Friday

Research on Blogging

What makes a blog a blog? It looks like a Web site, yet it is full of stories. The language is less formal than an essay or a research article and more formal than a diary or chat box. The stories, often in narrative form, are complemented by interesting collections of multimedia such as images, podcasts and video. Technically speaking, a blog is a Web site comprised of a collection of posts or entries usually constructed by a single author and organized in reverse chronological order. Blogging, as a different and unique form of literacy, invites a new form of participation in a given discourse—in this case, teaching and learning.

My research for the past four years has looked at how this new media literacy has allowed both teachers and students to engage in their work differently, more effectively, and, (check this out), more enjoyably. I’ve also integrated blogging as a core practice of the science teacher education program here at Warner. To see some of our current students’ professional blogs, check out the blogroll (list of links on the sidebar) posted on the blog we used for our summer class, EDU 486, Integrating Science & Technology. In her most recent post, Alicia published a post, titled “Blogging,” in which she wrote:

I must say I was definitely scared of this whole blogging thing…hey, I didn’t even know what a blog was. Maybe I need to call Gieco and ask if I can be on the commercial (you know the caveman commercials), because as I mentioned before, I am living in the stone ages.
However, despite my fears, I immersed myself into the blogosphere. Although, I am still not aware of all of the features, I do appreciate the communication it allows between my peers and others around the world that may be experiencing the same frustrations as myself.
I hope to continue this communication throughout my journey at Warner and with in my years of teaching. My classmates are very helpful and insightful and I hope that this is just the start of a lasting blogging community (August 7, 2008)

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