Educational Blogs

Digital Convergence is a fascinating phenomenon.  Not only can we watch T.V. on the internet, hook up our computers to T.V.'s so that we can have a bigger screen or check our emails on our cell phones, but now we can do things online from an educational standpoint that used to only be done by painstakingly thumbing through dusty old tomes or getting together in groups for study.

There have been several studies done about the effectiveness of blogging and online communication in an academic environment, one of which was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The study took sixty students and divided them into six groups for online blogging.  The students used the blogs as study tools, which led the researchers to explore the possibility of using wikis and online collaboration tools for classes.  Most of the students reported that the blogs helped them learn a lot, where as a significant amount less reported finding the blog somewhat helpful and even fewer not helpful at all.  The key thing about the study was giving students enough time to post the assignments and analyses they had done and still give other students time to comment on them.  The only thing that I don't recall reading about on the study was a control group- a group of students who did not use any new online tools.  

This would be an interesting study to conduct-- allow one group of students to use a wiki and one group to only do email or face-to-face collaboration, then take note of who does better on an exam.  

Here is a link to the study

Citation: American Journal of Public Health; Sep2008, Vol. 98 Issue 9, p1658-1663, 6p

Cyberspace

One thing that Trinity is exceptionally proud of is the wireless internet access on campus.  Because we have wireless internet set up in my house, I didn't really think much of it-- it is easy how quickly you can grow accustomed to having certain luxuries.  

I didn't really notice how great it is that I have such great wireless access until I went and tried to get onto the internet in Nathan and Mike's dorm down the hall from mine.  I had heard from them that my roommate and I had great wireless, but I didn't think it would be any different over there.  I had absolutely no connection in their room.  It really made me think about how lucky I am that I have a great internet connection not only in my dorm, but all over campus (except, apparently, at Nathan and Mike's . . .).  

It is really cool that Trinity provides this service to students, because not only does it mean that we can pretty much get on facebook while we are eating lunch or sitting by the magic stones, but we can also do research at three in the morning for that writing workshop paper due the next day without getting out of bed and bothering our roommates.

While Trinity is on the cutting edge for wireless connections, here is an article about other schools who are getting WLAN from cisco, the same company that made the Clean Access program that annoys so many of us here in San Antonio . . .

http://www.physorg.com/news8289.html