A Development Research Agenda for Online Collaborative learning.
The goal of this article was to propose guidelines for an online collaborative learning research. These guidelines were divided to three steps:
- Critique the state-of-the-art of educational research.
- Describe an application of “development research” to teacher education.
- Encourage new thinking about how we use technology in the educational research.
In the beginning, they discussed the reality of online collaborative learning and the problems that faced this discipline.
However, Most educational research has little impact on practitioners and yields few discernable benefits. This is lead to some problems in the development research and using computer mediated communication and e-learning channels in the education field. According to this article, I can summarize these problems in four points:
- Educational researchers tend to promote thinking of online course design as a process of replicate traditional classroom. .
- Failure to get prompt feedback from instructors, and persistent technical problems.
- The short time for the faculty members to create completely different designs for online course.
- Qualitative research yields little that can be generalized beyond the classrooms in which it is conducted.
Moreover, they stated (the reseachers) that educational technology researchers are not doing much better than other educational researchers. For this group, the major conclusion was: “Clearly, the benefits gained from the use of media technology in learning scenarios appear to be very limited and not in keeping with the generally euphoric reaction to this technology in the professional arena.”
The need for new research:
There are new strategies for conducting “development research” that can improve our research so that it can become a socially responsible enterprise. Moreover, many researchers fail to distinguish between research goals and methods.
Education Technology Research goals are:
- Focus on explaining phenomena through logical analysis and synthesis of principles and results from other studies.
- Focus on determining how education works by testing hypotheses related to theories of learning, teaching, performance, etc.
- Focus on determining how education works by describing and interpreting phenomena related to learning, teaching, performance, etc.
- Focus on dual objectives of developing creative approaches to solving problems and constructing reusable design principles.
Development Research Strategies:
- Define a pedagogical outcome and create learning environments that address it.
- Emphasize content and pedagogy rather than technology.
- Give special attention to supporting human interactions.
- Modify learning environments until outcome is reached.
In conclusion, educational technologists should pursue development research that integrates the desire to solve problems with the search for knowledge.
It is not a lack of sufficient research guiding implementation of learning setting, but that instructional designers and instructors often fail to apply the results of existing research to the design of today’s online collaborative learning environments. Moreover, many instructors need educational technology researchers to work with them side-by-side to address the challenge of developing powerful collaborative online learning environments.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The internet for empowerment of minority and marginalized users
In this article Mehra and his colleagues investigate the relationship between internet and computer and the use of minority and marginalized people for this technology in everyday life and how this technology could impact in their life. According to Mehra and his colleagues, this article is an attempt “to articulate some valuable lessons for understanding internet use among marginalized members of society” (783).
First study: Low-income families and Internet:
This study adopted an ethnographic perspective in studying people’s computer and internet literacy practices. The data collections efforts were designed to understand better how the participants used or did not use the technology, the problems that were encountered during use and the methods employed to overcome technical problems.
The participants of this study talked about the role of the technology in terms of trying to establish stronger family connections. Perhaps the most important finding of this study is that the adoption of computer technology and internet cannot be looked at in terms of simple categories of use or not-use. Mehra stated that “It is more accurate to say that people adopt technology in their lives, including those associated with family structures, social networks and their understanding of what the technology can do for them” (786).
How sexual minorities use the internet for social change:
In the second study, Mehra examined how people on the margins of society use internet in their everyday lives to accomplish changes that are meaningful to them. The study was content analysis of use of electronic mailing list by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT).
LGBT group used the online mailing list as an educational tool. As a result of online interactions via mailing list, LGBT individuals were able to network with students, local churches, the office of LGBT Concerns, local businesses and other campus units.
The findings from this study show how LGBT members used the computer technology (mailing list) in the domain of cultural empowerment.
How can internet research empower African-American women?
This study depends on the Afya project which relies on scenario building as means of representing and reflecting on social practices associated with community heath and the use of internet and information technology.
In the Afya project, a PAR method to internet studies has helped to conceptualize the role of the SisterNet women as community action researchers, where they are taking on leadership roles in data collection and analysis. The involvement of SisteNet women in the creation of culturally relevant heath information on the internet is building local capacity, interest and technological skills. Shifts in internet management and creation of its content are leading to the social empowerment of Black women via the transference of power into their own hands.
In other study, Valatis (2005) found in her study about “the internet and youth” that communicating via the Internet raised youth’s perception of their social status. Many youth felt that they were more professional and were perceived as having “smartness”. Young people preferred communicating with adults online “because then people think you’re smarter.” She later commented that writing to the principal online promoted being heard: “It was more professional.” A facilitator concurred that youth’s image was positively influenced through the use of technology: “I think they would have been seen differently by the community because they were using the technology.... [They] were seen as a bit smarter, brighter.” Youth and adults felt that youth’s credibility was also enhanced. Moreover, many youth felt that writing to adults via the Internet significantly lessened their anxiety compared to face-to-face or phone discussions.
