Academic Blogging Circles - slides for ETUG workshop, New Westminster, BC, November 2010

Academic Blogging Circle - podcast

I was really excited to meet Stu Berry in person and collaborate with him to present to a group of BC educators. My trip to Prince Rupert took half the day (early start at 5:15am, and arrival in Prince Rupert at 1:30am, then teaching and meetings till 4:30pm today - I have now (9pm) had the chance to

The joint presentation Stu and I gave to the workshop participants was well-received. I liked the way our two perspectives worked together to provide a broader overview of two ways ELGG can be used. I approached the presentation from an autonomous learner's perspective, and how an individual learner can set up and facilitate a non-formal academic blogging circle, upload files and contribute to the living archive.

What I came away with from the Q/A discussion:

From the discussion following our presentations, it became apparent that several members' views differed on the usefulness of Moodle vs elgg - I quite agree with Stu's viewpoint that the Moodle LMS is designed to do something else than the elgg, and the maintenance of a (living) archive is much easier when you offer the option to students to choose their level of privacy, and when they are given the choice to delete and add to the content after the course has finished.

I remember that one individual stated the archive is not so effective when the content has been modified after the fact, as threads sometimes get stripped out, and posts and comments end up orphaned when someone decides to delete posts. I pointed out that, indeed, the option to edit, delete, and re-tag can add a layer of complexity, and subtract from teh value of the archive. However, I also suggested that there are also benefits to this flexibility as well as drawbacks.

Again, from the perspective of an individual learner, I responded that I benefit greatly from having access to the posts from previous courses I had taken, and I suggested that if learners were aware that their posts would contribute to a living archive years down the road, which they could access later, then the contributions would take on a different purpose and form. No longer would the posts be so limited in scope, in context. Instead, with an eye to the future, a student contributor would tend to behave differently, and post differently than if they did not have confidence their content would ever be open for re-use at a later time for different audiences than it was originally intended.

A question about assessment came up - I explained the idea of tethered assessment, which involves a learner evaluating their posts they created in terms of how well they can apply the ideas in future in an authentic setting. For me, I would prefer to emphasize the degree a series of posts from the past are "tethered to" the situation we find ourselves at present. I would suggest that for autonomous, self-regulated learners independent of external validators, the extent to which they can mine and transfer their knowledge from the assignment to the current situation is the ultimate test. When posting, then, an individual blogger bears in mind how they might need this information at an indefinite point in time in the future, and append, revise, and blog accordingly. The test of validity, then, is a subjective one, and is determined by the individual blogger: to what extent are these blog posts and artefacts relevant and applicable to the present, authentic scenario? How much can I make use of this past content in my current situation?