Reading Response #2: Blogging and Wikis for collaborative learning and inquiry learning by Kristi Robb

Question #2: Why is blogging or a wiki a good tool to use to support collaborative learning? How are
educators using blogs or wikis to support inquiry learning? Does blogging or wiki enhance student
writing? Why or why not?
According to Vooren and Bess (2013), teachers have to use the types of communication tools that their
students are using in order to make learning and collaborating effective and relevant to those students.
Blogging and wikis are one of the easiest technological ways to support collaborative learning,
specifically in a classroom environment, because of the very nature of how they work. Wikis are meant
to be created and edited by more than one person alone. For example, take the wiki we are creating for
this class; it is allowing us to work together without having to be in the same room, let alone the same
state or even country. Since students often have issues with getting together after school hours
because of the busy family schedules that are common in todays world, this asynchronous medium is
the perfect solution for this issue. Blogs can also be collaborative in nature by the simple fact that
students may read and respond to classmates posting on these sites. Again, this asynchronous solution
helps students to find the time that is most convenient for them. Instead of pen pals who write snail
mail letters to one another across continents, now teachers can work with other teachers throughout
the world and have their students collaborate like never before because of the instantaneous nature of
the wiki and the blog, which provides students vastly different perspectives from their own.
Extrapolating from Vooren and Besss (2013) article on how the use of Twitter in the classroom
enhanced their academic success, I can see the potential for similar results with the use of blogs and
wikis. After all, it is the nature of communication with these two types of technology that could make
them so similar. It is the communal aspects of Twitter that get Vooren and Bess (2013) excited.
Grosseck and Holotescu (2008) state
Twitter used in the classroom has been found to increase the sense of community, foster the
use of writing as a fun activity, serve as a tool for assessing opinion, provide an engaging
educational experience, change the dynamic of a classroom, improve communication, allow
teachers to post notes and other links, and encourage all students to have a voice. (as cited in
Vooren and Bess, 2013, p. 35)
I see no reason why any part of this quote cannot be applied to both blogs and wikis. These tools would
do exactly the same thing for students that the researchers saw happen in this study using Twitter. It is
the nature of these social communication tools that makes the results relatively universal. Both blogs
and wikis would provide students with everything mentioned in the above quote.
What I have just described with the use of Twitter and how that could be used to extrapolate the results
of using blogs and wikis in the classroom setting is also setting the stage for future communication via
these forms, and it is preparing students for what they will encounter in the workplace where
professionalism is paramount. Bess and Vooren (2013) stated that bringing Twitter into the classroom
increased the student use of social networking etiquette (p.35). This means that not only is the use of
tools like Twitter, blogs, and wikis helping with student collaboration, it is teaching students how to act,
speak, and write in a professional manner with others.
In my mind, one of the ways that blogs and or wikis are used to promote deep inquiry learning is
through the evaluation process that happens when students are met with this type of information on
the Internet. What I mean by this is that teachers and teacher librarians alike have to teach students to
evaluate information critically. In the article by Clifton and Mann (2012), they talk about nursing
students using YouTube in their study efforts. While they say that this type of medium can be very
helpful, they caution that not everything on this site is genuine. They blatantly state students need to
develop critical thinking skills, thinking carefully about sources and their authors (Clifton and Mann,
2012, p. 64). Again, I am going to extrapolate from this article in comparing YouTube to blogs and wikis
in the classroom. Deep learning or inquiry learning in my mind is really learning how to learn and
decipher the junk from the gems.
Hargadon (2013) says that students need an emphasis on real learning, which he considers a
relationship with the world and those around you, participating in the great conversation of humanity,
and discovering the value of developing expertise and skill (p. 60). This is Hargadons version of inquiry
learning, and based on the phrase, conversation of humanity, I believe that blogs and wikis provide the
means to do this. They connect students in ways that have never been possible before and make
learning once again a social enterprise. Also, using blogs and wikis provides educators with a way to
develop the critical or inquiry based skills that Hargadon (2013) is calling for in his article in a systematic
way. Teachers could teach lessons based on evaluating sources such as blogs and wikis for authoritative
information, which fosters those critical and inquiry learning skills. Not only that, but in my own
experiences in the classroom, when students write about subjects or topics, they understand them
better. It is solidifies information when they are required to explain it in writing.
I also believe that blogging and creating writing for wikis enhances student writing. As stated earlier in
the quote, writing in this medium is different and maybe more novel than what students are
accustomed to so it makes it fun, which in turn makes them more inclined to actually do it and enjoy
it. The content that they create in these forms is easily edited, and I believe that any type of writing
practice is better than none at all, thus enhancing their skills. Also, since they may be working with their
peers on a wiki or knowing that a peer may read the blog might entice students to look over their work
more carefully. Knowing that a teacher is the only person who is going to look at the paper copy of a
journal entry is not as unsettling as the thought of peers and the rest of the world being able to view the
content a student has created.
References
Clifton, A., & Mann, C. (2012). View with a critical eye. Nursing Standard, 27(8), 64. Retrieved from
http://rcnpublishing.com/journal/ns

Hargadon, S. (2013). Be the learner you wish to see in the world. Teacher Librarian, 40(3), 59-60.
Retrieved from http://www.teacherlibrarian.com/
Vooren, V. C., & Bess, C. (2013). Teacher tweets improve achievement for eighth grade science students.
Journal of Systemics, cybernetics and informatics 11(1), 33-36. Retrieved from
http://www.iiisci.org/journal/sci/