook fans 10K ⋅ Twitter followers 31.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 39 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.4M

Minsk, Horad Minsk, Belarus About Blog Visit JoomlaLMS eLearning Blog to learn what is LMS and how to effective use it in eLearning practice. Get useful JoomlaLMS tips and tricks. Blog joomlalms.com/blog.html
Facebook fans 1K ⋅ Twitter followers 1.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 43 ⋅ Alexa Rank 898K

United States About Blog Our mission is to offer high-quality courses that help improve teaching performance. We do this by providing training geared toward implementation in the classroom. Frequency 6 posts / year Also in K- Education Blogs Blog modelteaching.com/education-..
Facebook fans 736 ⋅ Twitter followers 467 ⋅ Domain Authority 23 ⋅ Alexa Rank 98.6K

Bangalore, Karnataka, India About Blog We are a young, dynamic, growth-driven education portal focused on maximizing student-potential and helping them plan their higher studies. We aim to help students identify their strengths by offering them career-oriented individual counseling, trainings and educational workshops. Frequency 6 posts / year Blog campushunt.in/blog
Facebook fans 22.7K ⋅ Twitter followers 2.4K ⋅ Instagram Followers 325 ⋅ Domain Authority 24 ⋅ Alexa Rank 153.1K

Australia About Blog By teachers, for teachers, Edublogs hosts hundreds of thousands of blogs for teachers, students, researchers, professors, librarians, coordinators, institutions and administrators. We are the easiest, safest, quickest and most powerful educational blogging platform. Frequency 14 posts / year Since Jan 2008 Blog theedublogger.com
Facebook fans 64.8K ⋅ Twitter followers 41.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 49 ⋅ Alexa Rank 213K

Hawaii About Blog Quantum University's mission is to educate anyone who is sincere about obtaining an exceptional education in the alternative healing arts, regardless of race, political preference, gender or religion. Stay informed on quantum physics and healing modalities. Blog quantumuniversity.com/blog
Facebook fans 139K ⋅ Twitter followers 4.5K ⋅ Instagram Followers 5.2K ⋅ Domain Authority 37 ⋅ Alexa Rank 461.5K

Houston, Texas, United States About Blog Shelly Sanchez Terrell has supported teachers and learners in 100 countries as a teacher trainer, professor, and instructional designer. Join her in discussing strategies for engaging all learners through effective instructional methods and technology. Frequency 30 posts / year Blog teacherrebootcamp.com
Twitter followers 80.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 46 ⋅ Alexa Rank 860.2K

Burwood, Victoria, Australia About Blog Sydney School of Business & Technology is a top educational college. Certificate, diploma, postgraduate & vocational courses. Online or on campus. Check out our blog to know more about us. Frequency 5 posts / year Since Sep 2017 Blog ssbt.edu.au/blog-2
Facebook fans 3.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 19 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.1M

Dallas, Texas, United States About Blog Educational resources marketplace for bilingual, dual language teachers! Get new ideas, research, activities, and resources for bilingual teachers. Frequency 5 posts / year Since Jul 2017 Blog bilingualmarketplace.com/blo..
Facebook fans 886 ⋅ Twitter followers 3.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 18 ⋅ Alexa Rank 3.7M

About Blog The global education and learning blog #LearningNeverEnds Frequency 10 posts / year Blog blog.lore.online
Facebook fans 1.7K ⋅ Instagram Followers 161 ⋅ Domain Authority 18 ⋅ Alexa Rank 3.1M

About Blog If you are looking to learn all about basic and higher study of Electrical and Electronics, you've came to the right place. We are a team of responsive Electrical. Frequency 30 posts / year Blog techdinesh.com
Domain Authority 9 ⋅ Alexa Rank 4.5M

Connecticut, United States About Blog David Andrade is an Educator and an Educational Technology Specialist. was an engineer for 10 years before changing careers and becoming an educator. He has ver 10 years in the classroom and 2 years in educational technology administration. His blog is a resource of educational web tools and mobile apps for teachers and educators. Frequency 30 posts / year Blog educationaltechnologyguy.blo..
Twitter followers 4.9K ⋅ Domain Authority 43 ⋅

About Blog A teacher help site that gives insights to the world of teaching. News on interesting topics and raw teaching experiences and advice. Frequency 30 posts / year Blog mattedition.com
Facebook fans 214 ⋅

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States About Blog The National Education Association, the nation's largest professional employee organization, is committed to advancing the cause of public education. The blog provides news and features from the National Education Association. Frequency 30 posts / year Blog neatoday.org
Facebook fans 219.1K ⋅ Twitter followers 241.9K ⋅ Instagram Followers 23.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 67 ⋅

About Blog The Teacher and The Admin site was founded in December 2017 to help give a voice in the effort to make schools the best place for kids to grow into happy, healthy, and prepared people who will be confident enough to pursue their passions in life. Frequency 11 posts / year Blog theteacherandtheadmin.com
Facebook fans 422 ⋅ Twitter followers 2.7K ⋅ Instagram Followers 147 ⋅ Domain Authority 23 ⋅

About Blog Classroom Management Trainer, Learning Coach, and student Advocate location in Reno, Nevada serving clients nation wide. Academic Transformations believes each child has vast academic potential. We provide students with a Learning Coach and Education Advocacy, as well as Classroom Management School Training for school Staff and Administrators. Frequency 2 posts / year Blog academictransformations.com/..
Facebook fans 142 ⋅ Domain Authority 2 ⋅

Indiana, United States About Blog Gifted Children seeks to help parents and others learn what it means to be gifted, recognize gifted behaviors, and understand gifted children. We also suggest ways to nurture the abilities of gifted children and to keep them challenged and happy at home and school. Since Jul 2014 Also in Gifted Education Blogs Blog giftsforlearning.com
Facebook fans 4.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 1.8K ⋅ Domain Authority 25 ⋅

About Blog For the last fifteen years I've dedicated my life to developing literacy skills for students of all ages. I love what I do, and my students are the reason why! Frequency 5 posts / year Blog tiamonee.com/tias-open-book
Facebook fans 102 ⋅ Instagram Followers 148 ⋅ Domain Authority 7 ⋅

About Blog 'The Girl on the Piccadilly Line' was launched in October 2015 to document the trials, triumphs and tribulations of working in the education system. A blog by Zoe Paramour. Frequency 1 post / year Blog piclinegirl.com
Facebook fans 235 ⋅ Twitter followers 11.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 29 ⋅

About Blog Advanced Placement (AP) exams, administered by The College Board, are not easy. To score well, students must put a good deal of time and effort into their review. There are many excellent review books available that are not only full of tips and tricks to help you score higher, but some of these review books have sample practice tests that very closely mirror the tests you will take. Blog apbookreview.com
Domain Authority 10 ⋅

United Kingdom About Blog A blog about using iPads to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom, especially Primary Education. Mr P is a primary teacher and iPad advocate. Since Jan 2017 Also in Primary Teacher Blogs, UK Classroom Blogs Blog mrparkinsonict.blogspot.com
Facebook fans 186.5K ⋅ Twitter followers 41.6K ⋅ Instagram Followers 34.9K ⋅ Domain Authority 36 ⋅

Pune, Maharashtra, India About Blog Get Free NCERT Solutions -State Board Solutions, NCERT Notes, Question Papers, E-Books, Study Material, News and Entrance Exams updates only on Study Mona. Frequency 1 post / year Blog studymona.com
Domain Authority 16 ⋅

About Blog Albert Einstein has often been attributed with the quote 'If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then is an empty desk a sign?' Education is a messy topic, this is my attempt to help clear some of the clutter with ideas, commentary, training and more. Frequency 1 post / year Blog blog.thecluttereddesk.info
Domain Authority 2 ⋅

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Top 100 Education Blogs, Websites & Influencers in 2021 for Educators and Teachers

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San Francisco, California, United States About Blog MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions covering cultural and technology trends, groundbreaking research, and innovations in education. KQED is for everyone who wants to be more. Our television, radio, digital media and educational services change lives for the better and help individuals and communities achieve their full potential.

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Academic blogs: A platform for sharing information and disseminating knowledge

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Academic blogs: A platform for sharing information and disseminating knowledge

# data[].attributes.body
keywords are analysed in a corpus comprising two academic blogs in higher education, specifically dealing with issues of Open Distance Learning (ODL).

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Abstract

In this article, keywords are analysed in a corpus comprising two academic blogs in higher education, specifically dealing with issues of Open Distance Learning (ODL). WordSmith Tools was used to extract keywords from the blogs, and the thematically significant keywords were then analysed. The keywords were grouped according to three classes. Firstly, the first person pronoun 'I' was discussed to analyse the style and authorial voice in the blogs. Next, localised keywords that occur frequently in specific blog posts were discussed. Thirdly, keywords related to the theme of higher education such as 'students' and 'distance' were analysed. The final section of the findings looked at issues of power in these blogs. The findings show that Siemens' and Prinsloo's academic blogs are an accessible source of information regarding higher education that have the potential to be successfully integrated into teaching and learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Academic blogs: A platform for sharing information and disseminating knowledge

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Abstract In this article, keywords are analysed in a corpus comprising two academic blogs in higher education, specifically dealing with issues of Open Distance Learning (ODL). WordSmith Tools was used to extract keywords from the blogs, and the thematically significant keywords were then analysed. The keywords were grouped according to three classes.

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Inside Higher Ed is the leading source for the latest news, analysis, and services for the entire higher education community. Our mission is to serve all of higher education - individuals, institutions, corporations and non-profits - so they can do their jobs better, transforming their lives and those of the students they serve.

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Career Advice, Jobs

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Free Higher Education News, Jobs, Career Advice and Events for college and university faculty, adjuncts, graduate students, and administrators.

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Student learning in higher education through blogging in the classroom

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Student learning in higher education through blogging in the classroom

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In the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the range of social media tools that have become available. Despite reports of successful adoption in the higher education classroom, there have been relatively few empirical studies that have explored whether the use of blogs in teaching and learning leads to an increase in perceived learning by students. This research study adopts a post positivist research approach and a quantitative research design that uses PLS-SEM. It was found that students do perceive higher degrees of learning from using blogs, but the recognised benefits of using blogs is influenced by the students’ attitudes towards the use of technology in teaching and learning, their perceived usefulness of blogs, and the extent to which they have used blogs previously. The findings have implications for both teachers and students, as they can be used as a framework to help ensure the successful use of pedagogic blogs.

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Autism occupies a prominent place in scientific research both as a medical and as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Autism is studied as a disorder and a diagnostic label, as an experience of people with autism, their parents and their supporters, and finally as a disability related to stigma and rejection. The purpose of this article is to describe the posted experiences on personal blogs of five mothers who have school-aged children in the autistic spectrum in Greece. The qualitative method of content analysis is used for analysing the personal narratives across their blogs because this method focuses on describing and understanding the presented experiences and acknowledges the central role of the researcher in describing and signifying the issues discussed. The results of the content analysis show that the mothers seem to view autism through a developmental perspective and as they lead efforts for their child's developmental timeline they are worried about their child's developmental course and tend to experience high levels of anxiety, depression and burnout. The mothers act as practical scientists and co-therapists, taking an active role in educating and raising their children, finding a school and selecting appropriate interventions. The mothers struggle to obtain quality in education and services, while faced with the absence of technical infrastructure and understaffing in schools, lack of funding, covert or overt practices of acceptance and rejection of people with disabilities in the educational system, the attitudes and ignorance of some educators, and the high cost of private services. These mothers, at first, view autism as a tragedy and within their social environment they face covert or overt rejection since their children are stigmatised as "abnormal". Later on, the mothers accept their child's disability as a prerequisite for gaining a new life experience. It seems that the mothers have a mixed perception of disability, which sometimes tends to be closer to the medical model, sometimes to the hybrid model, while other times to the social model of disability.

Acknowledgement

There was no research funding for this study, and no restrictions have been imposed on free access to, or publication of, the research data.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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mothers of children in the autistic spectrum

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Mothers' Experiences of Children in the Autistic Spectrum in Greece: Narratives of Development, Education and Disability Across their Blogs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Autism occupies a prominent place in scientific research both as a medical and as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Autism is studied as a disorder and a diagnostic label, as an experience of people with autism, their parents and their supporters, and finally as a disability related to stigma and rejection.

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Class blogs as a teaching tool to promote writing and student interaction.

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Class blogs as a teaching tool to promote writing and student interaction.

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Blogs are a useful teaching tool for improving student writing and increasing class interaction. However, most studies have looked at individual blogs rather than blogs maintained by a whole class. We introduced assignments involving participation in class blogs to four science communication classes with enrolments of between 15 and 36 students. We administered paper-based surveys to obtain student perceptions of the value of the blogging assignment. Based on feedback in semester one, we increased commenting requirements and spent more time integrating the blog with coursework in semester two. In semester two, students had significantly improved perceptions of the blog assignments. The most commonly cited benefit by students in both semesters was that the blog helped to improve their writing. Most enjoyed the opportunity to have increased intellectual exchange with other students and the majority agreed that knowing other students read the blog motivated them to write better. Students disliked being forced to comment and they felt that they benefited just from reading other students' posts. However, we recommend that weekly commenting should be mandatory, as this increased involvement and perceived value of the assignment.

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Class blogs as a teaching tool to promote writing and student interaction

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How the reception baseline assessment will be a fairer progress measure and give teachers more recognition

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How the reception baseline assessment will be a fairer progress measure and give teachers more recognition

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I found a blog for teaching staff on the Gov website looking at how baseline assessments will be made fairer for reception children.

