EdTechPost: B.C. Educational Technology Users Group 'Blogtalk' Archives
Scott Leslie has been working with 4 other educators in B.C. to evaluate the possibilities of using weblogs as educational tools through the Educational Technologies Users Group.
This group has about 400 members and had been using an email list. They started a group blog using TypePad as an experiment in how a blog could be used for the group's interaction.
...the facilitators were the only ones with 'author' access to the blog and the rest of the discussion participants could only use the comments facility. Because of this, it seemed like right off the bat the focus became the fact that blogs were lacking as a mechanism to facilitate discussions like this or as replacements to mailing lists or threaded discussions.
Like Scott found, I don't think a weblog should be seen as a replacement for a mailing list. Apples and Oranges, Push vs. Pull- just two different things with different purposes.
Instead, something that could be interesting is using a weblog as an add-on to the mailing list. The blog would highlight pertinent threads, members and events. It would preserve the accessability and push of the mailing list and aggregate the highlights of the group's mailing list interactions on the blog.
I'd agree with Scott's predictions here:
And as further steps unfold, I think we will see some of the lessons and models from blogs be adopted into other technologies (e.g. it is no big step for existing CMS to adopt 'personal journals' or 'eportfolios,' we're already seeing steps in that direction, and this is less a technology issue and more an acknowledgement that a 'content-centric' view of education with the students as empty vessels is wrong and will not suffice.
EdTechPost: B.C. Educational Technology Users Group 'Blogtalk' Archives
Via: Online Facilitation