Comment by Carolyn Foote on July 19, 2007 at 7:54pm

They work differently is one reason.

We had some teachers wanting to do book discussions and were trying blogs. But since the students were in groups reading different books, having blog postings didn't really work--it wasn't that interactive, and hard to organize on the blog.

But it worked well on a threaded discussion board.

Part of why it didn't work on the blog was because it wasn't really a stream of continuous dialogue and conversation for this particular assignment. It was more static, if that makes sense?

I see blogs as a more continous format, more about dialogue. But it also creates a sense of voice of the author of the blog, where a discussion board is more neutral, and not seeming to be authored by any one person.

Just thinking aloud here...

Comment by Chris Duke on July 19, 2007 at 9:20pm

I definitely see the ownership issue. But that's the only plus to the blogs I can see at the moment if (a) I'm working within a classroom environment and (b) I want learners to engage in a common, threaded discussion. Those are the two things Jeff highlighted in his article..

Comment by Chris Duke on July 20, 2007 at 7:31am

That was my thought. My question is as a Devil's Advocate. If much of the excitement regarding blogs in the classroom focuses on the notion of facilitating discourse among and between learners in a classroom environment, I guess I'm surprised there's not more discussion regarding the use of simple threaded discussion boards rather than blogs.

In fact, as an educational technologist, if a faculty member were to ask me how to achieve such a community discourse among learners in a class, the discussion board is the appropriate tool, and I'd likely have to take a strong position against using blogs in the classroom because of the additional layer of difficulty associated with: creating blogs/accounts, using a news aggregator, subscribing to blog and comment feeds etc.

So, if not attempting to facilitate a discussion that could be served MUCH better by a discussion board, how else are educators using blogs in the classroom?

Comment by Chris Duke on July 20, 2007 at 7:45am

Konrad,

Looking at 21Classes.com and your blog post - combined with personal, graduate research regarding social presence and learner participation in online discussions - I can absolutely see a benefit of blogging over discussion boards.

BUT, that benefit is dependent upon a tool like a class blog portal/aggregator. I think 21Classes is an intriguing alternative to discussion boards because it appears to enable the cohesive group discussions while also providing the individual space. Compared to standard threaded discussion tools that come with LMS' - Moodle, Blackboard, WebCT - learners become individuals with an independent, salient presence within the learning space rather than a text only name appearing as the sender of another message.

Appreciate the comment, your blog, and the pointer to 21Classes!

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