Claire Harnden is the Deputy CEO at South Farnham Educational Trust and has also advised the Department for Education through the Standard and Testing Agency’s Stakeholder reference group for the reception baseline assessment (RBA). Claire shares her experiences of introducing the reception baseline assessment in her school Trust.
As we look ahead to the next academic year, one of the changes facing schools is the statutory implementation of the reception baseline assessment (RBA). While no change is easy, at South Farnham Educational Trust, having taken part in the RBA pilot two years ago, our view is that the RBA is one worth making.

Given the impact of the pandemic on children’s experiences, from social isolation to the development of vocabulary – we believe it is now more important than ever to understand children’s starting points in their early mathematics, language, communication and literacy skills.

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Claire Harnden is the Deputy CEO at South Farnham Educational Trust and has also advised the Department for Education through the Standard and Testing Agency's Stakeholder reference group for the reception baseline assessment (RBA). Claire shares her experiences of introducing the reception baseline assessment in her school Trust.
As we look ahead to the next academic year, one of the changes facing schools is the statutory implementation of the reception baseline assessment (RBA). While no change is easy, at South Farnham Educational Trust, having taken part in the RBA pilot two years ago, our view is that the RBA is one worth making.

Given the impact of the pandemic on children's experiences, from social isolation to the development of vocabulary - we believe it is now more important than ever to understand children's starting points in their early mathematics, language, communication and literacy skills.

Teachers will receive a series of short narrative statements after the assessment explaining what knowledge and skills each child demonstrated, which they can use to inform their teaching, and which will be a helpful snapshot of where each child is when they enter reception. We found taking time to sit with each child individually during their early weeks was hugely beneficial for both the child and the teacher and this will be even more important this year.

The RBA is also essential for building a fairer progress measure for primary schools. Under the current arrangements, schools do not get the full credit for the important work that takes place between reception and year 2. The RBA will change this by establishing a new starting point to measure the progress pupils make by the end of year 6. Schools should receive the recognition they deserve for the work they do with their pupils throughout the whole of primary school, in particular for those where the intake has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. More immediately, the narrative statements will help us respond to each child's individual needs when it comes to education recovery.

I know one concern for school leaders is the impact on teacher workload, but having taken part in the RBA pilot a few years ago, we're confident that preparation will not be onerous. For teachers, the training to administer the RBA is simple and straightforward, so they won't need to spend a huge amount of time learning how to administer the assessment. For children, the assessment will be short, interactive, practical and fun. There is absolutely no requirement to prepare a child for this assessment and schools should reassure parents about that - it's not delivered as a formal test. The activities are very simply designed, short and age-appropriate. The RBA takes a child along a dynamic pathway that will quickly ascertain if something is too challenging and will jump to the next section. The experience is usually really positive for the child - they've had the opportunity to sit with their teacher and take part in some fun activities, unaware that the activities form part of an assessment, and going forward, their teacher has a better idea of how to design learning especially for them.

In the long run, this change should reduce burdens on schools: once the RBA is established, it will mean that statutory assessments at the end of year 2 will be removed, meaning fewer statutory assessments for pupils and lightening teacher workload.

No doubt the next year will continue to present challenges for schools. But we believe the RBA will help us to meet those challenges and demonstrate clearly the impact of our teaching on children.
Read more about the reception baseline assessments and how to prepare: www.gov.uk/STA Want to receive blog posts in your inbox? Sign up to receive blog updates.

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How the reception baseline assessment will be a fairer progress measure and give teachers more recognition

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Claire Harnden is the Deputy CEO at South Farnham Educational Trust and has also advised the Department for Education through the Standard and Testing Agency's Stakeholder reference group for the reception baseline assessment (RBA). Claire shares her experiences of introducing the reception baseline assessment in her school Trust.

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The number of weblogs related to conservation has increased rapidly over the past few years, and are a popular tool for dissemination of conservation-related information, and raising public interest in the preservation of cultural heritage. Some student blogs are integrated into university courses on conservation, and this paper presents three such examples, illustrating how blogs can be used as a teaching and learning support tool.

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The author is grateful for the grant support provided by the International Trust for Croatian Monuments in London, which enabled her to participate in the "Teaching Conservation-Restoration" conference. She is deeply indebted to Lady Jadranka Njerš Beresford-Peirse for personal support and encouragement. For their thoughtful expert comments on the first draft of this paper the author would like to thank Goran Nikšić, PhD, Ana Šverko, PhD, and Joyce Hill Stoner, PhD. Her deepest gratitude goes to Amber Kerr, who offered many valuable corrections and constructive comments, and Graham McMaster who did a superb job in proofreading the paper.

2 A blog is a "weblog" [abbreviated], a web site that consists of dated entries that usually appear (...)

1The conservation 1 profession has recognized the need to reach out to the public, not only to present its work and to show how (public) funds are spent, but also to advocate the preservation of cultural heritage. Different forms of communication are used, and web logs, or blogs, have been recognized as a very powerful tool. 2

3 See for example, UCLA/Getty Conservation Program, http://uclagettyprogram.wordpress.com/, and AMS C (...)

2Apart from presenting conservation to the general public and deepening the understanding of the profession, blogs can help knowledge and experience to be shared across the conservation community and can enhance communication within the field. It is no wonder, then, that they have also found a place in the academic setting. A number of conservation study programmes use blogs to showcase their work. 3 Conservation students are also getting involved, maintaining group or individual blogs through which they provide insight into their day-to-day curricular activities. 4 This paper, however, focuses on a third type of academic blog: that incorporated into university courses on conservation, which constitutes a valuable and reliable source of conservation-related information.

3Three such blogs are presented, all three incorporated into the courses of the Conservation programme of the Arts Academy of the University in Split. The blog named UAR00M is itself a method of research and documentation within the conservation course of the same name. CSI / Conservation Students' Investigation is integrated into the preventive conservation course and Internship among artworks [Stažiranje među umjetninama] was initially intended to be a part of two courses, Conservation of Easel Paintings and Polychrome Wood 3 and 4.

Fig. 1 Cover photos of the three blogs discussed in the paper

Each cover photo conveys content of the blog

Credits: Sagita Mirjam Sunara

4First, an explanation is given on how each of these blogs came about. The topics of students' blog assignments are briefly presented and the purpose of each blog is explained. That chapter is followed by one dealing with the benefits of blogging. Finally, some technical information on setting up, structuring and maintaining the blogs discussed is given.

5The first-semester compulsory course on methods of research and documentation in conservation has been a part of the study programme since the academic year 2011/2012. In the autumn of 2011 the course blog UAR00M (available at http://istrazivanje-dokumentacija.blogspot.com/​) was set up. This cryptic name is actually the course unit code.

Fig. 2 Home page of the blog UAR00M

All articles appear on the main page, where they are presented in a reverse chronological order. That means that the reader will find the current material first.

Credits: http://istrazivanje-dokumentacija.blogspot.com/​2014/​04/​learning-outside-classroom.html

8Because they deal with very specific topics, articles published in this blog are intended more for conservation professionals and other conservation students than for the general public. The professional audience can find the list of assigned readings with links to materials available on the Internet published in one of the sub-pages extremely useful. On the other hand, articles in which students report on their visits to museums and other institutions are written in a journalistic style and can be quite interesting to a broader public audience.

Fig. 3 Students learn methods to document cultural heritage

At the Documentation Department of the Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments in Split students learn how archaeological sites are documented. (The photo was published in the blog UAR00M.)

Photo: Sagita Mirjam Sunara

7 The course blog was set up when the author of this text started teaching this course.

9In the academic year 2010/2011 a blog was set up for the course Preventive Conservation 1, which is a compulsory course that students take in the second semester (the blog is available at http://preventivna.blogspot.com/​). 7 Students were asked to propose a name for the blog, and they came up with the name CSI / Conservation Students' Investigation. It was felt that by involving the students in the shared decision-making and development of the blog they would become more actively involved in the project.

Fig. 4 Home page of the blog CSI / Conservation Students' Investigation

Apart from the main (home) page, the blog has several sub-pages.

Credits: http://preventivna.blogspot.com/​2013/​06/​poster-prezentacije-terenske-nastave-u.html

10The form of articles published in this blog has been evolving from one academic year to another, but the premise behind each assignment is always the same: to have students reflect on the topic they learn about and to encourage them to do research. Students usually have several writing exercises assigned to them during their coursework. They may be asked to provide an example for a topic that was discussed in the classroom. For instance, after a lecture on the protection of cultural heritage in times of armed conflict, each student was asked to describe one example of war damage to cultural heritage, and the most interesting texts were published in the blog. After visiting a museum or seeing an exhibition, students are usually asked to give an example of preventive conservation measures they have learned about or seen.

Fig. 5 Visits to museums and art galleries

In 2011 students visited the Carriage Museum in Vienna, where they observed heat treatment for insect eradication in wood flooring. They reported on this treatment in the course blog. (The photo was published in the blog CSI / Conservation Students' Investigation.)

Photo: Sagita Mirjam Sunara

11One interesting writing assignment students received was as follows. After visiting a large contemporary art exhibition, they were asked to submit short papers describing which measures they would take to preserve a specific object. Preservation of contemporary art was not covered by the previous lectures, so the students had to research the topic themselves. 8

13Articles published in CSI / Conservation Students' Investigation are intended for different audiences. Professional conservators are generally interested in articles that describe practical work, such as preventive conservation of endangered church collections or construction of storage boxes, whereas students are more likely to read articles that give an overview of a certain topic, for example the impact of light on museum collections or packing and shipping art objects. Such "review" articles will also be useful to small and mid-sized museums and private collectors.

Fig. 6 Practical assignments

Students also report about their practical assignments, such as constructing cardboard storage boxes. These texts can be of great use to small and mid-sized museums and private collectors. (The photo was published in the blog CSI / Conservation Students' Investigation.)

Photo: Sagita Mirjam Sunara

14During their fourth year of study, students who have decided to specialize in conservation of easel paintings and polychrome wood follow a specialist course entitled Conservation of Easel Paintings and Polychrome Wood 3 (winter semester) and 4 (summer semester). At the beginning of the academic year 2010/2011 a course blog was created (available at http://stazist.blogspot.com/​). As with the CSI / Conservation Students' Investigation blog, students were asked to assign the name for it. They selected Internship among artworks, because they thought it best describes their work.

Fig. 7 Home page of the blog Internship among artworks

Articles published in this blog mostly present students' conservation projects.

Credits: http://stazist.blogspot.com/​2014/​02/​ureenje-depoa-galerije-umjetnina-b.html

15Students who attend these specialized courses are highly involved in practical conservation work, so most of the articles published in the blog represent their conservation projects, such as: treatments of paintings and sculptures, art-historical and scientific research etc. These articles are primarily intended to present conservation work to a broad audience. They are also intended for beginner students, especially those who are still deliberating on their specialization.

Fig. 8 In-studio conservation treatments

Most of the texts published in the Internship among artworks blog deal with conservation projects in which students specializing in easel paintings and polychrome wood conservation participate during their fourth year of study. (The photo was published in the blog CSI / Conservation Students' Investigation.)

Photo: Sagita Mirjam Sunara

10 This information is drawn from blog's analytics.

16Fourth-year students who specialize in conservation of easel paintings and polychrome wood are the main contributors to this course blog, but a number of articles have been published that cover other topics and areas of specialization. The authors are generally first-, second- and third-year students who have expressed an interest in sharing their experiences or have agreed to do so upon the teacher's encouragement. Topics may include stories of their preparation for the entrance exam, their Erasmus exchange experiences, and other academic endeavours. Daily journals of two conservation workshops in the sculpture park in Sisak were also published in this blog, and they attracted a large reading audience. 10 In many ways, Internship among artworks resembles an online magazine on conservation. 11

Fig. 9 Field projects

Participants of the conservation workshop in the Sisak Sculpture Park publish a daily journal in the Internship among artworks blog. (The photo was published in the blog CSI / Conservation Students' Investigation.)

Photo: Sagita Mirjam Sunara

17All three blogs described previously were designed to create a more active learning environment for conservation students. Blogging encourages active learning by engaging students and making them reflect on the topic about which they are writing. It also develops their critical thinking skills. Very importantly, writing offers an opportunity for shy students, who might be reluctant to speak in the classroom, to express their opinion.

12 This can refer to future students, as well.

18Since the texts have to engage non-scientific audiences, i.e. people without specialized knowledge of conservation, 12 students learn to present their topics in a simple, easily understandable format. In so doing, they refine their own thinking and discover new ways to present complicated topics to broader audiences. It should be noted that writing for a blog is not a substitute for academic writing, but an additional course activity.

21Although writing in a non-scientific language is a skill that needs to be honed, the biggest challenge that students face when writing for a course blog is not only how to make their language more understandable to a wider audience of readers, but also how to make their texts interesting and engaging. If they learn how to do this, their presentation and communication skills will improve.

22Finally, one of the primary questions that arise when developing a course blogs is how to engage the student in blogging activities. In each of the courses described, participation in the course blog is mandatory and every student gets a grade for his or her blog assignment(s). Being an advocate of teaching-by-example, the author maintains a personal conservation blog, Doktor za umjetnine [Artworks Doctor] (available at http://doktor-za-umjetnine.blogspot.com/​). There, students can find links to other blogs related to heritage preservation, including those written by conservation students, and read examples of the subject matter they are asked to write on. This often serves to inspire them to be more enthusiastic about their blog assignments, or even to start their own blogs.

23All three blog sites were created using Blogger, free software available through Google. Although the teacher is the sole administrator of these blogs, blogging platforms offer the possibility to add other members and to manage their permissions and access. This means that students can also be allowed to publish articles.

24The structure and design of all three blogs are very similar. All articles appear on the main page, where they are presented in a reverse chronological order. A blog archive can also be found here, as well as a list of tags. One small section contains a short description of the blog. Another section has links to other educational blogs administered by the course teacher. A small portion of UAR00M's and CSI's main page is used as a bulletin board; this is where students can find course-related notices.

