668mediaproject3 Eva Yu-Ti Huang 260574607

THE POPULARITY AND UTILITY OF USING BLOGS IN HIGHER EDUCATIONA LITERATURE REVIEW
Eva Yu-Ti Huang #260574607
The Popularity and Utility of Using Blogs in Higher Education

A literature Review
EDPE 668 Digital and Social Media in Higher Education
Instructor: Dr. Nathan C. Hall
McGill University
INTRODUCTION
Word Count: 631
It was no so long ago that most people thought that a blog was just a place
where people could present and express their personal lives, interests, expertise, or
points of view and that a blog helped the connection between friends, relatives, or
some strangers with similar interests. However, people put the uses and purposes of
blogs to the extreme nowadays and we can see blogs being created with different
functions, for different purposes and to target different audiences or readers. People
even use blogs in various education systems.
Sim and Hew (2010) have listed six major uses and several genres of educational
blogs after using the constant-comparative method to categorize different individuals
empirical articles. Blogs are used for writing learning journals (p153), recording daily
life, expressing feelings, communicating with others, examining students work, and
managing projects. In the genres of educational blogs, personal journals(70.4%) and
knowledge logs (p152), are more like the older style of blogs, expressing personal lives
and expertise. In some blogs, the hosts evaluate and comment on others blog sites. This
kind of blog is called Filter (p152). Among all the educational blogs, most of them are
hosted by one individual and presented in reverse chronological order (p152), and
offer hyperlinks to different articles in the same site or in some other sites and the
function of archiving. Sim and Hew concluded that in order to draw the best out of the
educational blogs, there are four things which need to be done. First, the instructors
should use some face-to-face ice-breaking activities (p157) to remove students
discomfort of using blogs on comments and feedbacks to and from classmates. Second,
privacy of students should be considered. Third, real hands-on (p157) practice is
needed for students to get familiar with blogging. Finally, Self-Determination Theory
1
(SDT) (p157) should be applied to promote students motivation on learning through

blogging.
Other than using blogs in education, many use blogs for their research, either for
collecting information, or posting their own findings. In both Shema et al. (2012) and
Fausto et al. (2012), both Research Blogs (RB) and the scholarly information are studied
and analyzed. Within these two studies, life science and biology were found to have the
most posts on blogs. Shema et al. found that the science blogs allow personal research
to be posted informally and to invite peer-review online, and are mostly hosted by male
graduate students. These students used citations from well-known journals in order to
increase self-publicity (p7). It is commonly known that researchers should have their
own blog sites in order to increase their publicity, and that the blogs should be offered,
aside from in their own language, also in English, the international language, to be read
and understood by a larger population. In Fausto et al., they found that the more and
more citations are from Open Access Journals since graduate students might not have
enough resources to have the access to some expensive well-known journals. Also they
found that there was an increase from 2007 to 2010 on blog posting, but a decrease
after that due to the increasing popularity of Twitter and Facebook.
Along with the popularity of Blogging, the curiosity to the bloggers increases. In
Yarkoni (2010), Big Five personality traits, and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)
were used as tools to study the relation between the personality of bloggers and also
their word use on their own blog site or comments on others blog sites. He found a
strong correlation between these two. After reading these four articles, I am interested
in how blogs can be used for teaching and learning and also what impact the comments
of blogs will have. Ten articles, mostly related to teaching and learning in higher
education, were listed below along with the reviews of them.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Word Count: 2034
Article 1: Educational applications of Web 2.0: Using blogs to support teaching and
learning by Daniel Churchill in 2008
In this study, a class of masters-level students was studied in a course related to
information technology for one semester. Churchill designed an experimental blogbased environment where the students could download their course material offered
by the instructor, post their comments and attend different activities. All the activities
on the blog were observed and data were collected. He found the comments and the
2
interactions between the instructor and students helped foster better learning and
understanding on teaching material. 24 students had participated in a questionnaire and
most of them agreed that assessing and reading blogs not only helped their learning in
this course but also gave them the motivation to do more blogging in the future. In the
teachers reflection, the teacher believed blogging added some interesting flavor into
the teaching and allowed students to participate more. However, reading and tracking
the blogs from students was time-consuming (p182), so Really Simple Syndication
(RSS) (p181) should be used more to allow the teacher to access the latest posts.
Churchill mentioned that Web2.0 could be used further in higher education, and RSS
technology can definitely make teaching and learning easier in this digital world.
Article 2: Post-Secondary Students Purposes for Blogging by Paul Leslie in 2008
This study was conducted in the Dubai Womens College. In this college,
students needed to attend a blog-technology class and purchase a wireless laptop in
order to participate in blogging for learning as well as socializing. Leslie explored the
blogs that can facilitate students social presence (p2) as well as knowledge
construction (p2) and located 47 blogs with this function. He then formed a focus
group of eight year-one students and conducted interviews with them. Each interview
lasted for 45 minutes. The results were then analyzed using the content analysis method.
He found students used blogs for socializing more than learning because these blogs
were not monitored and instructed by teachers. Students used blogs for socializing, such
as disclosing themselves, interacting with others by responding to others posts, and
expressing their feelings on learning. This kind of socialization actually helped students
learning since emotion plays an important role in learning.
Although all the participants were year-one females, we can still see the typical
characteristics of freshmen in college. There is always time for socializing but not much
for learning. Blogs offered these students another platform for expressing themselves
and enjoying their student lives, and thus connected students together and formed a
college community bond.
Article 3: The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits and Barriers by Sergio
Lujn-Mora and Susana de Juana-Espinosa in 2007.
Because of the increase of Open Universities and virtual environment courses
offered by traditional Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) (p1), weblog users have
increased and thus understanding the benefits and barriers of using blogs in teaching
and learning has become necessary. There are two types of educational blogs
instructor weblogs (p2), hosted by instructors, and student weblogs (p2), hosted by
3
students. In regards to using weblogs for e-learning (p3), he found various advantages
but also barriers. In the category of advantages, weblogs make it easier to participate in
information sharing, personal connection /communication, discussion promoting, and
team work facilitating. Web blogging also makes the outcomes of assignments more
accurate through the in-time advising from the instructors, and make teachers marking
quick and simple.
As for the barriers, weblogs might not be easy for some students who dont have
much technology background or who dont have access to a computer. There might be
many advertisements hanging around and interrupting students learning on weblogs.
Some not-well-designed blogs stop teachers from knowing students participation and
also prevent students from downloading necessary software or programs. Knowing
these benefits as well as the barriers can help instructors with their future course
designs on weblogs, and foster students learning and communication.
Article 4: Evaluation of a Blog Based Parent Involvement Approach by Parents by
Zehra Ozcinar and Nihat Ekizoglu in 2013
Traditionally, parents involvement in students education has been limited due
to the insufficient communication between parents and the educators. In this research,
researchers developed a Blog Based Parent Involvement Approach (BPIA) (p2) to
facilitate the communication between parents and educators as well as students. The
researchers set up a weblog that included each students file as well as instructions for
parents to follow in order to complete different activities with students. Semi-structured
interviews were arranged to collect parents opinions about their involvement in their
childrens education on weblogs. The results showed that parents agreed that they
could understand their children more as well as what they were involved in at school
through BPIA. Through BPIA, parents could spend more time with their children and
thus enhance the relationship with their own children as well as with the teachers.
Although this study is not related to higher education, the results can be used by future
teachers in higher education. For improving their future teacher-parent communication,
these current student teachers could work on this kind of online-communication
technique and apply it in their future work.
Article 5: Student experience in blog use for supplementary purposes in courses by
Adile Askim Kurt, Serkan Izmirli and Ozden Sahin-Izmirli in 2011
To understand students attitudes towards using blogs as a supplementary
method for instruction, the researchers recruited 68 undergraduate students who were
attending the Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies at a University in
4
Turkey in 2008-2009. These participants needed to use a course blog as well as a

