Weblog Communities Emerging Environments for Online Learning

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Weblog CommunitiesEmerging Environments for
Online Learning

• Rob Wall
• North Battleford Comprehensive High School
• University of Saskatchewan
• http//stigmergicweb.org
• robwall_at_gmail.com

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Two Parables

• The Polo Parable (David Wiley)
• On Founding a University (Stephen Leacock)

The common element in both parables is that the
course is embedded in an external community that
supports the learning.
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The distance learners community
Course
Course community
Community within the course is not a guaranteed
outcome
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The traditional learners community
How can we create this supporting community in
online learning?
The larger campus community supports/enhances the
course community
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Obligatory quoting of the keynote
Learning is a remarkably social process. In
truth, it occurs not as a response to teaching,
but rather as a result of a social framework that
fosters learning. To succeed in our struggle to
build technology and new media to support
learning, we must move far beyond the traditional
view of teaching as delivery of
information. John Seely Brown, Learning in the
Digital Age
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Elements of the campus community

• Other students
• Cohort (peers)
• Older (mentors)
• Younger (disciples)
• Staff
• Campus pub )
• No, really
• How do we design these for online learning?
• Robs answer - weblogs

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Weblogs

• A web application presented as a webpage
  consisting of periodic posts, normally in reverse
  chronological order
• Analogous to a book or magazine, it is a format
  of publication of information
• Entries (posts) can be categorized and are
  archived with a permanent link

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Samples
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How are blogs community building?

• Group blogs
• Individual blogs connect to each other frequently

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Connective Components of Weblogs

• Blogrolls
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• RSS

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Blogrolls
Blogroll
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Comments
Comments
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Trackback
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RSS

• RSS is
• Rich Site Summary
• RDF Site Summary
• Really Simple Syndication
• XML formatted file containing a description of
  the contents of a web site
• Open file format makes it easy to write programs
  to create/modify/use RSS feeds
• Weblog software creates and updates RSS
  automatically
• Other programs, RSS aggregators, periodically
  read RSS files and display results

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Finding RSS links
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RSS aggregation by an individual
http//www.bloglines.com
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RSS aggregation into a site

• NMC 2004
• WordPress

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How do we create this out of weblogs?
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Building the online campus blogosphere

• List of online learner blogs
• Aggregating blog entries onto one page/site
• Aggregating blog entries with specific
  categories/phrases in titles to a course
  page/site
• The external community starts to seed the course
  community

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Getting started

• Start blogging
• http//www.blogger.com is the best start
• Creating community blogs
• http//www.drupal.org Drupal was used to build
  http//weblogs.ucalgary.ca

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Questions and comments

• Contact me robwall_at_gmail.com
• Read me http//stigmergicweb.org (and leave
  comments!)
• Talk to me over lunch )