Working with blogs in seminars – Part 1
Hello everybody, today we have a set of charts for you. These are the results of a survey conducted in a seminar by Petra Bauer. In addition, the students in this seminar had to write a blog instead of a term paper to pass it. Here a the results of the survey, including an english translation:
1. The integration of digital tools in group work in the seminar
- I liked it (blue)
- Not too bad (red)
- Did not like it at all (orange)
2. Using Etherpad for collecting ideas
- helped our group to brainstorm and to find topics
- did not provide any additional help
3. I find writing a blog instead of a term paper to be
- good (blue)
- I can get to like it (red)
- I do not like it (orange)
4. Setting up the blog was
- complicated
- doable
- easy
5. Please describe in short: Which competences did you acquire or deepen when working with the blog?
- None that I am aware of
- Digital communication, include topics in every day life, develop another mindset
- Scientific work, handling with modern media
- Scientific work
- Teamwork, creating aesthetically pleasing designs
- Being confronted with different forms of web content like Tumblr, WordPress etc.
- The open form of the task and the obligation of the student to solve it independently, improves the students’ ability to conduct a meaningful and structured research. Furthermore the blog provides an opportunity to work creatively. To many students, creating a blog and writing a questionary is a complete novelty.
6. I have the following suggestions for the lecturer regarding team work with digital tools
- I would like not writing a blog
- Introduction to blogging, dos and don’ts of handling digital media
- Define a timeframe and extent, which means how many blog posts or in which cadence and how long
- Maybe a short introduction into WordPress
7. General feedback
- I think it is good, that you test new methods in your lectures. Although, they are not the right ones for me.
- Nice idea with the blog, at least something different.
- I am not convinced why blogging should be a meaningful alternative to a term paper.
Very interesting results. What subject did these students study? Have there been any grades for the blogs?
For further reading about blogs in higher education: Weblogs in Higher Education: Why Do Students (Not) Blog? https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ872405
Success that students did blogging. Sometimes I find it hard to encourage some of my students of Pedagogy even to comment sth on my blog concerning recent lectures.
The studied group wasn’t large that’s why the average opinion might have depended on the leader(s) views. Next time it may work better.
@Tim As far as I know there will be grades for the blogs
@Kate I see your point, a little persuasion is always needed to make students participate. But still, like you said, it is always somewhat an experiment because you never know the students motivation.