25All three blogs have several sub-pages. These are used to describe the course and its goals ( UAR00M and CSI), to display the list of lecture topics with assigned readings and links to references available on the Internet ( UAR00M), to present the projects that students have participated in ( Internship among artworks) and the professional literature they read ( Internship among artworks). 15 Two blogs, UAR00M and CSI, have several sub-pages containing students' short biographies; each sub-page presents students from one class (generation). Due to the fact that Internship among artworks has a smaller number of authors, they are all presented on a single sub-page in a short text titled "Who We Are and What We Write About". Publishing students' biographies is a great way for students to introduce themselves to the readers and, very importantly, to make themselves more visible in the conservation community.

Fig. 10 Sub-page containing students' short biographies

Publishing students' biographies is a great way for students to introduce themselves to the readers and to make themselves more visible in the conservation community.

Credits: http://istrazivanje-dokumentacija.blogspot.com/​p/​studenti.html

16 The Conservation-Restoration Department's Facebook page is available at https://www.facebook.com/p (...)

17 This information is drawn from blog's analytics.

26Social media offer a great opportunity to attract a broad audience of readers, and to invite commentaries and questions. Every new posting from the three blogs described is advertised on the Facebook page of the Conservation-Restoration Department of the Arts Academy in Split 16 and this is how a majority of the audience is introduced to the blogs. 17 In addition to this, all three blogs link to one another. Their links can also be found on the official webpage of the Arts Academy, and have been included in the list of conservation-related resources of the International Institute for Conservation - Croatian Group.

28Although blogs were not originally designed for academia, their use in the academic setting is growing. In this paper the author has tried to show how blogs can be used to teach and promote conservation.

29Conservation blogs created in academia can serve many purposes: to archive and share knowledge, to present the work of conservation students to professionals and to the general audience, to contribute to the visibility of the profession, and to raise public awareness of the need to protect and preserve cultural heritage. Apart from enhancing communication with their students, blogs enable university teachers to reach audiences beyond classroom walls in great numbers 19 and are remarkable tools for public outreach, advocacy, and fundraising. 20

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Using Blogs to Teach and Promote Conservation

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Le nombre de blogues liés à la conservation a rapidement augmenté au cours des dernières années. C'est un outil populaire pour la diffusion d'informations liées à la conservation-restauration ainsi que pour sensibiliser le public à la préservation du patrimoine culturel.

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10 Educational Blog Sites.
1. Inside Higher Education.
2. The Learning Network.
3. EDUtopia part of the George Lucas Education Foundation.
4. Classroom 2.0 social media
5. Edudemic tech in the education space
6.Teacher tube videos of instructional learning
7. Mindshift incorporating data and research into a lot of the content.
8. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning Apps and mobile devices used in the classroom.
9. Tech thought- education looking to be more digitally connected.
10. Home room. ( Teach.com . Taylor , Corrado ).

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There are various studies discussing and evaluating the work contained in blogs. Blogs are found Internationally and Nationally. It can be said blogs are many and varied- some may be a personal collection of feelings and emotions following a bereavement, others covering many things skills, or hobbies and interests.
One journal article- written by Yeo, H and Lee, Y (2014)- Exploring new potentials of blogs for learning:can children use blogs . British Journal Of Educational Technology. 09/2014. Vol.45.Issue5. . notes that children in this study, used blogs in their learning and that their self efficacy improved. The authors noted that by the children choosing blogs,,they found it easier to use lol tend resources and became more engaged in class.

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Blog-a discussion, or information website..available on the World Wide Web.

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Blog-a discussion, or information website..available on the World Wide Web.

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I found ‘The Northernist’ , which is noted to be a Teesside lifestyle and food blog. The author is a lady by the name of Olivia. Olivia began this blog in 2016-just initially sharing a post, the blog has developed into an appealing site which shares information about good food.
It is interesting to see that also, information is available in this blog, regarding mental health and job opportunities. This blog has an attractive format, a good layout which is colourful and has photographs.
https://www-thenorthernist.co.uk

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This government ran blog offers articles on professional development, pupil wellbeing and behaviour, how to implement new policy, and many more. It is free to access.

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a study of the explorative use of blogs with a postgraduate class

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a study of the explorative use of blogs with a postgraduate class

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This paper outlines a study that explored educational applications of blogs with a class of postgraduate students in a Hong Kong university over a period of one semester in 2006, and considers its outcomes. Rather than using the usual learning management system to support learning in the class, the facilitator‐researcher organised a blog‐based environment where students accessed course material, posted reflections featuring artifacts created in the learning tasks, commented on each other's contributions, and in other ways participated on a regular basis throughout the semester. The study results suggest that when appropriately managed by a facilitator, blogs have the potential to effectively support teaching and learning activities. The experience from this study also suggests that in order to maximise teaching and learning opportunities, a blog system can be effectively expanded by the use of a variety of other Web 2.0 applications.

Acknowledgement

The study reported in this paper was supported by grant number 200611159142 from the The University of Hong Kong ('Pioneering Web 2.0 in Education')

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Web 2.0 in education: a study of the explorative use of blogs with a postgraduate class

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This paper outlines a study that explored educational applications of blogs with a class of postgraduate students in a Hong Kong university over a period of one semester in 2006, and considers its outcomes.

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TeachThought is used to educate teachers. The website has blogs on a variety of topics that teachers can use to improve their own learning styles. It has sections for how to deal with parents, how to understand new technologies, how to encourage social and emotional growth in students and many more.

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TeachThought – A Critical Thinking Classroom

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TeachThought promotes critical thinking and innovation in K-12 classrooms

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The innovative educator.
This is a blog that allows teachers from everywhere to support and develop ideas that helps them to implement technology into their classrooms. It offers ideas of connective children to learning in classrooms as a change to their own homes over covid, and should that method be changed again.

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Hear a panel of educators, administrators, and ed-tech coaches discuss the lessons they learned in the spring of 2020 that they're using to prepare for returning to school this fall. The Academy of Active Learning Arts & Sciences brought together this panel to share, prepare, and help schools plan for the future of education in the time of a pandemic. Watch the full panel discussion below or read the partial transcript.
Carl Hooker:
We've all experienced this rapid transition to online learning; all of us have in some different form or fashion. How did this rapid shift help us think about the future of schools? What are some things you noticed right away when the shift happened that you thought, "Wow, this is something we really need to consider in our schools in the future in case this happens again?"
Chris Bugaj:
I think my immediate answer to that question is accessibility. Meaning there was an immediate rush to say, "We've got to provide materials to students so they can do asynchronous events." And then the next thing was, "How do we do synchronous events?" Something that's been on the forefront of this since it started is, "Well, jeez, I've got students with all sorts of needs." So how do I make sure I meet all of their needs as I design my instruction with flexibility in mind and with accessibility in mind. I know a lot of my time has been spent with a rush of general education teachers that no longer were necessarily waiting for a special ed teacher to kind of fix their lesson design. They were thinking, "How do I design it for everybody right from the get-go?"
Lisa Nielsen:
In my current role, I'm the senior director of digital inclusion. We're really focusing a lot on that. The first thing that we were doing was we were ensuring all of our 1,800 schools in New York City understood how to make accessible websites. We've been focusing our concentration on that. But now we need every person in every school to understand how to make truly accessible content.
Anne Vega:
We've been one-to-one for quite a while now, but we had students who chose not to get a device, for whatever reason. When all of this happened, it was like an influx. So over the last two months, we have come into the office and enrolled about 600 plus devices. Of course, another issue is the internet. Our warehouse is actually going house to house, delivering these devices along with hotspots. So as long as they qualify, we're delivering hotspots to those kids that don't have access.
Brent Wise:
I think the main thing that we took away right away was, "How do we maintain relationships?" We've built up these relationships over the three quarters of the year, which we are very fortunate to have, but how do we maintain that to drive the learning? That became a big focus for us: how do we harness technology to maintain those relationships? Which will be a difficult thing if we're back in this boat coming into the fall.
Carl Hooker:
I do think we take that for granted. That was one thing about the timing of this; it happened right at the end. So some of us were able to coast through. A lot of it was re-mastery of work. It wasn't the beginning of the year, building those relationships.
Jake Habegger:
For us, I think one of the struggles was the access to technology for everyone, just like we've been hearing. But another part of that is teachers being trained on, "How do you deliver content remotely?" I've been a flipped educator for a long time. For me, I saw this as a golden opportunity. But since we, as a district, weren't really prepared for this, we ended up not teaching new content in the last quarter. Instead, we were doing review packets. It's just where we were. So I think getting teachers educated on what this can look like remotely for the long term is a big thing that we need to get pushed out.
Caroline Little:
At-home access was big for us. We're just in our second year of one-to-one initiatives, so we had lots of kids who didn't have access to devices. So that was sort of our first big push, and then also with the internet, with everybody else in the country who wanted hotspots, we did a lot of collaborating with our neighboring districts who happened to have extras, and we borrowed some from them, and just really worked with our local cable providers. So that was a hurdle that we hadn't really considered or thought about. We had people who would drive to where people live to see if local hotspots actually worked and that the kids would be able to get hooked up there. Once we felt like we kind of got over that hurdle, then the other big one really was supporting the teachers. We helped people through a lot of tears and things. But at one point, we did say, "If this wasn't so awful, we would actually be having fun." Because in our ed tech world, it was kind of nice to throw everybody in and to say, "All right, let's go. Let's see who can swim," regardless of what part of the pool you're in.

It's kind of crazy to think that in the last two months, we can now pretty confidently say that all of our teachers can create learning opportunities in a digital environment.
Carl Hooker:
I've spoken to so many leaders about the analogy of having a wildfire that's miles away in terms of ed tech, like, "It's something I need to worry about at some point, but it's not in my backyard yet." Now it's in your backyard, so you need to worry about it, right?
Michele Eaton:
I think the thing that we're going to take moving forward is some of the positives that can come out of a situation like this. I think what's been most unprecedented, (I know we haven't heard that word enough in the last two months), is the foundation of technical ability we have now established with all of our teachers. It's kind of crazy to think that in the last two months, we can now pretty confidently say that all of our teachers can create learning opportunities in a digital environment. That hurdle, that hangup that gets in the way of us really focusing on what's most important, which is teaching and learning, is something that we can leverage moving forward. I don't have to spend so much time making sure everyone knows how to use the tools. We can really dig into online pedagogy, on building community online, on creating highly interactive, highly personalized, accessible, digital learning activities for our students, because we're all talking the same language, we're all using the same platform. That's pretty exciting. If we look for the good in all of this, I think that's one of the things that I'm excited about looking forward to in the fall.
Carl Hooker:
Lisa, I noticed you've raised your hand. You had a couple comments you wanted to add on to that. What do you want to add to what we've been talking about? It's a lot. We're kind of all over the map on this, but also, we're still honing in. I noticed the word relationship has come up on a couple of three different occasions. What are your thoughts on what we've been talking about?
Lisa Nielsen:
Something that I've heard many districts are considering is looping with their students if they might be remote in the fall. From the youngest grades, where that is not an uncommon practice, but even in the upper grades, having teachers just loop with their students. That helps address the relationship issue. And then the other thing, in New York City, we were never one-to-one. We never provided at-home devices for students. As a result of this, talking about the silver lining, every single one of our students now has a device and internet access. That's amazing because this is something I've wanted for so many years in our district. In such a short time, we have accomplished one-to-one in New York City. So that is a definite silver lining for us.

But one of my greatest fears moving forward is that we go back. Hey, let's just try and rush back to the way we did it, as opposed to, "Hey, how can we design for the future?"
Carl Hooker:
I do think the future of what school looks like in the fall is going to be different for all of us because all of us come from different areas. Down here in Texas, we've opened up somewhat. We're opening up summer school next week, and we don't know what the fall will look like, necessarily. But I know in New York, of course, Lisa, it's going to look a lot different. This is an opportunity to leave, "the bad things" behind. So what are those things?
Brent Wise:
I think one of the most eyeopening conversations that I've been a part of with the high school staff, especially, is that they've all recognized there's a lot of wasted time in a school day. They found, "I can do a lot and accomplish a lot more this way, but I need that face-to-face for other things." So it was really neat to hear them say, "I can take all this stuff, this lecturing and all this other junk that I used to have to waste face-to-face, shove it over here, and now I'm doing these labs, I'm doing more relationships, I'm doing more discussions and back and forth." So yeah, it's kind of the flipped classroom. But finally, maybe what it's really, really meant to be, as Jake's high fiving over there, it's an exciting time. Because I think if we can get staff to understand you're going to be better for this because of this, I think we're going to be able to take a huge step forward that we're all forced into that was difficult at first, but now is making us all better for our kids.
Carl Hooker:
Jake, I've got to kick it over to you now, because when you talked about the flipped, I know you've been doing it for a while and that's been around probably for eight or 10 years. Of course, it's all gotten a lot easier now, because you can kind of record anything quickly over the phone. But what are your thoughts on that idea?
Jake Habegger:
You're speaking my love language. That's it right there, I don't have to use as much class time lecturing. I'm a history teacher. You'd think I just want to stay in there and talk the whole time. But really, if I can put some of that out of the way and have time for Socratic seminars, I'm as happy as I can be. For us not being able to teach in the fourth quarter, most of my time doing Zoom sessions with students was doing Socratic seminars. It was the deepest learning my students had all year because I wasn't able to do anything else except go deep. For me, one of my favorite things is Mastery Learning. That's one of the reasons I flipped, is that students could go more at their own pace. I have students who could, like you said, your daughter being done with her schoolwork by Wednesday. This could alter education completely if we went mastery-based. If a student can be done by Wednesday and they can move on, they can get 40 percent more of the curriculum for the next grade done already. We could be seeing high schoolers being done as freshmen. There are so many opportunities to completely flip the system. I think flipping, for me, is the... It's the operating system that allows us to do that. But mastery is really the tool.
Carl Hooker:
You've now spoken my love language because I used to be frustrated. As a first grade teacher, I used to remember getting to spring break, and all the second-grade teachers are going, "Slow down. Don't let the kids go any farther. They have to stay on this track based on their age."
Chris Bugaj:
But one of my greatest fears moving forward is that we go back. Hey, let's just try and rush back to the way we did it, as opposed to, "Hey, how can we design for the future?"