In conclusion:
I believe this study is important because it discusses the use of computers and the Internet can aid communities by supporting communication and access to information, thereby building social capital and community capacity. Using computers can assist the community planning process, community participation, and information sharing. Computer-mediated communication can build community awareness, encourage local decision making and dialogue between groups, and support disadvantaged communities. Status barriers can be reduced, and online communication with disenfranchised groups, such as women, people of color, low-income families and those with disabilities, can be promoted.
By: Abdul
First study: Low-income families and Internet:
This study adopted an ethnographic perspective in studying people’s computer and internet literacy practices. The data collections efforts were designed to understand better how the participants used or did not use the technology, the problems that were encountered during use and the methods employed to overcome technical problems.
The participants of this study talked about the role of the technology in terms of trying to establish stronger family connections. Perhaps the most important finding of this study is that the adoption of computer technology and internet cannot be looked at in terms of simple categories of use or not-use. Mehra stated that “It is more accurate to say that people adopt technology in their lives, including those associated with family structures, social networks and their understanding of what the technology can do for them” (786).
How sexual minorities use the internet for social change:
In the second study, Mehra examined how people on the margins of society use internet in their everyday lives to accomplish changes that are meaningful to them. The study was content analysis of use of electronic mailing list by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT).
LGBT group used the online mailing list as an educational tool. As a result of online interactions via mailing list, LGBT individuals were able to network with students, local churches, the office of LGBT Concerns, local businesses and other campus units.
The findings from this study show how LGBT members used the computer technology (mailing list) in the domain of cultural empowerment.
How can internet research empower African-American women?
This study depends on the Afya project which relies on scenario building as means of representing and reflecting on social practices associated with community heath and the use of internet and information technology.
In the Afya project, a PAR method to internet studies has helped to conceptualize the role of the SisterNet women as community action researchers, where they are taking on leadership roles in data collection and analysis. The involvement of SisteNet women in the creation of culturally relevant heath information on the internet is building local capacity, interest and technological skills. Shifts in internet management and creation of its content are leading to the social empowerment of Black women via the transference of power into their own hands.
In other study, Valatis (2005) found in her study about “the internet and youth” that communicating via the Internet raised youth’s perception of their social status. Many youth felt that they were more professional and were perceived as having “smartness”. Young people preferred communicating with adults online “because then people think you’re smarter.” She later commented that writing to the principal online promoted being heard: “It was more professional.” A facilitator concurred that youth’s image was positively influenced through the use of technology: “I think they would have been seen differently by the community because they were using the technology.... [They] were seen as a bit smarter, brighter.” Youth and adults felt that youth’s credibility was also enhanced. Moreover, many youth felt that writing to adults via the Internet significantly lessened their anxiety compared to face-to-face or phone discussions.
In conclusion:
I believe this study is important because it discusses the use of computers and the Internet can aid communities by supporting communication and access to information, thereby building social capital and community capacity. Using computers can assist the community planning process, community participation, and information sharing. Computer-mediated communication can build community awareness, encourage local decision making and dialogue between groups, and support disadvantaged communities. Status barriers can be reduced, and online communication with disenfranchised groups, such as women, people of color, low-income families and those with disabilities, can be promoted.
By: Abdul
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Design-Based Research: A New Research Paradigm.
What Is Design-Based Research?
Design-based research (DBR) is a relatively new methodological strategy for studying a wide range of designs, including technology-based instructional designs. Collins, Joseph, and Bielaczyc (2004) defined DBR thus:
“Design experiments bring together two critical pieces in order to guide us to better educational refinement: a design focus and assessment of critical design elements. Ethnography provides qualitative methods for looking carefully at how a design plays out in practice, and how social and contextual variables interact with cognitive variables. Large-scale studies provide quantitative methods for evaluating the effects of independent variables on the dependent variables. Design experiments are contextualized in educational settings, but with a focus on generalizing from those settings to guide the design process. They fill a niche in the array of experimental methods that is needed to improve educational practices”.
According to Collins et al. (2004), Design-based Research intends to address several needs and issues central to the study of learning, including the following:
• The need to address theoretical questions about the nature of learning in context
• The need for approaches to the study of learning phenomena in the real world situations rather than the laboratory
• The need to go beyond narrow measures of learning.
• The need to derive research findings from formative evaluation.
Characteristics of design-based research experiments include:
• addressing complex problems in real, authentic contexts in collaboration with practitioners
• applying integrating known and hypothetical design principles to render plausible solutions
• conducting rigorous and reflective inquiry to test and refine innovative learning environments
• intertwined goals of (1) designing learning environments and (2) developing theories of learning
• research and development through continuous cycles of design, enactment, analysis, and redesign
• research on designs that must lead to sharable theories that help communicate relevant implications to practitioners and other educational designers
• research must account for how designs function in authentic settings
Definition:
While there is an ongoing debate about what constitutes design-based research, the definition of design-based research proposed by Wang and Hannafin (2005) captures its critical characteristics:
“a systematic but flexible methodology aimed to improve educational practices through iterative analysis, design, development, and implementation, based on collaboration among researchers and practitioners in real-world settings, and leading to contextually-sensitive design principles and theories” (p. 6).
