Wednesday 23 May 2007

13. Anything Else?

As this is a co-enquiry, I am hoping tht there will be more issues raised on this blog.
I will be keeping checks on it and if there are any further issues raised or questions I will give them a new section.
Thanks!

12. What do you think the research question should be?

As this is a co-enquiry, the research question should be decided from the findings on this blog, and by all who contribute to it.
It has been suggested that a co-enquiry question could begin...'How can/do... or 'What does/are....'
However, as we are not following the traditional avenues of co-enquiry, this need not necesarily apply.

I have my own thoughts on what the question COULD be, but we can't decide this until the research itself has been conducted.
What do you think?

11. How can we minimise barriers to blogging?

Initial set-up found that many uers did not have email adddresses, so ths had to first be rectified.
Learners also had problems remembering their sign-in details, so we kept a log of these from the first post.

Tuesday 22 May 2007

10. Success Stories - please feel free to add your own.

This is just one of the many positive learning experiences that came about through the use of blogs:I was working with a young adult male learner with sever dyslexia who who frequently excluded himself from the group. His interests lay in films, comics, gadgets...and he spent most of his time in class surfing the Internet looking for what interested him.
He was one of the first learners who wanted to have a blog, and he set it up just as he liked it, using it mostly to write about movies and his comic book heroes and to post pictures of them. He would diligently write down information about his favourite movies, and then post it to his blog. Soon he was linking to film websites, and posting on other learners' blogs.
Within a couple of weeks he was helping others to use their blogs, with confidence and patience, and developing his own use of blogs as a personal learning tool.
This is just one story - I have recently been invited by other learners from this group to view their 'bebo' sites. It is wonderful to see them trying new things and continuing to develop their use of personal web pages. All credit to their tutor who was the first to start his own bebo, and has no doubt instigated their use of bebo.
Well Done!

9. How can we sustain blogging as a learning tool?

This comes down to indicators again - how can we prove that this is a valid way of learning?

8. What indicators can we use to show the benefits of blogging?

I had my own set of indicators for showing this with my group:
increase in learners engaged in blogging, progress reports, learner feedback, self-reflection, sustainability, increase in Internet usage, increase in communication online between learners...

However, these are mostly qualitative indicators, and it is difficult to show a direct correlation between indicators and benefits.

7. What are the implications for adult learning with the continuing development of new technologies?

Blogging is a relatively new area of working in adult learning, and with the speed of IT development there are sure to be more innovative approaches for learning - opinions???