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Hear a panel of educators, administrators, and ed-tech coaches discuss the lessons they learned in the spring of 2020 that they're using to prepare for returning to school this fall. The Academy of Active Learning Arts & Sciences brought together this panel to share, prepare, and help schools plan for the future of education in the time of a pandemic.

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Blog-based teaching portfolios provide a constructivist and interactive learning environment where students, in-service teachers, and faculty staff members negotiate, discuss, reflect and evaluate individual understandings of teaching practice and experience.

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Abstract

Blog-based teaching portfolios have been operating in a teacher education program since 2007. The blog-based teaching portfolios provide a constructivist and interactive learning environment where students, in-service teachers, and faculty staff members negotiate, discuss, reflect and evaluate individual understandings of teaching practice and experience. Studies have shown a positive impact of blog-based teaching portfolios on learning and professional developments. However, the evaluation of online learning communities (OLCs) which evolve from the compilation process and the interactive nature of blog-based teaching portfolios is lacking. In this paper, a qualitative case study approach was adopted to study the functions and characteristics of an effective OLC in fulfilling the design objectives of blog-based teaching portfolios. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six student teachers, three in-service teachers who also played the role as mentors in the blog-based teaching portfolios, and one faculty staff member who was the blog designer. The interview data were transcribed, coded and analyzed to identify the perceived functions and characteristics of an effective OLC in blog-based teaching portfolios. Interview data revealed two major components and related ten factors which affected the effectiveness of an OLC from members' perspectives. It was suggested that technology proficiency is not a key factor in constructing digital teaching portfolios. What makes the learning process more meaningful and sustainable are active participation and high quality interaction which require collaborative/interactive course elements together with commitment and support from OLC members.

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Building an effective online learning community (OLC) in blog-based teaching portfolios

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Blog-based teaching portfolios have been operating in a teacher education program since 2007. The blog-based teaching portfolios provide a constructivist and interactive learning environment where students, in-service teachers, and faculty staff members negotiate, discuss, reflect and evaluate individual understandings of teaching practice and experience.

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Educational applications of Web 2.0: Using blogs to support teaching and learning

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Educational applications of Web 2.0: Using blogs to support teaching and learning

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The study found that both students and teachers found that blogs enhanced the students learning, allowing them to comment, read each others blogs and utilise them within assessments. Teachers were able to design and share tasks, making it easier to comment and send feedback more often and more conveniently. However, the teachers found that the blogs were time consuming and hindered on progression through the semester.

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The implications of a connectivist learning blog model and the changing role of teaching and learning

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The implications of a connectivist learning blog model and the changing role of teaching and learning

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The summary introduces different models and introduces new ideas of how teaching can be changed and different aspects can be looked at. Also looks at different pedagogy.

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A website with many different blogs in a wide variety of subjects and topics for primary and secondary schools and higher education resources.
Also provides resources for parents and teachers.

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Use BBC Bitesize to help with your homework, revision and learning from KS1 to GCSE. Find free videos, step-by-step guides, activities and quizzes.

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Student learning in higher education through blogging in the classroom

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Student learning in higher education through blogging in the classroom

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Highlights

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The research explores whether higher education students perceive that they learn through blogging.

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The study involved 600 HE students in the UK and US who had previously participated in blogging for educational purposes.

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It was found that students do perceive that they achieve higher degrees of learning through blogging.

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Student views were influenced by attitudes to technology, expectations of blogging, and previous experiences of blogging.

Abstract

In the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the range of social media tools that have become available. Despite reports of successful adoption in the higher education classroom, there have been relatively few empirical studies that have explored whether the use of blogs in teaching and learning leads to an increase in perceived learning by students. This research study adopts a post positivist research approach and a quantitative research design that uses PLS-SEM. It was found that students do perceive higher degrees of learning from using blogs, but the recognised benefits of using blogs is influenced by the students' attitudes towards the use of technology in teaching and learning, their perceived usefulness of blogs, and the extent to which they have used blogs previously. The findings have implications for both teachers and students, as they can be used as a framework to help ensure the successful use of pedagogic blogs.

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Student learning in higher education through blogging in the classroom

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The research explores whether higher education students perceive that they learn through blogging. * The study involved 600 HE students in the UK and US who had previously participated in blogging for educational purposes. * It was found that students do perceive that they achieve higher degrees of learning through blogging.

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Blogging as a tool for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in health sciences

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Blogging as a tool for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in health sciences

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This paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of using blogs in university teaching, specifically in Health Sciences teaching. The general conclusion is that they are a useful tool for the acquisition and development of skills, yet there is a bias to only publicate successful results only.

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International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education

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Research article

Open Access

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International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education 16, Article number: 30 (2019) Cite this article

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Abstract

Tools for online collaboration are becoming increasingly prevalent in recent years. Certain characteristics of these tools encourage this proliferation: they are easy to use, always available, allow knowledge to be built collaboratively and disseminated quickly through social networks, and are usually free of charge. In this context, blogs are becoming increasingly important in the field of health as digital newspapers and magazines that support a large number of multimedia formats. The possibility to subscribe to blogs and their availability in formats adaptable to mobile devices mean their content can be taken anywhere.

Although the use of blogs is well-established among Health Science professionals, their use among university professors as a component of the teaching strategies in these disciplines is much less common, and thus the benefits, risks and limitations of using blogging as a pedagogical tool are poorly understood.

In this preliminary evaluation of a pedagogy, a public WordPress-based blog was developed for the Nutrition and Dietetics module of the undergraduate course in Nursing at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). This was primarily intended as way to use ICT to increase the level of student engagement and interest in learning the subject, but also as a way to introduce future health professionals to the world of blogging.

This paper describes our experiences with this pedagogical project and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the use of blogs in university Health Sciences teaching. Incorporating this tool into teaching methodologies takes advantages of the theoretical possibilities it offers, which include crucial aspects such as developing critical thinking, acquiring knowledge, answering questions from students, and enabling new mechanisms to develop the skills that must be acquired. However, the challenges and inconveniences are also highlighted; these are principally the lack of motivation and the low participation of the students. By analysing the outcomes of this preliminary evaluation of a pedagogy, it is concluded that blogs are a very useful tool, although it is suggested that the literature shows a certain bias toward the publication of successful trials.

Introduction

The European Higher Education Area1 has radically transformed university studies by placing the student at the centre of the educational process (Esteve, 2016). The new paradigm and the implicit assessment of acquired skills has forced teachers to rethink classical learning objectives (Correa & de Pablos, 2009). Therefore, recent years have seen a revolution in the classroom, with a large number of teachers striving to develop forms of active learning that seek to promote critical thinking and a high degree of autonomous learning (Initiative, 2004).

In this context of shifting pedagogical trends, one aspect referred to by some authors as the "digital revolution" stands out (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2016). This is the process adopted by those teachers who have been attracted by the possibilities of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which have great potential when it comes to transferring knowledge and allowing students to develop the necessary broad-spectrum skills (Zayer, Beran, & Alcaide-Pulido, 2017). In principle, wikis, blogs and social networks, to name just a few of the best-known examples, allow students to work on the proposed content in a participatory and collaborative way, thereby acquiring the necessary skills in an asynchronous and delocalised manner (Aguilar Martínez, Medina, Pons Albalat, & Saigí Rubió, 2013; Camacho, Carrión, Chayah, & Campos, 2016; Hamm, Klassen, Scott, Moher, & Hartling, 2013), as well as giving the subject matter a certain attractive aesthetic aspect. In the words of Bruns and Humphreys, these tools are capable of generating suitable communication spaces for the development of the desired skills, allowing a new model of critical, collaborative and creative technological literacy that opens a new pedagogical horizon unknown until recently (Bruns & Humphreys, 2005).

For the more specific case of the use of blogs (an abbreviation of the term web log2 first coined in 1997 by Jon Barger (Blood, 2000)) -that was boosted in higher education by activities at Harvard University in the early years of the twentieth century (Lara, 2005)-, the literature has underlined the advantages of the incorporation of blogs into the university education toolkit: versatility when creating, updating and using different types of resources (videos, press releases, tweets, audio content, links to other blogs and websites, etc.) with no requirement for prior technical knowledge (Bonus, Wright, Scheidt, & Herring, 2005); the possibility of collaboration and involvement on the part of the student body as a consequence of the fact that all posts invite conversation and thus combine receptive skills (reading) with productive skills (writing); the ability to arrange posts by chronological order; and the possibilities this type of tool enables to disseminate teaching and research activity not only among students, but also among those professionals with an interest in continuing education (Soto, Senra, & Neira, 2009). All of these elements mean blogs should be considered as a means to support curricular content, especially since the available literature emphasises the positive results that have previously been obtained in a good number of similar initiatives in higher education (Alventosa, Peris, & Guerrero, 2016; Chun, Skinner, & Rosewall, 2019; Du & Wagner, 2007; Ferdig & Trammell, 2005; Molina, Valencia-Peris, & Gómez-Gonzalvo, 2016; Pérez-Nevado et al., 2012; Williams & Jacobs, 2004). Other voices have been more pessimistic, highlighting the fact that the use of this type of tool has been more a myth than a reality, since students ultimately prefer more conventional, passive and linear forms of learning (Margaryan, Littlejohn, & Vojt, 2011).

In the specific realm of Health Sciences education, the available evidence points to a noticeable increase in the use of this type of media (Kala, Isaramalai, & Pohthong, 2010; Myrick, Caplan, Smitten, & Rusk, 2011; Vogt, Schaffner, Ribar, & Chavez, 2010; Zinger & Sinclair, 2013). These works have suggested that the use of blogs can have a significant impact on the formative development of students, since the reflections and discussions that the blogs enable are very helpful (Churchill, 2009). Furthermore, looking at professional practice, teaching biomedical students to use blogs also has its merits, especially given the importance such publication routes may have in the future for disseminating medical scientific research and supporting the health education of patients (Boulos, Maramba, & Wheeler, 2006). In this sense, this medium represents a unique opportunity to improve the transmission of knowledge in the field of health, due to the interactive communication it facilitates between health professionals and citizens (Bissonnette-Maheux et al., 2015). This is reflected in the current growth of what some authors have referred to as the "medical blogosphere" (Kovic, Lulic, & Brumini, 2008): a large collection of blogs dealing with all kinds of health-related issues, from general aspects to such specific issues as Palliative Care (Ngwenya & Mills, 2014) or Diabetes (Kaufman, 2010). Blogs are even used in training biomedical students, frequently to engage learners and enhance education, because students may still achieve benefits by engaging in emotional disclosure and personal reflection (Becker & Freberg, 2014; Garrity, Jones, VanderZwan, de la Rocha, & Epstein, 2014; Sterling, Leung, Wright, & Bishop, 2017). For all these reasons, the boom in the use of blogs in university training programmes in Health Sciences seems to be just starting, especially as more and more teachers recognise that if this is to be a commonly-used tool in the future, its management must be standardised during the years of university learning.

The use of blogs has also become popular in aspects of Health Science as important as food, nutrition and diet3. Many of the advantages of blogs are indispensable here in making content development more dynamic and the dissemination process more versatile in these times of so-called fake news. Evidence on the use of blogs in teaching subjects in these areas reveals the wide variety of possibilities, including their use as tools for a better understanding of food systems, work on cultural aspects, narratives of students' own experiences in implementing sustainable practices, and regular training in nutritional assessment instruments (Leveritt, Ball, & Desbrow, 2013; Maher & Burkhart, 2017; Paulus & Spence, 2010; Romero, Espinoza, & Hernández, 2019). Other articles have analysed the use of blogs in the teaching of nutrition in the field of Nursing, where a good number of previous approaches focussed on factors such as the good reception by students (Lin & Shen, 2013; Reed & Edmunds, 2015) provided the factors influencing low participation are addressed (Moule, Ward, & Lockyer, 2010), the possibilities they offer to improve the standard of training (Garrity et al., 2014; Maag, 2005), and the advantages of being able to reach a greater number of people interested in health care and food given the potential of blogs to share knowledge and inform (Almeida, Christovam, & Correia, 2018).

It is in precisely this context that the experience we shall examine here is framed. In the following, we will present results obtained from research into the advantages and disadvantages of, and attitudes of students to, the use of blogs as a pedagogical tool in the Nutrition and Dietetics module of the undergraduate course in Nursing at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain).

Objectives

Our general objective was to do a preliminary implementation and evaluation of the potential of a virtual learning environment, specifically a blog, developed for the Nutrition and Dietetics module of the undergraduate course in Nursing. This initiative was designed to increase student engagement and improve the quality of education through the use of ICT. Through the use of this virtual learning environment, we focus on facilitating the acquisition of critical thinking skills through reflection on how the ways in which evidence is produced necessitate both continuous training and a critical attitude toward this evidence (Lee, Abdullah, Subramanian, Bachmann, & Ong, 2017; Reed & Edmunds, 2015; Schuelke & Barnason, 2017; Shirazi & Heidari, 2019).