Main characteristics of design-based research:
Drawing on the literature, Wang and Hannafin (2005) proposed five basic characteristics of design-based research: “Pragmatic, Grounded, Interactive, iterative and flexible, Integrative, and Contextual” (p. 7).
First, design-based research is pragmatic because its goals are solving current real-world problems by designing and enacting interventions as well as extending theories and refining design principles.
Second, design based research is grounded in both theory and the real-world context (Wang & Hannafin, 2005).
Third, in terms of research process, design-based research is interactive, iterative and flexible.
Fourth, design-based research is integrative because researchers need to integrate a variety of research methods and approaches from both qualitative and quantitative research paradigms, depending on the needs of the research.
Fifth, design research is contextualized because research results are “connected with both the design process through which results are generated and the setting where the research is conducted” (Wang & Hannafin, 2005, p. 11).
However, the purpose of creating design-based research methodology was to move educational research from laboratories into classrooms in order to gain insight into how, when, and why innovations work in practice (The design-based research collective, 2003). Yet the focus of DBR is not on specific designs and curricula, but on how the strengths and limits of a design inform theories of learning. DBR combines quantitative and qualitative methods to view how designs work in the crucible of practice and to gain insights into how students learn in typical school contexts. The DBR Collective has identified 5 key characteristics of good design-based research:
• Goals of designing learning environments and developing theories of learning are intertwined.
• Development and research take place through continuous cycles of design, enactment, analysis, and redesign.
• Research leads to theories that communicate relevant implications to practitioners and other designers.
• Research accounts for how designs function in authentic settings, not only documenting success or failure, but also focusing on interactions that refine our understanding of the learning issues involved.
• Research relies on methods that can document and connect process of enactment to outcomes of interest.
In conclusion, accourding to the scholars of education there are four areas where design-based research methods provide the most promise: (a) exploring the possibilities for creating novel learning and teaching environments, (b) developing theories for learning and instruction that are contextually based, (c) advancing and consolidating design knowledge, and (d) increasing our capability for education innovation.
By: Abdul
Design-based research (DBR) is a relatively new methodological strategy for studying a wide range of designs, including technology-based instructional designs. Collins, Joseph, and Bielaczyc (2004) defined DBR thus:
“Design experiments bring together two critical pieces in order to guide us to better educational refinement: a design focus and assessment of critical design elements. Ethnography provides qualitative methods for looking carefully at how a design plays out in practice, and how social and contextual variables interact with cognitive variables. Large-scale studies provide quantitative methods for evaluating the effects of independent variables on the dependent variables. Design experiments are contextualized in educational settings, but with a focus on generalizing from those settings to guide the design process. They fill a niche in the array of experimental methods that is needed to improve educational practices”.
According to Collins et al. (2004), Design-based Research intends to address several needs and issues central to the study of learning, including the following:
• The need to address theoretical questions about the nature of learning in context
• The need for approaches to the study of learning phenomena in the real world situations rather than the laboratory
• The need to go beyond narrow measures of learning.
• The need to derive research findings from formative evaluation.
Characteristics of design-based research experiments include:
• addressing complex problems in real, authentic contexts in collaboration with practitioners
• applying integrating known and hypothetical design principles to render plausible solutions
• conducting rigorous and reflective inquiry to test and refine innovative learning environments
• intertwined goals of (1) designing learning environments and (2) developing theories of learning
• research and development through continuous cycles of design, enactment, analysis, and redesign
• research on designs that must lead to sharable theories that help communicate relevant implications to practitioners and other educational designers
• research must account for how designs function in authentic settings
Definition:
While there is an ongoing debate about what constitutes design-based research, the definition of design-based research proposed by Wang and Hannafin (2005) captures its critical characteristics:
“a systematic but flexible methodology aimed to improve educational practices through iterative analysis, design, development, and implementation, based on collaboration among researchers and practitioners in real-world settings, and leading to contextually-sensitive design principles and theories” (p. 6).
Main characteristics of design-based research:
Drawing on the literature, Wang and Hannafin (2005) proposed five basic characteristics of design-based research: “Pragmatic, Grounded, Interactive, iterative and flexible, Integrative, and Contextual” (p. 7).
First, design-based research is pragmatic because its goals are solving current real-world problems by designing and enacting interventions as well as extending theories and refining design principles.
Second, design based research is grounded in both theory and the real-world context (Wang & Hannafin, 2005).
Third, in terms of research process, design-based research is interactive, iterative and flexible.
Fourth, design-based research is integrative because researchers need to integrate a variety of research methods and approaches from both qualitative and quantitative research paradigms, depending on the needs of the research.
Fifth, design research is contextualized because research results are “connected with both the design process through which results are generated and the setting where the research is conducted” (Wang & Hannafin, 2005, p. 11).
However, the purpose of creating design-based research methodology was to move educational research from laboratories into classrooms in order to gain insight into how, when, and why innovations work in practice (The design-based research collective, 2003). Yet the focus of DBR is not on specific designs and curricula, but on how the strengths and limits of a design inform theories of learning. DBR combines quantitative and qualitative methods to view how designs work in the crucible of practice and to gain insights into how students learn in typical school contexts. The DBR Collective has identified 5 key characteristics of good design-based research:
• Goals of designing learning environments and developing theories of learning are intertwined.
