Module 4, Unit 2’s Reflections (2)
Jul 14th, 2009 by Ed Leung
Benefits and Drawbacks of Weblogging
As Downes points out, one of the greatest advantages for using a public forum such as a weblog for learning is that students will be even more diligent knowing that, potentially, their materials would be read by the entire world. It also provides the educator with the opportunity to invite experts and specialists to assist in the formative assessment or feedback process. For example, if students were to engage in a weblog activity where they have to talk about entomology (the study of insects), a biology teacher can invite someone who is working in the field to be a guest in reviewing and commenting on what the students are writing.
The openness and availability of a weblog’s content, however, can also be seen as a drawback. Students with a learning disability in written output, students from an English as an additional language background, for example, may fear that their weblog entries may be mocked. The perceived “shame factor” would be even larger for these students than for them to write a piece that only the teacher would be seeing. This may cause certain students to withdraw completely from the activity.
Privacy issues were discussed in the previous discussion forum. Personally, I do not see an educational weblog constituting to a big privacy risk as long as students are taught about internet safety, and are warned about the potential dangers of disclosing too much private information.
Other benefits and drawbacks I can see are:
Benefits:
- a permanent, paper-less record that can be kept for many years to come
- a novelty that is probably enjoyed by a large portion of the students
- the opportunity to extend the learning community to include other students from other classes/schools/countries
- the opportunity to pool educators’ expertise and resources in teaching
Drawbacks:
- potentially an increase in a teacher’s work load
- the potential of anonymous cyber-bullying
- the elevated chance of academic dishonesty, as most of the work will not be done in a teacher’s supervision