Is blogging the same as discussion board activity?

Blogging vs Discussion Activity

No, blogging is not the same as discussion board activity. Although both may be viewed as communication platforms where adult learners can dialogue, reflect, and share information with one another, researchers do note some distinct differences between the two mediums. For instance, in terms of accessibility, Wang & Hsua (2008) noted some discussion boards are part of a learning management system (e.g. BlackBoard, Angel learning, or Moodle) sometimes housed in educational settings. Once the academic term is complete, access to any discussion posts, links, or attachments often is terminated. In contrast, blogs are often available 24/7 via public access on various blogging platforms such as bloggerspot.com or wordpress.org.

Community of Learners

Second, blogging offers extended opportunities to reach and interact with a diverse and broad ranging “community of learners” (Carter, 2011). Specifically, blog functionalities such as a “comments” section, “followers” widgets, and social media links to Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ provide adults learners with online openings to ask questions, share information, and establish meaningful relationships with other adult learners, content experts, blog commentators and followers as well as other interested individuals (Santos, 2011). Collaborative learning and interaction with others often leads to “higher achievement and greater productivity” (Laal & Ghodsi, 2012).

Distinctive Voice

Lastly, blogging can promote “the development of a distinct, discriminating voice in the context of Internet materials relating to particular subjects” (Oravec, 2002, p. 621). This is a very important element to blogging: subject choice and expression of personal opinion/reflection. Adult learners often have a wealth of prior knowledge and work experience.  In addition, many of them are often intrinsically motivated; thus, having an open social platform where they can not only share their personal viewpoints about content material of their own choice, but also respond to and reflect on any received return commentary is predominantly viewed as positive. In contrast, discussion activities might not offer adult learners the needed time, opportunity, or varied interactions for development of a distinctive and discriminatory voice.

Pro (+)	Con (-)
24/7 accessibility (Wang & Hsua, 2008)	Security | Privacy concerns (Child, Pearson, Petronio, 2009)
Promotes authentic voice development (Oravec, 2002)	Ignoring blog etiquette & flaming (Schmidt, 2007)
Platform for collaborative learning (Harris & Rea, 2009)             &  Reducing feelings of alienation and isolation (Dickey, 2010)	Dead hyperlinks (Oravec, 2002)
Vehicle for reflective & critical thinking (Carter, 2011)	Learners off task (Witte, 2007)
Interactive authoring (Thompson & Pennycook, 2008)	Plagiarism (Chong, 2010)
Building relationships & sharing (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarty,  & Silvestre, 2011)	Cyberbullying & cyberstalking (Dardick, La Roche, & Flanigan, 2007)

                                                                  

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed doing this week's posting because I feel that I had more leeway to be creative in the presentation of my thoughts and the content material via external links, images and videos. I would love to hear the thoughts of others about the creative dimensions of blogging and if they feel the creative domain can significantly contribute to the processing, retention, and application of some of the ideas presented in the required readings.

~Aja

 

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Questions

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(1). Some individuals celebrate blogging as a way to build collaborative relationships, while other see blogging as intrusive and as an unsecured platform which can lead to privacy, identity and security concerns. Which side of this debate do you lean towards and why?

(2). Blogs have various functionalities which can engage readers: “comments” section, “followers” widgets, and social media links to Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. From the above list which feature(s) do you think might be most helpful to you in this course and why?

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References

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Carter, T. J.  (2011). Blogging as reflective practice in the graduate classroom. In K. P. King & T. D. Cox (Eds.), The professor’s guide to taming technology (pp. 89-104).  Charlotte, NC:  Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Child, J.T., Pearson, J.C., & Petronio, S. (2009, October). Blogging, communication, and privacy management: Development of the blogging privacy management measure. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(10), 2079-2094.

Chong, E.K.M. (2010, September). Using blogging to enhance the initiation of students into academic research. Computers & Education, 55(2), 798-807. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.03.012 [PDF]

Dardick, G.S., La Roche, C.R., & Flanigan, M. A. (2007, December). Blogs: Anti-forensics and counter anti-forensics. Originally published in the Proceedings of the 5th Australian Digital Forensics Conference, Edith Cowan University, Perth Western Australia. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/adf/21/

Dickey, M. (2010, August). The impact of web-logs (blogs) on student perceptions of isolation and alienation in a web-based distance-learning environment. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 19(3), 279-291 [PDF]

Harris, A.L., & Rea, A. (2009, summer). Web 2.0 and virtual world technologies: A growing impact on IS education. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2), 137-144. [PDF]

Kietzmann, J.H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B.S. (2011, May/June). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54(3), 241-251.

Laal, M., & Ghodsi, S. M. (2012). Benefits of collaborative learning. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Science, 31, 486-490. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.12.091

Oravec, J. A.  (2002, April). Bookmarking the world:  Weblog applications in education. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45(7), 616-621. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40012246

Santos, A. N. E.  (2011, June). Blogs as a learning space: Creating text of talks. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 4(6), 15-19. Retrieved from http://journals.cluteonline.com/index.php/CIER/article/view/4382

Schmidt, J. (2007). Blogging practices: An analytical framework. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12, 1409-1427. doi: 101111/j.1083-6101.2007.00379x

Thompson, C., & Pennycook, A. (2008, summer). A question of dialogues: Authorship, authority, plagiarism. Education Canada, 48(3), 20-23. Retrieved from http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/question-dialogues-authorship-authority-plagiarism

Wang, S-K., & Hsua, H-Y. (2008, May/June). Reflections on using blogs to expand in-class discussion. TechTrends, 52(3), 81-85. 

Witte, S. (2007). That's onlinewriting, not boring school writing: Writing with blogs and the Talkback Project. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(2), 92-96.

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Images

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(2013, January 7). Blogging vs. discussion activity. [Web Graphic]. Retrieved from http://dukeo.com/media/opinion-discussion.jpg

(n.d.). Community of learners. [Web Graphic]. Retrieved from http://www.cherrycreekschools.org/Schools/Eastridge/PublishingImages/Mission.JPG

(n.d.). Distinctive voice. [Web Graphic]. Retrieved from http://www.donorelf.com/wp-content/uploads/01-authentic2-260x150.jpg

(2013, September). Heart-shaped word cloud. [Web Graphic]. Word cloud creator, http://www.tagxedo.com

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Video 

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Robinson, K. (2006, February). Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html