• Development and research take place through continuous cycles of design, enactment, analysis, and redesign.
• Research leads to theories that communicate relevant implications to practitioners and other designers.
• Research accounts for how designs function in authentic settings, not only documenting success or failure, but also focusing on interactions that refine our understanding of the learning issues involved.
• Research relies on methods that can document and connect process of enactment to outcomes of interest.
In conclusion, accourding to the scholars of education there are four areas where design-based research methods provide the most promise: (a) exploring the possibilities for creating novel learning and teaching environments, (b) developing theories for learning and instruction that are contextually based, (c) advancing and consolidating design knowledge, and (d) increasing our capability for education innovation.
By: Abdul
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Collaborative tagging as distributed cognition.
Reference: Steels, L. (2006). Collaborative tagging as distributed cognition. Pragmatics & Cognition, 14 (2), 287-292.
This article discusses recent developments in the web technologies based on the impact of collaborative tagging on the distributed cognition. How this communication technology (tagging) will effect on the distributed cognition.
In the beginning I believe we to understand what is collaborative tagging?
Collaborative tagging is a form of social software that has recently attracted a huge number of users. Web sites like Flicker, del.icio.us, and 2collab.com, encourage users to share photos, videos, blogs, article references, and music. These data objects are associated with tags, common words freely chosen by the user. They describe a data item in a subjective and often associative way. It is an effective method to organize and retrieve data. Tags are used to organize personal data, and are made public so that other users can access and browse them.
Beginning in 2004 and quickly becoming a standard on websites, collaborative tagging allows users to upload or select materials (pictures, music files, videos, texts and so on) and associate tags with these materials. Tags can be chosen freely, and are similar to keywords. Other users can then browse through tags; a click on a tag connects a user to similarly tagged materials. Tags furthermore enable tag clouds which graphically represent the popularity of tags, demonstrating co-occurrence relations between tags and thus jump from one tag to another. Collaborative tagging on the web is one of the most recent developments in technological support for distributed cognition.
According to this study, tagging is an alternative to the current URL hyperlinks used on the web. A hyperlink introduces a direct link to another site, and a user can simply click on a piece of text or on a picture and be transported to another site. Tagging also has some advantages because the relation between a tag and the address of the resources to which it may point is centrally managed and so new materials can become associated with tags in a distributed fashion. Another advantage of tags is that they introduce a kind of taxonomy of keywords or classifiers which aid users in browsing by providing meta-data about the contents of uploaded material.
The relationship between Distributed Cognition theory and collaborative tagging:
Distributed cognition as a theory of learning has been widely applied in the field of e-Learning, especially in relation to Compuer Collaborative Learning (CCL) and other computer-supported learning tools. Distributed cognition illustrates the process of interaction between people and technologies in order to determine how to best represent, store and provide access to digital resources and other artifacts.
Distributed cognition can also be seen through cultures and communities. Learning certain habits or following certain traditions is seen as cognition distributed over a group of people. Exploring distributed cognition through community and culture is one way to understand how it may work.
With the new research that is emerging in this field, the overarching concept of distributed cognition enhances the understanding of interactions between humans, machines and environments.
In his conclusion, Steels believe that this relationship between distributed cognition and collaborative tagging may help us to understand how humans introduce symbols to organize their information spaces, and especially how their personal choices are influenced by the choices of others.
By: Abdul
This article discusses recent developments in the web technologies based on the impact of collaborative tagging on the distributed cognition. How this communication technology (tagging) will effect on the distributed cognition.
In the beginning I believe we to understand what is collaborative tagging?
Collaborative tagging is a form of social software that has recently attracted a huge number of users. Web sites like Flicker, del.icio.us, and 2collab.com, encourage users to share photos, videos, blogs, article references, and music. These data objects are associated with tags, common words freely chosen by the user. They describe a data item in a subjective and often associative way. It is an effective method to organize and retrieve data. Tags are used to organize personal data, and are made public so that other users can access and browse them.
Beginning in 2004 and quickly becoming a standard on websites, collaborative tagging allows users to upload or select materials (pictures, music files, videos, texts and so on) and associate tags with these materials. Tags can be chosen freely, and are similar to keywords. Other users can then browse through tags; a click on a tag connects a user to similarly tagged materials. Tags furthermore enable tag clouds which graphically represent the popularity of tags, demonstrating co-occurrence relations between tags and thus jump from one tag to another. Collaborative tagging on the web is one of the most recent developments in technological support for distributed cognition.
According to this study, tagging is an alternative to the current URL hyperlinks used on the web. A hyperlink introduces a direct link to another site, and a user can simply click on a piece of text or on a picture and be transported to another site. Tagging also has some advantages because the relation between a tag and the address of the resources to which it may point is centrally managed and so new materials can become associated with tags in a distributed fashion. Another advantage of tags is that they introduce a kind of taxonomy of keywords or classifiers which aid users in browsing by providing meta-data about the contents of uploaded material.
