Using Moodle: Blogs, Forums and the nature of discussion
This comment by Will Richardson on 23rd July sums up the essence of blogging for education:
Posted by markp at August 24, 2005 03:02 PM | TrackBackBlogs will be a distinct addition that will allow students to take control over a piece of the learning, to reflect, to think, to link, and to write in a public way, I hope. It’s interesting that so many still see blogs as journals or portfolios. They’re not. Journals are journals; portfolios are portfolios. Blogs are for blogging, which as a genre is made up of reading what others have written, thinking critically about that content, and synthesizing disparate or similar ideas into writing that is connective and reflective. They are also for sharing what we’ve learned. It is all about trying to make sense of the topic, asking questions in a public way, provoking more thinking. It’s saying, in essence, here’s what I’ve found, here’s what I think, how does it hold up?
With Moodle, then, I see blogs as the public window on a student’s learning, the place where she takes what she has learned and gives it to a larger audience to get feedback in a different context. It’s a place where she can act authoritatively, because she is the authority on her own learning. And she can do it in a personalized, creative space that she controls. That’s a crucial distinction, I think, from a forum.