A secondary objective was to develop general skills that would facilitate our future professionals' health promotion work, which nowadays includes the management of virtual learning environments as an essential part of the concept of digital care (Mitchell & Kan, 2019). In addition, the structure of the contents of the blog provides a more open insight into the professional networks that exist, using references and quotations from other blogs or experts on the topic that can be found and contacted on social networks such as Twitter. The exchange of information in the field of Nutrition and Dietetics is very fast, due to the high rate of scientific output and the challenges posed by nutritional epidemiology (Ioannidis, 2018). The use of blogs allows us to work collaboratively and directly in this frenetic context of constantly-evolving evidence, as well as providing a point of reference where students and professionals can share experiences and find answers to questions.

Implementation and evaluation of a pedagogy

Project design

The study described in this paper comes from the second stage of a larger two-stage project. The former stage took place during the academic year 2016/2017, when a blog on the subject of Nutrition and Dietetics4 was created and hosted on WordPress.com using a free plan, and served to prototype the project in its initial phases and to develop a more detailed and systematic plan for the remainder of the project. This stage was necessary to gather information from the students so that they cope with (an accept) a tool such as blogs for teaching purposes and which aspects of this tool they found most attractive. A key finding was that the teaching staff needed resources to introduce students to the new tools. In addition, during this stage the research team adopted the decision that the blog should be distributed in a publically-available way (accessible to anyone through search engines and published under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license). Therefore, this project also meant that the doors of the classroom were opened not just to students from other courses, but also to society in general.

The second stage of this work took place during the academic year 2017/2018, when the experience described here was carried out. During this stage, the project contemplated two main milestones: the development of a common public blog, which would fulfil with the characteristics of the use of blogs in education described in the literature, and to promote the development of blogs of similar characteristics by the students of the course, to evaluate the potential for developing the activity themselves as future health educators.

Participants

The Nutrition and Dietetics module is a one-semester course taken in the second semester of the first year of the undergraduate course in Nursing. The University of Castilla-La Mancha itself is situated in the centre of Spain and has a multi-campus structure. The evaluation of a pedagogy reported here took place on the Toledo campus, and was therefore conducted in Spanish. During the academic year 2017/2018, 99 students were attending the Nutrition and Dietetics module.

Project development

In a first session at the beginning of the academic year 2017/2018, the students were introduced to the concept of blogs, as well as to their potential uses in Health Sciences. In this same training session, the students were introduced to the WordPress platform and practised some basic blog management skills (editing posts and pages, publishing posts and basic concepts of personalisation). The video tutorials used to train the students are published on YouTube and described in Table 1.

Table 1 Video tutorials produced to facilitate students training. A general description of the content of the video is provided, together with a URL which provides direct access to video playback via YouTube

Throughout the Nutrition and Dietetics module (which ran from February 1 to May 18), the instructor published a weekly blog post summarising the basic concepts covered in that week's theoretical and practical classes. These posts included both the elements studied in class and practical examples drawn from current news to facilitate understanding of the concepts which had been developed through face-to-face teaching. These posts were published in the course's general category, and labels were used to facilitate their later retrieval by subject. Additionally, a specific questions category was used to publish answers to questions asked by the students, which were generally related to myths in nutrition, based on the available scientific evidence. Finally, students were asked to subscribe to the blog in order to stay up-to-date with new publications.

At the beginning of the course, the students were divided into working groups to develop a class group project accounting for 30% of their final grade. This group project involved the students, in groups of five or six, publishing their own blog focussing on, at least, one of the major themes of the module (eating habits, nutritional anthropometry, consumption of harmful substances, or the impacts of physical activity or sedentary lifestyles on health).

Project evaluation

Finally, the students' degree of satisfaction with the exercise, as well as any feedback, were evaluated using an anonymous online questionnaire (hosted on Google Forms) consisting of 5 general (yes or no) questions on their previous experience with virtual learning environments, along with a series of questions about the use of the blog (4 questions), the impact of the blog on their work during the course (8 questions) and the teacher's work in the developing the blog (4 questions), which were answered using a scale of estimated ratings (from strongly disagree to strongly agree, including an unsure option), that were adapted from previously published questionnaire (Churchill, 2009).

Data collection

Answering these questions was not obligatory, nor was any kind of reward offered to those students who responded; the students were asked to participate in this online survey via an email sent only at the end of the course once the grades had already been published. The students signed a virtual consent form to participate in the survey and were duly informed of the confidentiality of the survey. Students were also invited to provide more information by participating in informal interviews lasting about 10 min. These interviews were intended to provide data complementary to those collected by the questionnaire, with questions designed to motivate students to communicate their comprehension of the activity, their experiences in this regard and their opinions on the effectiveness of the activity. This also took place after the publication of the grades in order to avoid possible bias in the responses.

Findings

Blog traffic

During the academic year 2017/2018, a total of 14 posts were published in the module's general category, and 8 posts in the questions category. The traffic generated during this period (February to May) amounted to 2415 views by 442 visitors, for an average of 5.5 views per visitor. The data quoted here were obtained directly from the traffic analysis tool available in WordPress and are broken down by month in Fig. 1. While each visitor on average made 5.5 visits to the blog, if we assume that the vast majority of those visitors would be students taking the module, it is reasonable to assume that each of the module's 99 students visited the blog an average of 24.4 times. This would imply that each post published during the course was visited approximately once by each student. No post received any comments from any student.

Nutrition and Dietetics blog traffic during the academic year 2017/2018. Number of visitors and visits according to WordPress statistics are shown. The Nutrition and Dietetics module ran from February 1 to May 18

Blog organisation

The main menu of the Nutrition and Dietetics blog (see Fig. 2) offers four pages that visitors can access: all published posts (Home), a page explaining the blog's main objectives ( Objetivo del blog), links to other blogs and professional dietitians to follow on social networks ( Para aprender más ...), and a contact form to directly contact the project director ( Contacto). The blog posts were organised into two categories: the first comprised weekly posts (with information pertaining to the week they were published), organised according to the academic year in which they were published (in this case 17-18); the second category ( Dudas, meaning questions or doubts in Spanish) consisted of posts taking students' questions as a starting point to discuss a specific topic from the course in more detail. In addition, specific labels were used to tag each post according to its content, making it possible to search for posts on a given subject.

Writing and posting blog content

During each week of the course (with the exception of the first week, in which the training for students took place), a post was published compiling the information covered during that week, with a total of 14 posts during the course. In this section, the general characteristics of these publications will be discussed using a specific post as a concrete example.

As a general rule, each weekly post focussed on a topic previously addressed throughout the week in the theoretical and practical classes, taking advantage of the general characteristics of blogs to provide additional information that would encourage students' interest in the subject. Figure 3 shows an example of this type of post, where a discussion on the vitamin C content of blueberries, which was taken from a radio programme popular among university students, is used to explain in detail how the nutrient content of foods can be calculated using databases (in this case the Spanish Food Composition Database (BEDCA)). In addition to showing how to make these calculations and which sources of information to refer to, links to additional content related to the subject matter are provided.

Answering questions via blog posts

Students sometimes ask questions to the whole class through Moodle, the Learning Content Management tool used at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. The most interesting questions raised are answered in a blog post on that topic. Generally, each of these posts starts with the student's question framed in a box. From that starting point, the question is addressed using the most up-to-date evidence available, enhanced by the features of the blog (i.e. using images and video where possible). An example of this type of post is shown in Fig. 4. The student's question here is related to a previous post which asked whether our culture has any influence on the food we eat. In this case, new evidence had become available to clarify the debate on this issue: firstly, the work of Stringhini and collaborators, which postulates that there is an relationship between socioeconomic status and health with a relevance comparable to other well-known health determinants such as the consumption of tobacco or alcohol; and secondly, the ALADINO study involving 10,000 Spanish children in 2015 also observed greater incidences of obesity with lower socioeconomic status (Estudio ALADINO 2015, 2016; Stringhini et al., 2017).

Students's blogs

As part of the grading of the module, the students had to carry out a group task which involved creating a blog on a specific topic of their choice from those covered in the module. The idea was to apply the scientific method to resolve a specific question: problem statement, hypothesis statement, study of literature and, finally, evidence-based conclusions. To do this, all the information obtained had to be organised into a blog. Figure 5 shows a representative example of a blog created by one of the 15 groups of students5; this example addresses the issue of nutritional supplements for sportsmen and women, and provides evidence-based recommendations for their consumption.

Students feedback

Students were asked to evaluate this project by voluntarily answering an anonymous self-administered questionnaire. Out of a total of 99 students who took the Nutrition and Dietetics module, only 14 filled in the questionnaire (14.1% response rate), so the analysis of these responses may not represent the actual opinions of the class about this project. However, disregarding the possible bias in the analysis, the students who did respond generally expressed good levels of satisfaction with the use of the online blogging environment in the course, as well as its ease of use and the work of the instructor. The students also stated they were willing to use this tool again in the future.

From a qualitative point of view, the students' comments underline the positive way in which the initiative was received, recognising and valuing the work and dedication of the teacher. However, the students also commented that these approaches involve more work for students in an environment that they perceive as already saturated, admitting that their main motivation is to pass, while the learning process itself remains a secondary priority.

Discussion

The analysis of this experience of the use of a blog as a component of a health education teaching strategy shows a notable degree of heterogeneity. On the one hand, the evaluation of the teaching staff is very positive, and it is in line with the advantages and usefulness of blogs and other web applications that the existing literature has identified (Boulos et al., 2006; Chawinga, 2017) but, on the other hand, a poor level of participation and a significant workload for the teaching staff has been also reported. Among the positive aspects, beyond offering a complementary and successful model for the dissemination of content and answering student questions, these technologies represent a suitable tool for the acquisition and development of skills essential for nurses who can think critically. For example, this experience has allowed students to delve deeper into questions such as the way the scientific process operates, the distinction between science and bad science (Goldacre, 2014), and the need to adopt a critical attitude toward the production and presentation of facts (Kala et al., 2010; Oravec, 2003; Zinger & Sinclair, 2013). In addition, these skills are crucial to keep up with the rapid pace of scientific output in health, particularly in the field of food and nutrition, in which much misinformation frequently circulates, yet has the potential to directly impact consumer habits6. Therefore, if nursing students acquire the skills necessary to develop critical thinking they could be more aware about how the world is changing and the way they are developing their practice and, as a result, those skills may help to improve the quality and safety of care (Jefferies et al., 2018).

The negative outcomes of this experience must be also underlined, in particular the low participation rate of the students (an average just 24.4 visits to the blog per student), beyond the collaborative work that formed part of the assessment of the module. The low response rate to the questionnaire (14.1% of students responded), and the lack of any comments on the posts are no coincidence. We would suggest that a large proportion of students tend to express a preference for more linear methodologies, with more "solid" content, which are less open to interpretation and discussion. There is one recurring question virtually every university professor has heard repeated in every course - "will this be on the exam?" - which shows a greater tendency toward the evaluation of content than of skills.

It is also important to point out that the use of blogging as pedagogical tool in health education entails a significant workload for the instructor, which takes away time from other activities and could possibly hamper performance in an increasingly-demanding role which includes duties in disparate areas such as teaching, management, bureaucracy and research. This time commitment did not go unnoticed by students, who tend to value positively initiatives such as the one presented here, where the visual aesthetics of this form of dissemination particularly stand out.

Despite the ethical consequences of not publishing negative results (Kaplan & Irvin, 2015; Mlinarić, Horvat, & Šupak Smolčić, 2017), although negative/null results are not negative for science, the existence of a publication bias toward the selective reporting of positive outcomes in the literature has previously been recognised and extensively discussed (Dwan, Gamble, Williamson, Kirkham,, & Reporting Bias Group, 2013; Hopewell, Loudon, Clarke, Oxman, & Dickersin, 2009; Wayant et al., 2017). A global analysis of the present experience, taking into account the increased workload for educators and the low participation of students in this type of activity, seems to support the idea that publication is biased toward successful experiences, which emphasises the attractive end product of the project (the blog itself) and the positive evaluation of the students' experiences. Future research must elucidate how strongly publication bias affects scientific literature in this field (van Aert, Wicherts, & van Assen, 2019).

Beyond this somewhat pessimistic view, we can identify certain elements that may present barriers to greater participation. We start from the premise that there are no socioeconomic barriers here, since all students have the means to access the resources. On the one hand, our project involves first-year students whose previous learning experiences have, as a general rule, employed teaching methods that are more vertical than dialogical, embodying a model that places more value on the memorisation of facts than on the process of producing and questioning them. It is left for the future to repeat the experiment with students at different stages of their university education and also whether or not they will continue using blogs to learn (Ifinedo, 2018). On the other hand, students tend to cite the "overwhelming" or "excessive" amount of time demanded by the way in which study courses are organised. This results in them allocating the time that they do have to mandatory and classical activities (which they are already familiar with and know how to handle), which take priority over new learning experiences such as those proposed here, which are perceived as "extra" effort. We do not know if the high number of students in the class also limits the effectiveness of initiatives such as these, just as it is difficult for us to measure the real effectiveness of this type of proposal (Boulos et al., 2006).

Conclusions

The evaluation of the use of blogs in the teaching of the Nutrition and Dietetics module is generally positive. From a theoretical perspective, and from the point of view of evaluators, blogging allows a new tool to be incorporated into the pedagogical process, which replicates most of the advantages identified in the literature (e.g. their capability to encourage learners' deeper engagement with learning materials and their powerful collaboration features). However, the student participation evaluated in this paper has not been in line with many of the published works. Here we support the hypothesis that there may be a publication bias toward successful experiences, idealisation of activities in virtual learning environments, or perhaps a specific characteristic of the Spanish university environment that requires further analysis.

Future investigations are needed to address the lack of evidence-based guides for the use of blogging as a pedagogical tool, specifically in health education. Some additional issues require further development, such as work to eliminate barriers and increase participation and motivation, and ways to integrate these offerings into revised general models. For example, the process of assessing skills acquired through dialogic pedagogical models must be refined. On the other hand, blogs are fully-customisable tools, so one pertinent question is: "Is there a blog structure that works better than the others?" In other words, how should the blog be structured to best facilitate students' learning?