The relationship between Distributed Cognition theory and collaborative tagging:
Distributed cognition as a theory of learning has been widely applied in the field of e-Learning, especially in relation to Compuer Collaborative Learning (CCL) and other computer-supported learning tools. Distributed cognition illustrates the process of interaction between people and technologies in order to determine how to best represent, store and provide access to digital resources and other artifacts.
Distributed cognition can also be seen through cultures and communities. Learning certain habits or following certain traditions is seen as cognition distributed over a group of people. Exploring distributed cognition through community and culture is one way to understand how it may work.
With the new research that is emerging in this field, the overarching concept of distributed cognition enhances the understanding of interactions between humans, machines and environments.
In his conclusion, Steels believe that this relationship between distributed cognition and collaborative tagging may help us to understand how humans introduce symbols to organize their information spaces, and especially how their personal choices are influenced by the choices of others.
By: Abdul
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Internet and education.
Today, my topic will be about the relationship between Internet and learning. You will find here two articles about the impact of internet on learning and education.
Article Review:
Krikwood, A. (2007). Getting it from the Web: why and how online resources are used by independent undergraduate learners. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 24, 372-382.
This article was about the use of the Internet in education first and how the undergraduate students using the Internet for different purposes in general. The main question was to investigate why and how independent learners use resources on the web while undertaking their normal coursework. The investigation was concerned not only with the academic context of courses being studied, but also any personal, domestic and employment-related experiences and circumstances that were pertinent.
Method:
Semi-structured interviews by telephone were used to investigate each student’s prior familiarity with and experience of locating and using electronic resources via the Web. Their approaches to using Web resources in relation to specific learning activities and tasks were also explored. Factors that encourage or discourage students’ use of Internet resources during their study of OU modules were investigated.
The interviews sought to contextualize students’ learning in relation to any relevant experiences. These included both personal circumstances and educational experience.
Procedure:
The five male and five female volunteers selected to participate represented a reasonable geographical distribution, with some living in remote locations.
A sample of adult undergraduate students was drawn for interviewing, using the following criteria:
They were studying one of four specified second level course modules (two modules from science and two from health and social care);
They had completed at least 1 year of study with the UK OU before commencing their current module.
Findings:
The findings suggest that it is not communication technologies by itself, but a wide range of contextual factors (personal as well as educational), that are important in determining whether and how students use Web resources in their learning. Most adult independent learners will use the Internet for personal, domestic, social and employment purposes, as well as for educational goals.
Article Review:
Mitra, A., Willyard, J., Platt, C., and Parsons, M. (2005). Exploring web usage and selection criteria among male and female students. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(3), article 10. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/mitra.html
This study addresses three questions related to the evaluative criteria used by men and women to make judgments about Web pages:
1: What are some of the major criteria used by students to evaluate Web sites? 2: What are some of the different kinds of Web sites used by students? 3: Is there a difference in Web site preference and use based on gender?
Participants:
The participants for the study were recruited from the undergraduate students at the university. The participants were offered a small monetary incentive to participate in the completion of a short Web-based task. The participants were asked to bring their laptop computer to a large classroom where they were instructed to locate what they considered the best Web site about women from Afghanistan. The participants were then asked to list that Web site and answer the questionnaire developed for the study.
Method:
For this study, it was decided to develop an instrument for the study by beginning with a set of focus group discussions so as to gain an in-depth understanding of the criteria used by students as they decide on using specific Web sites. They used focus groups with students at a small liberal arts university. The students were recruited from across the campus and were offered a small incentive for participating in the focus groups. The protocol for the focus groups included questions about the participants’ level of Internet use; the categories of Web information sought; the participants’ feelings about the usefulness of the Web. Also, the focus group discussions were followed by the development of a survey instrument to answer the exploratory research questions raised here.
Findings:
Questions 1: The results suggest that the fit of the information on the Web site is considered to be the most important criterion for evaluating the value of a Web site. Those sites that seem to have appropriate textual content are considered to be most valuable.
Question 2: The data suggest that other than search engines, the Web sites that are used most frequently need to have some direct relevance for the students’ work-either class work or their special interest.
Question 3: In general, there was little difference between men and women with respect to the different kinds of sites they visited.
Discussion:
This finding could potentially inform the ways in which the Web could be used in pedagogy. The students reported less use of special interest sites, and greater use of sites that are of practical interest to them. It is thus important to be able to evaluate some of the predispositions of the students, as well as to consider the specific use of a Web site before it is used in teaching.
By: Abdul
Article Review:
Krikwood, A. (2007). Getting it from the Web: why and how online resources are used by independent undergraduate learners. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 24, 372-382.
This article was about the use of the Internet in education first and how the undergraduate students using the Internet for different purposes in general. The main question was to investigate why and how independent learners use resources on the web while undertaking their normal coursework. The investigation was concerned not only with the academic context of courses being studied, but also any personal, domestic and employment-related experiences and circumstances that were pertinent.
Method:
Semi-structured interviews by telephone were used to investigate each student’s prior familiarity with and experience of locating and using electronic resources via the Web. Their approaches to using Web resources in relation to specific learning activities and tasks were also explored. Factors that encourage or discourage students’ use of Internet resources during their study of OU modules were investigated.
