This relates to an article by Kerawalla et al. about catering for different groups and learning styles in an online course supported by a blog.
The main thing that struck me was that in such a small focus group there were so many uses of the blog - highlighted in the conclusions section "The range of behaviours we found within a group of 15 students demonstrates the flexibility of blogging, which may pose a challenge for educators who are designing courses with prescribed blogging activities" - the significance of the additional challenge to designing courses might be a straw on a camel's back from the outset?
I'm not sure which behaviour I exhibit but I certainly like to keep my comments 'light', there's enough 'serious' stuff in this 32 weeks without me adding to it.
A question I asked myself was what are the differences between this and a forum? Both offer a place to write your reflections and for others to comment. What am I talking about though when I say it is non-compulsory with an educational/social mix...? It could be either a blog or a forum from the H800 experience so far. My feeling was and still is that a blog is a lot more social and personal - less led by answering a question and more led by asking questions.
I also suspect that the communities mentioned in the article will develop, not just on a tutor-group level but also within that smaller group. I am sure that there are members of our group who we look out for and comment on more than others, also some lead and others follow/'lurk'. I think I'm a bit of a lurker - one of the nicer things I've been called.
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