Availability of data and materials

Notes

1. 1.

The European Higher Education Area is an educational initiative that started with the 10 th anniversary of the Bologna Process in 1999, which now brings together almost all European States, and whose aim is to create a common framework that facilitates mobility and generates a competitive knowledge-based society. Associated with this, the need has arisen to promote the interrelation between different Higher Education systems in order to facilitate a labour market without frontiers and to offer a motivating and flexible framework for students from the rest of the world (Domínguez & Llorente, 2009).

2. 2.

It is not easy to give a definition for the concept of a blog. Bruguera and Campàs suggest that it is nothing more than a personal or communal web page in which the editing and publication system has been simplified to the point that the user does not need specific knowledge of the electronic medium or the digital format to be able to provide content immediately, quickly and permanently from any point of Internet connection (Bruguera & Campàs, 2007). Walker, on the other hand, defines a blog as a website containing content endowed with personal styles and presented in reverse dated chronological order (Herman, Jahn, & Ryan, 2010). Winner adopts a more technical perspective, defining blogs as a hierarchy of texts, images, multimedia objects and chronologically ordered data that can be viewed through a browser (Winer, 2003).

3. 3.

Doctors, nutritionists and fitness specialists have become a phenomenon on social networks, with a large number of pages and blogs where they share tips, images and healthy recipes, which is known as Nutritional Coaching. Some websites even provide classifications of which blogs are better or worse, both in English (e.g. https://bit.ly/2XIj2he), and even, for example, in Spanish (e.g. https://bit.ly/31kLJD7). However, authors such as Bissonnette-Maheux and colleagues stress that these tool are still in their infancy, and much work remains to be done before we can determine its effectiveness in improving healthy eating (Bissonnette-Maheux et al., 2015).

4. 4.

5. 5.

6. 6.

For example, during the course of this experience, a hoax propagated claiming that bananas should be banned because they were being infected with HIV-contaminated blood. Available at: https://bit.ly/2WBfXTx.

References

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all university students that kindly participated in this project to help improve it.

Author information

Affiliations

1. Department of Nursing, Faculty of Nursing & Occupational Therapy, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

David Conde-Caballero & Lorenzo Mariano-Juárez

2. Department of Nursing, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy, School of Physiotherapy and Nursing, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain

Carlos A. Castillo

3. Regional Center for Biomedical Research, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain

Carlos A. Castillo & Inmaculada Ballesteros-Yáñez

4. Department of Inorganic and Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, School of Medicine, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Ciudad Real, Spain

Inmaculada Ballesteros-Yáñez

Contributions

DC-C and LM conceived and drafted this manuscript. CAC developed the work on WordPress and created blog content. IB-Y and CAC analysed the results and extracted the main conclusions. All authors contributed to the final manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carlos A. Castillo.

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Conde-Caballero, D., Castillo, C.A., Ballesteros-Yáñez, I. et al. Blogging as a tool for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in health sciences: a preliminary evaluation. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 16, 30 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0161-2
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Keywords

Blog

Educational technology

Electronic publishing

Health Sciences education

Knowledge acquisition

Knowledge dissemination

Nursing

Nutrition and dietetics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Blogging as a tool for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in health sciences: a preliminary evaluation - International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Tools for online collaboration are becoming increasingly prevalent in recent years. Certain characteristics of these tools encourage this proliferation: they are easy to use, always available, allow knowledge to be built collaboratively and disseminated quickly through social networks, and are usually free of charge.

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A website that allows teachers to upload videos explaining a specific skill or topic. They are sections for different ages of education, with many skills related to each.
The videos are all recorded and uploaded by teachers and is free to join.

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Since launching on March 6, 2007, our goal at TeacherTube has been to provide an online community for sharing instructional and education videos for college students, high school students, middle school students and elementary school students. We seek to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, students, schools, and home learners. It is a site to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. It is also a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill.

On September 1, 2017, TeacherTube.com was acquired by Salem Web Network. Salem's goal is to continue the growth of TeacherTube and support innovative ideas for education.

Most importantly, TeacherTube community members are a major part of the evolution of the site. Members are encouraged to not only upload educationally relevant videos but also to make constructive comments and use the rating system to show appreciation for videos of value to one as an educator or learner. Users also have the ability to preserve the integrity of the site by flagging inappropriate videos. TeacherTube staff review flagged sites and will remove any inappropriate posts. With more collegial commentary and discussion through messaging and responses, the quality of this resource will only increase.

The service is free for everyone. We always encourage our users to Contact Us with thoughts, suggestions, or other feedback. We do have a vision for TeacherTube to truly be a better alternative to other video storage sites. With the community's help, it can become more interactive and engaging for all teachers and learners.

Science videos are one of the key subjects that students are taught in school. Science is present from the early years of grade school up to the highest levels of academic achievement. As students move up the ranks, their study of science tends to get more specialized into one specific field only, like chemistry, biology, or physics. We have educational videos for all of these courses.

TeacherTube.com's section on science educational videos has content of interest to all learning levels. We have topics as varied as educational songs for elementary school students, up to chemical engineering for college students.

Mathematics is one of the fundamental 3Rs of early education. Known as "arithmetic" in those levels, it involves counting and the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. As kids advance through the grade levels, they progressively deal with more complex mathematical problems. Also, more new concepts get introduced as they progress.

Math is crucial for almost any business career. Accounting, budgeting, and projecting sales all require some level of competence in math. Many resources for these topics can be found here on TeacherTube.

Even everyday situations benefit a lot from math skills. Managing one's finances, for instance, obviously requires math, as with anything involving money. Cooking also involves math: proportions of ingredients, for example, as well as measurements.

TeacherTube.com's section on math education videos covers everything from fractions and measurements to money management. We also cover more complicated subjects such as trigonometry, and well as probability and statistics.

History is a very valuable subject, but not just because it is useful for preventing future wars. The lessons from history can also teach people to build a better future. What people have done right in the past should be continued and improved upon in the present.

The subject of history covers a wide range of timelines and locations. There's ancient history and modern history. There is also Asian history, US history, Latin American history, and European history. Each one is unique, reflecting the cultures of the people involved.

If there's one thing common to all history classes, it's usually names, dates, and places. This is also the part that many kids hate the most. They do not see the point of memorizing so many random facts that appear purposeless. Well, that is the wrong way to teach history.

TeacherTube's history education videos section makes the past come alive with a sterling array of videos and tutorials that cover subjects as varied as our prehistory, ancient history, the civil war, and the study of world civilizations.

The purpose of social studies, based on the US National Council for the Social Studies, is to promote "civic competence" among students. In other words, the subject equips students to become better citizens of a country. This is done by exploring history, geography, current events, and governments, among others. Middle school social studies usually deal with one of each of these fields per grade level.

With this knowledge, students gain the ability to become more socially aware and to be actively involved citizens of their country. Through analyzing current events, students will also learn how to predict the consequences of the things happening around them. With that, they can be good influences on their communities.

It is with this goal in mind that TeacherTube offers a wide variety of learning video materials for both students and enthusiasts.

We have videos on everything from strengthening your knowledge of economics terminology to the nuances of various world cultures.

Language arts, as the name suggests, equips students with a wide range of ways to use language. It comprises both speaking and writing skills. In addition to the basics, the subject also deals with the artistic side of language, infusing creativity in the ways students communicate.

There are four basic aspects to understanding a language: speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Language arts classes aim to enhance those skills at each year level. At first, it covers basic topics like grammar, sentence construction, and paragraphs. Exercises in language arts become progressively more complex as students move up the ranks, and usually, in higher grades, more emphasis is put on creativity and persuasiveness.

With the noble goal of harnessing the power of words to effect change in the world in mind, TeacherTube is proud to offer videos on everything from general communications to speaking and even videos on strengthening your studying skills.

Not all kids want to go through lectures. Some of them may not have the attention span or the patience to endure long hours just sitting down and listening to someone talk in front. No, that doesn't mean these kids are lazy. It just means they learn differently.

Some kids are auditory learners. In other words, they learn best when they listen to sounds and music. For this type of student, educational songs will certainly be a big helping hand. Even the most complex of concepts, when taught through songs, will be very easy for them to understand and remember. Even kids who are not so much inclined to auditory learning may like this method.

Educational song vidoes are available in a wide variety of subjects. English, math, social studies, science, and everything in between, there's bound to be a song for every subject. For example, on the website Teachertube.com, there are science topic songs, reading songs, skip counting songs, reading phonics songs, and even quadratic formula songs.

The advantage of using educational song videos is that it accomplishes two things at once. First, these songs are entertaining, and second, they also teach a concept. They facilitate learning a lot better than plain lectures simply because of the entertainment part. When a lesson is made fun of, kids will want to learn them. In fact, it could even be the kids themselves, on their own, who will play the songs repeatedly.

TeacherTube offers education songs on topics as varied as the circulatory system to math songs about polynomials and even videos on St. Patrick's Day.

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TeacherTube Educational Videos for the School Classroom and Home - Including Educational Songs, History Videos, Student Videos and Math Videos

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A free community for sharing instructional videos, Educational Songs, History Videos, Student Videos, Math Videos, and other content for teachers and students. We are an education focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home schoolers to access educational for the classroom and home learning.

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International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education

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Abstract

Social media has taken many sectors including the higher education by storm. However, with wide spread fears that social media may be a distractor to pedagogy, this paper investigated how social media facilitates teaching and learning. Unlike most prior studies which relied much on soliciting mere views from students and lecturers about their intentions to use or not to use social media, this study incorporated Twitter and blogs into two undergraduate courses offered in the Department of Library and Information Science at Mzuzu University which is a public university in Malawi. Data were collected in two ways: first, analysis of blog and Twitter posts by students and second, a questionnaire was sent to 64 students to find out their perception towards the use of blogs and Twitter in a classroom environment. Results suggest that if appropriately deployed, Twitter and blogs are catalysts for the much hyped learner-centred approach to teaching because using these technologies, it emerged that students shared and discussed course materials, posted their course reflections and interacted amongst themselves and with their lecturer 24/7. Challenges faced include cost of internet data bundles, inaccessible Wi-Fi, poor bandwidths and insufficient computers.

Introduction

Worth noting is that during a review of literature, the author noticed one intersected discourse in relation to the topic under review: whether Web 2.0 is social media or vice versa. For example, what is ostensibly clear is that social media existed before Web 2.0-first coined by O'Reilly in 2005. For example, MySpace was developed in 2003 according to Kaplan and Haenlein ( 2010:60) but literature characterises it as almost the same as Web 2.0. So what is Web 2.0 and social media? Kaplan and Haenlein ( 2010:61) and Barczyk and Duncan ( 2011:267) refer to Web 2.0 as technological foundations or platforms on which applications that support user generated content are hosted. These applications that support user generated content based on the versatility of Web 2.0 features are called social media and some of them include "Facebook, Google+, Orkut, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter" (Barczyk & Duncan, 2011:267). Before the invention of Web 2.0, a period best described as Web 1.0 era, the concept of the web was principally based on 'content publishing' by content creators through personal or institutional web pages like Encyclopedia Britannica Online (see Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010:61). However, in a Web 2.0 era, it is possible for end-users to make use of mobile and web-based technologies to share, co-create, discuss and modify user-generated content via these highly innovative platforms. Thus, for the purpose of this study, the author adopts a description of Web 2.0 and social media as defined by Kaplan and Haenlein ( 2010:61) who consider "Web 2.0 as a platform for the evolution of Social Media" and further define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content".

The author has taught at a public university for 5 years and noted that the traditional medium of face-to-face teaching comes along with many benefits. However its dependency on time and space among others, becomes a major setback. In that respect, Dzvapatsva, Mitrovic, and Dietrich ( 2014) argue that a compendium of social media technologies which have "recently exponentially grown and become prevalent" have a capability to supplement traditional teaching and learning approaches in institutions of higher learning. Studies have shown that tweeting is regarded as a more interactive and exciting way of learning compared to traditional knowledge transfer tools such as lectures (Menkhoff et al., 2014). Some of the most common social media technologies according to Chawinga and Zinn ( 2016), Dzvapatsva et al. ( 2014) and Gikas and Grant ( 2013), include social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn; media sharing sites, such as YouTube, Flickr and Tumblr; wikis and blogs and syndication of content through Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds. Since social media applications have rapidly developed, evolved, expanded, and grown in numbers and forms, it may not be possible to efficiently research how they can collectively be applied in a classroom environment especially if the study focusses on their practical use other than merely soliciting views from either students or instructors. It is against this backdrop that the current study selects only two forms of social media (Twitter and blogs) in regards to their use in a university classroom environment.

Motivation and research questions

Literature review

Literature is replete with previous studies undertaken to demystify the use of social media in classroom environments of higher education. In the subsequent sections, the author reviews and synthesises some of the most potent studies that relate quite well with the current study.

Proponents of Web technologies in education have long argued that these technologies supplement and upgrade the widely accepted traditional delivery of lessons to students. For example, with reference to traditional learning, Vygotsky ( 1980) argued that human beings learn best if there are some sorts of interaction through collaborative learning and group work so that students work together on a task. In this social media era, the said interaction and collaboration in teaching and learning is now implemented virtually without worrying about time and space limitations or barriers. To this end, some educational researchers have coined the term Learning 2.0 in reference to "a spectrum of all pedagogical approaches that draw heavily upon Web 2.0 tools [Facebook, Twitter, blogs, WhatsApps, etc.] and services" (Wheeler, 2010:107).