The interviews sought to contextualize students’ learning in relation to any relevant experiences. These included both personal circumstances and educational experience.
Procedure:
The five male and five female volunteers selected to participate represented a reasonable geographical distribution, with some living in remote locations.
A sample of adult undergraduate students was drawn for interviewing, using the following criteria:
They were studying one of four specified second level course modules (two modules from science and two from health and social care);
They had completed at least 1 year of study with the UK OU before commencing their current module.
Findings:
The findings suggest that it is not communication technologies by itself, but a wide range of contextual factors (personal as well as educational), that are important in determining whether and how students use Web resources in their learning. Most adult independent learners will use the Internet for personal, domestic, social and employment purposes, as well as for educational goals.
Article Review:
Mitra, A., Willyard, J., Platt, C., and Parsons, M. (2005). Exploring web usage and selection criteria among male and female students. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(3), article 10. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/mitra.html
This study addresses three questions related to the evaluative criteria used by men and women to make judgments about Web pages:
1: What are some of the major criteria used by students to evaluate Web sites? 2: What are some of the different kinds of Web sites used by students? 3: Is there a difference in Web site preference and use based on gender?
Participants:
The participants for the study were recruited from the undergraduate students at the university. The participants were offered a small monetary incentive to participate in the completion of a short Web-based task. The participants were asked to bring their laptop computer to a large classroom where they were instructed to locate what they considered the best Web site about women from Afghanistan. The participants were then asked to list that Web site and answer the questionnaire developed for the study.
Method:
For this study, it was decided to develop an instrument for the study by beginning with a set of focus group discussions so as to gain an in-depth understanding of the criteria used by students as they decide on using specific Web sites. They used focus groups with students at a small liberal arts university. The students were recruited from across the campus and were offered a small incentive for participating in the focus groups. The protocol for the focus groups included questions about the participants’ level of Internet use; the categories of Web information sought; the participants’ feelings about the usefulness of the Web. Also, the focus group discussions were followed by the development of a survey instrument to answer the exploratory research questions raised here.
Findings:
Questions 1: The results suggest that the fit of the information on the Web site is considered to be the most important criterion for evaluating the value of a Web site. Those sites that seem to have appropriate textual content are considered to be most valuable.
Question 2: The data suggest that other than search engines, the Web sites that are used most frequently need to have some direct relevance for the students’ work-either class work or their special interest.
Question 3: In general, there was little difference between men and women with respect to the different kinds of sites they visited.
Discussion:
This finding could potentially inform the ways in which the Web could be used in pedagogy. The students reported less use of special interest sites, and greater use of sites that are of practical interest to them. It is thus important to be able to evaluate some of the predispositions of the students, as well as to consider the specific use of a Web site before it is used in teaching.
By: Abdul
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Blogs Technology
When our professor asked us last week to create a blog, I started thinking about this communication technology (Blog or Blogger) and about the history of blog technology. When and this technology start and how it becomes very popular method for communication. For this purpose, I spent last weekend searching in the net for any things about Blogs. My aim was to find any information about the definition, impact and history of this technology to share it with my classmates in the seminar IT: 695.
So, What Is A Blog?
Blog is short for web log, a site a person maintains (which can be part of a larger blogging site). For some people it’s a dairy, for others commentary and reportage on specific subjects - whatever the topic, no matter how vague or difficult to understand, there’s a blog on it.
Most blogs are personal even if they relate to particular topics like computers, but these days a vast number of companies also maintain blogs, known as corporate blogs. They’re a good way of unofficially dispersing information about new products, letting people know about problems, and much more – they serve the quick and easy purpose of communicating directly with the public, rather than using press releases, and they keep an air of informality that appeals to many businesses.
A blog can be many things. For some people it’s a way to make some extra money, allowing advertising that pays a small amount for every click-through. Some people make a little money. In some very rare instances, those blogging have become famous and had their blogs turned into books, movies or TV shows.
If you ask anyone about blog, he/she will tell you it is a new way of journalism or a personal diary. But let us go in this journey and see what the people and researchers round the world think about this technology.
The Origins of the Word Blog:The Blog Herald cites the origins of the term weblog to G. Raikundalia & M. Rees, two lecturers from Bond University on the Gold Coast (Australia). The term was first used in a paper titled “Exploiting the World-Wide Web for Electronic Meeting Document Analysis and Management.” Popular use of the term Weblog as we know it today is from Jorn Barger of the Weblog Robot Wisdom (robotwisdom.com) in December 1997. Barger coined the term weblog meaning logging the Web. In 1999 programmer Peter Merholz shortened the term weblog to blog.
Timeline: Notable Blogging Events
1994, January
Justin Hall a Swarthmore College student creates what is considered to be the very first blog “Links.net”. Some industry trackers cite the first blog as belonging to David Winer, “Scripting News” (1997).
1997, December
Jorn Barger coins the term Weblog.
1998, October
Open Diary is founded.
1999, April
April: Peter Merholz shortens Weblog to blog.
1999, July
The first free weblog tool launches (Pitas).
1999, August
Pyra releases Blogger.
