Developing a Personal Learning Network: A Case Study

Abstract: This case study explores my learning journey as a student blogger on Athabasca University’s social network using a multi-method approach, combining narrative inquiry, transcript analysis, and educational biography, as well as quantitative data from web log files to analyze 159 blog posts over fifteen months of continuous blogging activity. The first part of the case study will explore my impressions and reflections about blogging, describing activity from a variety of quantitative data sources, such as frequency of the use of specific tags, number of posts, comments, and web traffic data. The second part of this case study will use educational biography to explore my experiences, reflections and impressions. The third part of the case study will analyze blog posts using transcript analysis to document evidence of knowledge construction and network construction processes.

Keywords: case study, narrative inquiry, transcript analysis, edublogging, educational biography, network construction processes, knowledge construction processes

Introduction

This case study explores my own learning experiences as a student blogger while using an edublog in Me2U, Athabasca University’s social network between September 2008 and December 2009. The case study is separated into three parts: an educational biography, an analysis of my blogging activity using Allan Leonard’s personal VSM model (2009), and qualitative analysis of my blog posts using transcript analysis. The first part of this case study will explore the author’s impressions and reflections about blogging over fifteen months, describing activity from a variety of quantitative data sources, such as frequency of the use of specific tags, number of posts, comments, and web traffic data. The second part of this case study will use educational biography to explore my experiences, reflections and impressions over the past fifteen months while engaged in blogging activities both within Me2U and external to Me2U. The third part of the case study will analyze blog posts over fifteen months using transcript analysis to document evidence of events of knowledge construction and network construction processes.

Background

I began blogging as a graduate student in September 2008 while completing my last online course as a student blogger. Between September 2008 and December 2008, I was actively involved in blogging within my own blog, participating in the MDDE605 group blog, and read and commented on other peers’ blogs. During the second semester of blogging, I enrolled in MDDE663, an elective course and followed a loosely structured program of study, and chose blogs as my topic for study. This was followed by two independent study courses. At the beginning of the start of the MDDE691 course, starting October 2009, I began creating learning objects and sharing them with others.

Collection and Selection of Data

The following data collected is compiled from incomplete site data from Me2U. Log files were unavailable; however, the data has been compiled using the Tag Cloud, a visual summary of the blog tags, or specific keywords associated with individual posts. The Tag Cloud visually represents the most commonly used Tags, such as: edublogging, MDDE663, MDDE690, MDDE691, MODEL POST, and Reflections. In addition, using the Tag Cloud, I was able to compile a summary of posts related to specific tags. In this manner, I was able to view a single page that had aggregated the blog posts for the four courses.

Between September 2008 and December 2009, 29 connections were established with other peers within the Me2U community. The majority of the connections formed lasted for the duration of the courses in which I participated as a member of a cohort. Over four semesters, or fifteen months, I published a total of 159 posts and classified these posts with 330 tags.