Benefits of social media in pedagogy

According to Jones ( 2015:93), social media technologies such as blogs and Twitter are no longer only used for leisure. Rather, over the years, these technologies have also become platforms for interacting and engaging with learners. In their recent study about the tweeting behaviour of undergraduate students in some universities in Singapore, Menkhoff et al. ( 2014) find that among other benefits, Twitter enables students to have "a voice, to be more engaged and to interact more freely with both their peers and the instructor via knowledge sharing and twitter discussions". This means that students who are expectantly captive in traditional approach to teaching, are increasingly offered an opportunity to provide prompt feedback to instructors, an element that Schroeder and Greenbowe ( 2009) and Jones ( 2015:93) say leads to the much treasured student-centred learning approach. Getting feedback from students is glorified by Menkhoff et al. ( 2014) as an important aspect through which an instructor can monitor if students have comprehended the course content taught in class thereby allowing the instructor to identify knowledge gaps and address them on the spot.

More importantly, unlike the traditional face-to-face medium of teaching which have some space and time restrictions, "... [in] electronic media, the world becomes the classroom, available 24/7, and not confined to Mondays to Fridays" (Dzvapatsva, Mitrovic, & Dietrich, 2014). The notion of 24/7 in this context simply suggests that embracing social media enables students and lecturers to interact outside the formal learning time with more flexibility. It does not imply that learning is officially enforced to take place during the weekend or at night.

Whether computer-based or mobile-based, Menkhoff et al. ( 2014) and Wheeler ( 2010:103) identify three usefulness of social media in a university classroom. First, social media supplements blended learning which helps students create positive contextual learning in relation to pedagogical objectives. Twitter for example, can be used to engage with students as learning happens during face-to-face classes and; it can also be used to communicate with students when they are at their homes (the period of distance learning). Second, social media affords students to engage in collaborative learning and finally, social media motivates students to post comments or questions to blogs or Twitter about their subject matter. In addition, social media provides several pedagogical affordances in higher education including open publishing, new communication styles and texts, expressing personal identity and experience, co-creation and collaboration, and content management (De Wever, Hämäläinen, Voet, & Gielen, 2015; Terrell, Richardson, & Hamilton, 2011: 848; Waycott et al., 2010; Wheeler, 2010).

Some previous studies have provided evidence about the benefits and use of Twitter in classroom environments. Jones ( 2015) used Twitter to teach a literature class for 30 undergraduate students at the University of California that put emphasis on students' participation. It is reported in the study that "my students soon embraced Twitter as a collaboration tool, and increasingly came to class with improved attitudes toward, and readiness for class discussions" (Jones, 2015:91). In a related study, for a full semester, Soares ( 2008) used blogs to teach English as a foreign language at a Brazilian university. At the end of the semester, he distributed an online questionnaire to investigate students' perception about blogs as learning tools and results showed that blogs profoundly helped students improve their writing skills in English language by accessing tutorials in the form of Podcasts and videos shared on their blogs.

Evidence about the benefits of social media in higher education are also highlighted in a report by Conole and Alevizou ( 2010) commissioned by the Higher Education Academy in the United Kingdom. By drawing data from published reports, conference papers, journal articles and anecdotal evidence, Conole and Alevizou ( 2010) make a statement that Twitter and blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies are catalysts of scholarly practice and the sharing of designs and good practice. This is made possible by allowing students to participate in a distributed network of educators and researchers and to co-create knowledge and develop a skill of critique of content (Conole & Alevizou, 2010).

A depiction of social media in pedagogy is provided by Wheeler ( 2010) who focusses on two distinct but interrelated approaches to pedagogy facilitated by social media namely; reflective and collaborative activities of learning. Reflective activities in this context entail students' ability to think critically about what they have learnt thereby being able to "apply previous learning to new situations" (Wheeler, 2010:106). Given that knowledge gets outdated very quickly, it becomes paramount for students to reflect on what they have learnt in class and keep abreast of fast-paced changes and keep themselves relevant in their future competitive job market. Blogs are described by Wheeler ( 2010:106) as web tools that promote reflective learning while as wikis are meant for collaborative learning. Figure 1 below provides details of a diagrammatical depiction of social media in pedagogy by Wheeler ( 2010:111).

Depiction of social media in higher education (Wheeler, 2010:111)

Challenges that affect incorporation of social media in pedagogy

Recent studies suggest that there are various challenges militating against successful integration of most social media in teaching and learning in university environments. For example, in Africa, more specifically at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, Dzvapatsva, et al. ( 2014) report that some of the factors that militate against the use of social media include lack of technical skills that students experience when learning or using portals of social media, inadequate technological infrastructure and bandwidth which results in students abusing it. The problem of Internet bandwidth seems to be common in most African countries because Chawinga and Zinn ( 2015) also reports of a similar problem at MZUNI in Malawi.

Additionally, literature shows that opponents of social media use in a classroom continue to downplay the value of such technologies. Among others for example, Barczyk and Duncan ( 2011:271) observe that critics of social media in academia often point out that social networking sites offer poor reference material often generated by unreliable sources. Some instructors in higher learning institutions have consequently been reluctant to adopt social media in their teaching and learning activities. Some instructors perceive social media such as Twitter and Facebook as distracters to learning (Galagan, 2010). Barczyk and Duncan ( 2011: 271) and Harris and Rea ( 2009) highlight additional challenges which include absence of computing resources, disruption of web-based resources and plagiarism due to openness of content whereby students can copy and paste. Perhaps, to outshine these detractors and challenges reported in this section, it is important to focus on how best these technologies can be put into good use to yield positive results. This can be achieved by aligning social media activities with lesson objectives or curricula (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011; Szapkiw & Szapkiw, 2011: 363; Wheeler, 2010:104).

From an analysis of a literature systematically searched from databases such as Web of Science, EBSCOhost, and ERIC and Google Scholar, Tess ( 2013), highlights some factors that contribute to the low uptake of social media in higher education. They include instructors' slowness in adopting technology as an educational tool, decisions related to educational technology and its place in the curriculum and more importantly, Tess ( 2013) argues that integration of social media is a choice made at the instructor level rather than at an institutional level.

Despite evidence about the benefits accrued from the application of social media in higher education, there are some fundamental paradoxes and puzzles that remain inhibitors to smooth adoption of these technologies. A study by Conole ( 2010) revealed a number of such issues including privacy where it is reported that there is lack of understanding of the implications of adopting more open approaches in technological environments, lack of rewards or incentives for instructors using these technologies in class, lack of skills to use these technologies and a belief that these technologies may not necessarily work in a classroom.

Methodology

Methodologically, the study was inspired by various earlier studies (Barczyk & Duncan, 2011:271; Jones, 2015:101; Menkhoff et al., 2014). The study was conducted in two main phases. First, students were asked to create blogs and Twitter accounts followed by tweeting and blogging. In the second phase, the author analysed tweets by students in addition to distributing a questionnaire to students. The questionnaire collected feedback from students in regards to the use of blogs and Twitter in a classroom. In the following section, the author discuses in more details how the study was implemented.

Phase one: creation of Twitter and blog accounts

The author adopted his existing Twitter account just for teaching. Following Menkhoff et al. ( 2014) and Jones's ( 2015:102) recommendations, the author asked students to create dedicated Twitter accounts for the purpose of learning and interacting with me and fellow students. In his case, the author used his existing Twitter account which he created during his masters studies in 2013. The author asked each of his students to create a Twitter account.

The author created hash tags. : In this study, two hash tags were used for the two classes: #DL and #IR for Digital Librarianship (LIS3604) and Information Storage and Retrieval (LIS2303) respectively. This was important because it allowed students to easily follow class conversations. Parr ( 2009) and Jones ( 2015:102) caution instructors to do a thorough research to ensure that the hash tag is not being used by other professionals. By drawing lessons from Parr ( 2009) and Jones ( 2015:102), the author did a thorough check on Twitter to ensure that the adopted hash tags are not being used by any other professional or group on Twitter.

The author set clear expectations of how his students were expected to use Twitter and blogs. The author communicated to students that he was going to monitor their tweets, blog posts and comments and a grade could be awarded at the end of the semester which wholly contributed to the continuous assessment. To bring some sanity in the use of Twitter and blogs for class work, it becomes important that students are informed in advance of what they are supposed to do. According to Comm ( 2009), such an arrangement results into an excellent review of tweet categories and functions and blog functions.

The author rewarded students for their substantive and helpful Twitter and blog participation. The aim was to motivate students to contribute tweets, blog posts and comments that are valuable and relevant to the topic or subject of discussion. Drawing lessons from Jones ( 2015:102), the author made policies known beforehand about what students were expected of them to invest in the course.

The author tweeted multiple media. This is an import aspect of microblogging in education because it challenges students to direct colleagues and in some cases the instructor to "audio, and video that might help them understand the settings and context of assigned texts" (Jones, 2015:102). The author also encouraged students to share a wide range of multimedia via their blogs and Twitter.

The author divided students into groups. According to Barczyk and Duncan ( 2011:275), this motivates students to work together in preparation for their mid-term or final examinations through holding cyberspace meetings using web tools such as blogs. In this study, each class was divided into three groups with an average of 10 members through which they collectively created blogs and prepared weekly blog posts summarising what had been covered in classes of each week. Blog posts (not comments) were assessed collectively i.e. per group.

The author asked students to use their real names instead of using anonymous user names: Menkhoff et al. ( 2014) argue that students and some instructors may require students to use anonymous user names while others may require students to use their real names in a twitter discussion. Since the author was expected to reward students with a grade as part of their continuous assessment for their participation, all students used their registered reals names. The author had to assess the progress of students' tweets, blog posts and comments and scores were awarded based on the individual student's quality of contribution.

Phase two: distribution of a questionnaire

Borrowing from Menkhoff et al. ( 2014), the author self-administered a questionnaire to all 36 and 28 level two and three undergraduate students respectively at the end of the semester, specifically after they had written end of semester examinations. This population was much better as compared to other studies such as that of Jacquemin, Smelser, and Bernot ( 2014) who in a similar study targeted only 22 undergraduate students although in their study, they also targeted faculty staff. Apart from background information, the questionnaire had two additional sections (each with a mix of closed-ended and open-ended questions) which included benefits of Twitter and blogs in teaching and learning and challenges affecting the use of Twitter and blogs in teaching and learning. All students responded to the questionnaire and of these, 28 (43%) were males and 36 (56%) were females.

Thematic analysis was applied on analysing qualitative data. Braun and Clarke ( 2006) defines thematic analysis as a method for identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data. When dealing with web based content particularly blogs, it is necessary to identify variables related to the information that bloggers provide (Kim & Kuljis, 2010:372). Such information may be selected according to what researchers are interested in. In this study, the focus was on students' posts and comments in relation to educational endeavours and, commonly recurring and prevalent themes were identified to help answer the research questions.

Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse quantitative data that was collected using a questionnaire. Using SPSS, frequencies and percentages were depicted in tables. Data collected using a questionnaire were triangulated with data collected through an analysis of posts to Twitter and blogs by students.

Results and discussion

In all, there were 9000 students' tweets over a period of 12 weeks with the least twitter having tweeted 20 times and the highest twitter with 320 tweets. In his effort to communicate with students, the author tweeted 350 times within that period of time. Blog transactions which included group blog posts, blog comments and other media content (audio and video) totalled well over 500. This section presents and discusses the results realised from the study. The findings are presented in line with the following broad themes underpinning the study:

Benefits of social media

What technological devices did students use to access Twitter and blogs?

Findings presented in Table 1 which allowed multiple responses show that 55 (85%) students used personal phones for their Twitter and blog activities. Nearly all the students who used mobile phones to access Twitter and blogs indicated they used these technological devices because they are relatively cheaper and easier to access as compared to the computers available in the University Library. The other motivational reason for the use of mobile devices was that students were able to use these devices anytime without having to worry about the closure of the library and other access points. Of the students who used desktop computers in the University Library, nearly third indicated they used it during working hours. According to the findings, students accessed Twitter and blogs in the Library Internet room because Library offers subsidised Internet services as compared to buying Internet data from mobile services providers. Some students mentioned of desktop computers that they accessed in the three computer laboratories available on the University campus where students pay for Internet services at subsidised fees.

Table 1 Devices used by students to access Twitter and blogs (n=64)

To which extent did the use of Twitter and blogs benefit students in their course of study?

Students were asked the purposes they used Twitter and blogs for. Findings presented in Table 2 show that the use of the two social media technologies by students was mainly for the accomplishment of academic activities. This is the case because in these particular courses, the two forms of social media were mainly adopted to facilitate teaching and learning. Given that the two social media have unique characteristics and capabilities, though with similar purposes, the purposes and benefits for each of the two were explored separately.

Table 2 Benefits of Twitter and blogs (n=64)

Benefits of Twitter

A thematic analysis of tweets revealed two main purposes: instant communication and content sharing. The themes are well corroborated with participants' views solicited through a questionnaire as presented in Table 2 in which it is observable that most of them agreed or strongly agreed that they benefitted from Twitter through interactive learning, instant communication and independent learning. The results are realistic because the author made all communications to students including lecture notes, feedback and class cancellations through Twitter. For example, when the author posted this tweet: #DL & #IR: download lecture notes here https://t.co/qKGBX9o091 & https://t.co/Mpg6WIxOAs respectively", it was retweeted 60 times and favoured 63 times within half an hour. The lecture notes were uploaded on Google Drive (another form of social media which is not part of this study's scope) and the author shared the link with students by tweeting. Google URL Shortener ( https://goo.gl/) was used to shorten uniform resource locators (URLS) of links which were alarmingly long. Some researchers (Farkas, 2012:85; Franklin & Harmelen, 2007) have noted that these technologies offer an opportunity to shy students to freely express themselves. In the current study, only a small number of students indicated were shy because these students have stayed together and are used to each other. However, a departure from face-to-face interaction with students also profoundly helped to increase students' participation in class discussions. For example, when the researcher asked open-ended questions in class, there could sometimes be total silence. However, by asking the same question via Twitter, the response rate was remarkable. This is probably the reason Conole and Alevizou ( 2010) argue that Web 2.0 approaches require pedagogical rethinking by challenging existing approaches to curriculum design, delivery and assessment.