2002, February
Heather Armstrong is fired for discussing her job on her blog. The term "Dooced" (see below) is coined.
2002, August
Gizmodo launches.
2003, February
Google buys Blogger from Pyra (1 million blogger users, with 200,000 active).
2003, June
Google launches AdSense and incorporates matching ads to blog content.
2003, July
MySpace launches.
2003, August
TypePad (blogging and hosting service) launches.
2004, December
MSN Spaces launches (which ties in MSN Messenger and Hotmail services with blogging)
2005, March
AOL launches its RED Blogs service, aimed at the teen segment
2005, July
News Corp buyst Intermix Media (owner of Myspace.com) for $580 million.
2005, October
AOL buys blog publisher Weblogs Inc. ($25 million).
2005, August
TypePad launches TypePad Mobile (mobile blogging tools).
2005, November
Andrew Sullivan moves his popular blog "Daily Dish" to Time.com. Time gets advertising revenues from the blog and Sullivan is paid a fee for his services.
2005, November
DigitalGrit launches its Business Blog Service
2006, June
eBay launches user blogs at its eBay Live! Conference.
2006, August
Google pays $900 million in shared revenue to be the exclusive search provider for MySpace.com
Blog and Blogging Terminology:Like most new technologies, the blogosphere (blogging world) is full of new words, terms, and slang used to describe blog and the act of blogging. To get you started on knowing the lingo, here are some of the many blog-related terms that you will find written online today.
Blog: Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.
Blogger: A person who blogs.
Blogging: The act of writing or updating your blog.
Blogosphere: Meaning all blogs, it is an expression used to describe the 'world of blogs'.
Blogroll: Found on blogs it is a list of links to other blogs and Web sites that the blog author commonly references or is affiliated with. Blogrolls help blog authors to establish and build upon their blogger community.
B-blog: Short for business blog, a blog used by a business to promote itself. Moblog: Acronym used to combine the terms "mobile" and "Web log". Where a Web log (also called a blog) is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual, a moblog is a blog which has been posted to the Internet from a mobile device.Tagging: Commonly used in blogs, site authors attach keyword descriptions (called tags) to identify images or text within their site as a categories or topic. Web pages and blogs with identical tags can then be linked together allowing users to search for similar or related content. If the tags are made public, online pages that act as a Web-based bookmark service are able to index them. Tags can be created using words, acronyms or numbers. Tags are also called tagging, blog tagging, folksonomies (short for folks and taxonomy), or social bookmarking.
Blog and Ping: An online marketing term applied to a system that utilizes blogs and pings (short for pingback) to deliver content and /or sites for indexing in search engines with the ultimate aim of profit. Also called blog ping.
Vlog: Short for video blog, it is the term used to describe a blog that includes or consists of video clips. Typically updated daily (or with regular frequency) vlogs often reflect the personality or cause of the author.
Why Do People Blog?
People used to keep diaries - some still do, of course - recounting the events of the day or week and expressing their feelings. Blogging, for many, is exactly the same thing, but it’s a diary they can augment with video and audio if they choose and publish online. The anonymity of the web still gives them privacy, a way of communication without completely revealing themselves.
To many people blog is a communication tool about a particular topic. They may well be experts, and the blog draws like-minded souls. Often they have access to a lot of information on their subject, so they can reveal things that might not otherwise be known. Some of these blogs have become important resources and reference points for people.
What Do Blogs Achieve?
For some, blogging is a road to fame and hopefully fortune, if their blog is popular enough (and yes, people do read certain blogs faithfully); they can turn a hobby into a living.
Most, however, do it for the sheer fun, to express themselves and to become a part of the community known as the blogosphere. Some act as journalists, commenting on current events and adding their voices to the throng (interestingly, some working journalists also maintain blogs). It’s a chance to be heard and to stand out from the crowd.
In conclusion, a blog can be anything those blogging want it to be. Whether it is a diary available for anyone to read, or discussing particular topics with authority, ultimately a blog becomes a method of communication.
Note: I started to think to make my research paper, in this class, about Blogging and the reason behind using this technology in communication? Especially for individuals who live for away from their country, for instance the international students in the University of Tenneessee.
So, What Is A Blog?
Blog is short for web log, a site a person maintains (which can be part of a larger blogging site). For some people it’s a dairy, for others commentary and reportage on specific subjects - whatever the topic, no matter how vague or difficult to understand, there’s a blog on it.
Most blogs are personal even if they relate to particular topics like computers, but these days a vast number of companies also maintain blogs, known as corporate blogs. They’re a good way of unofficially dispersing information about new products, letting people know about problems, and much more – they serve the quick and easy purpose of communicating directly with the public, rather than using press releases, and they keep an air of informality that appeals to many businesses.
A blog can be many things. For some people it’s a way to make some extra money, allowing advertising that pays a small amount for every click-through. Some people make a little money. In some very rare instances, those blogging have become famous and had their blogs turned into books, movies or TV shows.
If you ask anyone about blog, he/she will tell you it is a new way of journalism or a personal diary. But let us go in this journey and see what the people and researchers round the world think about this technology.
The Origins of the Word Blog:The Blog Herald cites the origins of the term weblog to G. Raikundalia & M. Rees, two lecturers from Bond University on the Gold Coast (Australia). The term was first used in a paper titled “Exploiting the World-Wide Web for Electronic Meeting Document Analysis and Management.” Popular use of the term Weblog as we know it today is from Jorn Barger of the Weblog Robot Wisdom (robotwisdom.com) in December 1997. Barger coined the term weblog meaning logging the Web. In 1999 programmer Peter Merholz shortened the term weblog to blog.
Timeline: Notable Blogging Events
1994, January
Justin Hall a Swarthmore College student creates what is considered to be the very first blog “Links.net”. Some industry trackers cite the first blog as belonging to David Winer, “Scripting News” (1997).
1997, December
Jorn Barger coins the term Weblog.
1998, October
Open Diary is founded.
1999, April
April: Peter Merholz shortens Weblog to blog.
1999, July
The first free weblog tool launches (Pitas).
1999, August
Pyra releases Blogger.
2002, February
Heather Armstrong is fired for discussing her job on her blog. The term "Dooced" (see below) is coined.
2002, August
Gizmodo launches.
2003, February
Google buys Blogger from Pyra (1 million blogger users, with 200,000 active).
2003, June
Google launches AdSense and incorporates matching ads to blog content.
2003, July
MySpace launches.
2003, August
TypePad (blogging and hosting service) launches.
2004, December
MSN Spaces launches (which ties in MSN Messenger and Hotmail services with blogging)
2005, March
AOL launches its RED Blogs service, aimed at the teen segment
2005, July
News Corp buyst Intermix Media (owner of Myspace.com) for $580 million.
2005, October
AOL buys blog publisher Weblogs Inc. ($25 million).
2005, August
TypePad launches TypePad Mobile (mobile blogging tools).
2005, November
Andrew Sullivan moves his popular blog "Daily Dish" to Time.com. Time gets advertising revenues from the blog and Sullivan is paid a fee for his services.
2005, November
DigitalGrit launches its Business Blog Service
2006, June
eBay launches user blogs at its eBay Live! Conference.
2006, August
Google pays $900 million in shared revenue to be the exclusive search provider for MySpace.com
Blog and Blogging Terminology:Like most new technologies, the blogosphere (blogging world) is full of new words, terms, and slang used to describe blog and the act of blogging. To get you started on knowing the lingo, here are some of the many blog-related terms that you will find written online today.
Blog: Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.
Blogger: A person who blogs.
Blogging: The act of writing or updating your blog.
Blogosphere: Meaning all blogs, it is an expression used to describe the 'world of blogs'.
Blogroll: Found on blogs it is a list of links to other blogs and Web sites that the blog author commonly references or is affiliated with. Blogrolls help blog authors to establish and build upon their blogger community.
B-blog: Short for business blog, a blog used by a business to promote itself. Moblog: Acronym used to combine the terms "mobile" and "Web log". Where a Web log (also called a blog) is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual, a moblog is a blog which has been posted to the Internet from a mobile device.Tagging: Commonly used in blogs, site authors attach keyword descriptions (called tags) to identify images or text within their site as a categories or topic. Web pages and blogs with identical tags can then be linked together allowing users to search for similar or related content. If the tags are made public, online pages that act as a Web-based bookmark service are able to index them. Tags can be created using words, acronyms or numbers. Tags are also called tagging, blog tagging, folksonomies (short for folks and taxonomy), or social bookmarking.
Blog and Ping: An online marketing term applied to a system that utilizes blogs and pings (short for pingback) to deliver content and /or sites for indexing in search engines with the ultimate aim of profit. Also called blog ping.
Vlog: Short for video blog, it is the term used to describe a blog that includes or consists of video clips. Typically updated daily (or with regular frequency) vlogs often reflect the personality or cause of the author.
Why Do People Blog?
People used to keep diaries - some still do, of course - recounting the events of the day or week and expressing their feelings. Blogging, for many, is exactly the same thing, but it’s a diary they can augment with video and audio if they choose and publish online. The anonymity of the web still gives them privacy, a way of communication without completely revealing themselves.
To many people blog is a communication tool about a particular topic. They may well be experts, and the blog draws like-minded souls. Often they have access to a lot of information on their subject, so they can reveal things that might not otherwise be known. Some of these blogs have become important resources and reference points for people.
What Do Blogs Achieve?
For some, blogging is a road to fame and hopefully fortune, if their blog is popular enough (and yes, people do read certain blogs faithfully); they can turn a hobby into a living.
Most, however, do it for the sheer fun, to express themselves and to become a part of the community known as the blogosphere. Some act as journalists, commenting on current events and adding their voices to the throng (interestingly, some working journalists also maintain blogs). It’s a chance to be heard and to stand out from the crowd.
In conclusion, a blog can be anything those blogging want it to be. Whether it is a diary available for anyone to read, or discussing particular topics with authority, ultimately a blog becomes a method of communication.
Note: I started to think to make my research paper, in this class, about Blogging and the reason behind using this technology in communication? Especially for individuals who live for away from their country, for instance the international students in the University of Tenneessee.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
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