As a lecturer, using Twitter and blogs enabled me extend the time for interacting with students as it was not possible to teach, respond to students' queries and to give students a chance to comment in a face-to-face meeting in a classroom. With Twitter, students were able to ask me any question anytime as long as they were connected to the Internet. Using blogs, students could post their assignments anytime without being worried that they could find the lecturer's office closed or, there was nothing like racing against the official working hours. Arguably, this is one of the benefits of social media so much so that one student commented that "I was able to communicate with the lecturer while covered in my blankets and I was glad that the lecturer was able to promptly respond to my queries even at mid-night". Another student who also agreed said "Each time I was reading and I came across a difficult concept, I could just tweet and the response could be immediate and overwhelming". The fact being drawn from the findings is that incorporating social media in teaching works to the advantage of lecturers and students as it plays supplementary role to traditional face-to face approach to teaching. This is probably the reason Barczyk and Duncan ( 2011:270) postulate that "If tools [social media] are available to help better engage and educate students, they should be incorporated into the curriculum, not exclusively, but rather, in a supplemental fashion."

Benefits of blogs

Within 12 weeks, the six groups with an average of 10 students had created in excess of 500 transactions including blog posts, content sharing (text and video) and comments. By analysing blog transactions, the author noticed that the principal benefits included reflection on what students had covered in class or read in relation to the content covered in a particular week. Sixty percent of blog transactions comprised weekly summaries which were collectively assessed and 40% comprised individual comments which were individually assessed for commenting on own or blogs of other groups. As was the case with Twitter, students found blogs useful by allowing them to learn without always relying on the lecturer. See Table 2. While independent learning was achieved on Twitter through instantly asking questions and clarification, on blogs, this was achieved though students' reading of essays and reflections of blog posts. A thematic analysis of blog posts by students reveals the followings titles (these are just a selection from many posts) of reflective essays:

Retrieving non-textual information: some reflections;

Challenges against a smooth implementation and adoption of digital libraries: what can Africa learn from the developed world; and

A slide show of the main topics covered in class this semester: click here to watch.

A further analysis of students' blogs posts showed that students actively participated in blog discussion as evidenced by a selection of some interesting comments as follows:

Thank you for this well summarised essay, you have enlightened me on the types of metadata;

Much as your summary reflects what we covered in class, I suggest you should improve on your grammar because your blogs are accessible on the Google [open web]";

You have mentioned of digital curation, can someone shed more light on this concept; is it the same as big data?; and

Your summary is as good as notes prepared by the lecturer, thanks for posting guys. I have learnt a lot on aspects of multimedia information retrieval.

What do students find to be the benefits of using Twitter over blogs and vice versa?

The questionnaire allowed students to answer an open ended question and express their views as to why they found using Twitter advantageous over blogs and vice versa in their educational activities. A thematic analysis of the students' responses is presented in Table 3 below. It is clear from the findings that Twitter was hailed mainly for its timeliness i.e. students could receive instant messages on their mobile phones as attested by the following comment by one respondent: "Mostly, feedback was instant, as at least some colleagues were always online including the lecturer". The fact that Twitter has a limit of 140 characters, it required students to think critically so as to communicate their point within such a limited number of words or characters. This enforced creativity in students as attested by one student who commented that "Twitter made me think critically as I knew [that] inappropriate tweeting could distort the meaning of my post which needed 140 or less characters". In this way, students learnt skills in both blogging and tweeting to summarise content such that one respondent reasoned that "I learnt summarizing skills; summarizing what we had covered in class was improved over time and my online communication skills improved greatly with my friends". The findings reinforce conclusions made by Conole and Alevizou ( 2010) that use of social media tools such as blogs and Twitter cultivate a culture of critiquing content amongst students in higher education.

The major breakthrough in using blogs according to the findings is that it allowed students to be compressive in their posts and comments as there is no word limit. For example, one respondent commented that "blogs were beneficial in such a way that it allowed more content because students were able to summarize what was covered in class unlike Twitter which allowed fewer characters". Worth mentioning is that while it could take time to access blogs, accessing Twitter was instant. This is probably the most defining difference between the two types of social media. In most cases, blogging depends on Twitter as students could only ensure their posts reached their colleagues on time by tweeting their blog posts.

Table 3 Benefits of Twitter and blogs compared

Generally, according to the findings, Twitter and blogs allowed students to learn from their friends through comments and posts although students found it easier using Twitter than blogs. Most of the students mentioned statements similar to the one made by their colleague who said that "a blog was not such beneficial because it was not easy to access, it needed orientation" and another student who agreed said "It was difficult for me to log in to blog as such it did not benefit me but Twitter was truly flexible".

One of the most common denominators between the two social media tools however, is that both Twitter and blogs, did not require students to meet physically to work in groups as they formed online groups where they virtually accomplished their class work. The results uphold earlier claims by Ellison ( 2008), Jacquemin et al. ( 2014) and Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb, Herman, and Witty ( 2010) that social media networks in higher education have been glorified as an avenue to improve scholarship and learning. In addition, the findings replicate those previously reported by Ajjan and Hartshorne ( 2008), Bosch ( 2009), Browning, Gerlich, and Westermann ( 2011), Maloney ( 2007), Mason ( 2006) and Mazman and Usluel ( 2010) who equally found that social media technologies facilitate active learning, collaboration, interaction, information and resource sharing, increased communication and enhanced discussion between teachers and students.

The research strategy employed in this study helped to realise evidence based results because of its approach unlike prior studies by Conole and Alevizou ( 2010) and Tess ( 2013) who collected data through reviewing and analysing published reports, conference papers, journal articles and anecdotal evidence. A rather somehow similar strategy was used by Jones ( 2015:91) who used Twitter only in teaching a literature class. Thus, unlike previous studies that focused on a particular social media such as Twitter or by reviewing existing literature, a combined use of two social media tools (Twitter and blogs) in this study allowed students to have an opportunity to express their content in more details via blogs and to develop skills in summarising content with a few characters via Twitter.

Factors for use or non-use of social media

This section deals with the factors that influenced students to use or not-to-use social media in their academic work.

What encouraged students to actively participate in Twitter and blog class activities?

The key factors that encouraged students to use social media were realised through an open-ended question. A thematic analysis of the findings is depicted in Table 4. All 64 (100%) students attributed their use of social media because they wanted to attain good grades for their continuous assessments. A comment that follows suggests that some students could not have used these technologies if no reward was attached: "Marks that were to be awarded. I don't really use social networks and I am not there very active". The findings give substance to earlier claims by Jones ( 2015:102) who says as a caveat for maximised use of social media by students in a classroom environment, instructors should set a clear framework well in advance on how students are going to be rewarded for their participation.

Table 4 Reasons for use of social media

Apart from awarding marks to students for creating Twitter accounts and blogs with their subsequent posts (this was made very clear beforehand), retweeting any students' tweets that I found so valuable for a particular course, invigorated these students to tweet even more fruitful tweets. Other students found Twitter useful because it helped them connect with their current and old friends online. These findings corroborate with earlier findings by Chawinga and Zinn ( 2016) in which they found that students in Malawi usually use social media such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp to instantly connect with peers currently at the university or at home and to search and locate old friends. The fact that best grades came from group blog posts (as evidenced by an analysis of the tweets and blog posts), suggest that working in groups motivates students to work hard and understand the content better. The findings support a philosophy first proposed by Vygotsky ( 1980) that learners' knowledge uptake is amplified if they work in groups. Unlike during the era of Vygotsky's sentiments where students had to meet physically in groups to accomplish school assignments, in the social media era, these results show quite clearly that collaboration takes place in virtual environments. The results confirm observations made by prior studies such as that of Wheeler ( 2010) that have indicated that many of the learning processes from traditional learning are now being offloaded onto, or supported by the new technologies.

What discouraged students from actively participating in Twitter and blog class activities?

Table 5 Reasons for non-use of social media (n=64)

However, in the middle of the semester, the author noticed that some students, particularly those in level two started using these social media especially Twitter irresponsibly by posting emotional tweets. I easily arrested this misconduct by cautioning students through a Twitter post that read: "#DL & #IR: you risk #losing marks for any unpalatable or derogatory tweets." This was easily contained because as mentioned earlier on, students used their real names as their Twitter user names and they knew that the author could easily trace anyone abusing this social media.

Limitations of the study

The author monitored the activities of students on Twitter and blogs and this may have to some extent skewed the results. Based on their participation in Twitter and blog activities, the author gave students a grade that contributed towards an overall end of semester grade. This may have as well affected students' natural use of Twitter and blogs. More so, the study did not solicit the views of university management whom by virtue of being policy makers are critical to the adoption of any technology. After all, Tess ( 2013) is of the opinion that one of the factors that stymies the adoption of social media in higher education is that the responsibility to use these technologies is left to a lecturer with little or no interest from a university level. This stimulates the researcher to suggest that future studies should investigate university policies that are deliberately put in place to foster the take up and use of social media in formal learning contexts.

Personal reflection on the findings

The researcher was part of the study in the sense that as stated in the methodology, he was the lecturer for both classes. To this end, based on his practical experience throughout this project, the following are his personal experiences worth sharing:

Using these social media technologies helped the researcher to achieve a rather more quality teaching: students' limitless presence on blogs and Twitter implied that teaching and learning continued even outside the classroom. Questions and comments were posted on these tools even during holidays, weekends and odd hours. In this way, the researcher offered instant assistance to students.

Unlike other classes that the researcher had previously taught without the use of these technologies, students in these particular classes were more enthusiastic to learn. In fact, students rarely missed classes because the content to be discussed was posted well in advance and students were always looking forward to take part in a live discussion in class having conducted a thorough research on a topic under discussion. These experiences are consistent with that of Jones ( 2015:97) who in his literature class (where Twitter was used) remarked that "We would sometimes go three or four classes without a single student missing class".

Like any other technologies, using social media in a classroom required the researcher to consider a number of factors such as good Internet which should be accessed for free (unfortunately, this was not the case in this project) and good ICT skills which the researcher and his students had.

Generally, regardless of the challenges that were faced in using these technologies, benefits accrued were more pronounced because students scored highly in their end of semester examinations; only one student failed a course.

As one of the first lecturers on Mzuzu University campus to successfully pilot course delivery via social media amid visible challenges, the researcher considers his action to be pioneering though risk taking in the beginning.

Conclusion and recommendations

Although not essentially generalisable (see the limitations above), the author envisages that the findings will not only add value to the existing literature, but rather, the innovative nature of the research implies that it provides some important insights on which other lecturers intending to use similar technologies in classroom environments can adopt. That is, the study has filled some knowledge gaps in the practical use of social media tools in a university classroom environment. The study has unveiled that students are not only ready and enthusiastic in using social media in the accomplishments of their educational activities. Rather, students are able to practically use these social media practically. The fact that there was an overwhelming response from students in practically using these technologies is a strong proof that students are moving with technology and it just requires instructors to bring these technologies to the classroom. More importantly, much as traditional teaching approaches which are mainly perceived as one-way delivery methods remain common and wide spread in higher education, their effectiveness are enhanced by blending them with social media.

To get the best from social media use in a classroom environment, using them haphazardly should be avoided. Instead, social media works well by clearly defining the purpose for their use or inclusion in a course. Instructors stand to reap more benefits if they effectively incorporate technologies such as social media that leads to long-life learning (achieved through independent learning) amongst students.

Based on the findings of the study, the author suggests some recommendations which if implemented may encourage the use of social media at MZUNI or universities with similar economical and technological backgrounds. Firstly, MZUNI and other institutions of higher learning should make Internet freely accessible or highly subsidised to all students. So too, Wi-Fi should be installed covering the whole campus and should be accessible via students' mobile devices and laptops. Secondly, it should not be taken for granted that students can find means to access Internet when an instructor incorporates Internet based technologies such as social media into a course. Rather, lecturers at MZUNI intending to incorporate social media or related technologies into their courses, should make prior arrangements with the MZUNI Library and MZUNI ICT Directorate so that students should access computers without trouble. This becomes paramount if blogs and wikis are to be used because most basic phones rarely support these applications. Third and lastly, using social media haphazardly (see Comm, 2009) comes with no reward. Rather, lecturers intending to use these technologies for pedagogical purposes should set guideline well in advance so that students should be well aware about what the lecturer expects from them.

Areas for further study

This study targeted Library and Information Science students who have some formally acquired knowledge in ICTs and Internet use. Future researchers may consider conducting a comparative study that experiments the use of such technologies with LIS students and students from the faculties that do not offer ICT related courses.

Author's information

WINNER DOMINIC CHAWINGA is a lecturer in the Department of Library and Information Science at Mzuzu University, Malawi, with 5 years' teaching experience at university level. He holds a master's degree in Library and Information Studies from the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Bellville, South Africa. This 2 year master's degree was completed in English. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Library and Information Science from Mzuzu University-Malawi. This 4 year bachelor's degree was also completed in English. His research interests include institutional repositories, electronic resources, ICTs and development, ICTs in higher education, Web 2.0, e-learning and ICT trends and applications in library and information science. He is the winner of the 2015 best Library and Information Science International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) student paper.

Competing interests

The author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article.

Author information

Affiliations

Department of Library and Information Science, Mzuzu University, Private Bag 201, Luwinga, Mzuzu, Malawi

Winner Dominic Chawinga

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Winner Dominic Chawinga.

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Chawinga, W.D. Taking social media to a university classroom: teaching and learning using Twitter and blogs. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 14, 3 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0041-6
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Keywords

Blogs

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Students

Social media

Teaching

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