personal blog in one course. The instructors posted instructions and questions for
discussion on the course blog, and the students wrote and posted their reflections on
their own personal blogs. A survey for quantitative data collection and a semi-structured
interview for qualitative data collection were both conducted. The researchers found
that students agreed that using blogs as part of the course is very effective and useful.
Some students found the preparation time for the exam was reduced owing to the use
of blogs as part of the course. However, using a blog in this study didnt help students
socialization with others. Overall, students have a positive attitude towards using blogs
as supplementary method for receiving instruction from teachers.
Article 6: Blogging About Course Concepts: Using Technology for Reflective
Journaling in a Communications Class by Alicia S. Bouldin, Erin R. Holmes and Michael
L. Fortenberry in 2006
This study was conducted in a professional communication course at the
University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy in the 2003 fall semester. 78 Students were
enrolled and they were in their second-professional year and all of them had a laptop
and thus had access to weblogs. Movable Type, a Web log software, was used in this
study. In this course, the students were asked to post their reflective journals, web logs
(p1), twice a week on a weblog. The journals were worth three points of the final mark.
A survey was conducted for students to evaluate the online assignments on the blog.
Most students spent about 15-30 minutes on each blog and through the blogging,
students worked on their critical thinking, creativity etc. Overall, students learning and
awareness to the assignments increased about 40% and only a few complaints were
made by students. However, not all the students saw the value of using blogs on
learning, but many of them agreed that blogging fostered their communication skills
outside of the class.
Article 7: An empirically grounded framework to guide blogging in higher education by
Kerawalla, Minocha, Kirkup, and Conole in 2009
This study was conducted on a distance-learning course at the Open University,
UK. 15 Students in total working on their Masters were recruited. This course
emphasized students information sharing, reflection presenting, and team collaborating.
Although, blogs activities were suggested in the course material, the students could still
freely decide whether to use their personal blog or not, and in what way to use the blog.
The blog activities were analyzed, and a semi-structured interview was performed to
collect students opinions and reflections after blogging as part of the course
involvement. The researcher found that students blogging frequency and also quality
5
were affected by six factors: how the students perceive the audience and the
community of the blog, how much they need to be listened to and to receive the
comments from others, how useful those comments are, how the blog is laid out/
presented, what kind of technology is involved and what methodology the course
applies. According their findings, the researchers suggested that it would not be a good
idea to list rigid (p40) rules and guidelines for students blogging, because they will
just limit the students desire to explore the blogging on their own. While designing the
online course involving blogging, the educators should consider the students audience,
community, and comments and also the presentation of the blog because these four
factors interact with each other and affect the quality and the desire of students
blogging.
Article 8: Blended learning using video-based blogs: Public speaking for English as a
second language students by Ru-Chu Shih in 2010
44 college seniors with a major in English in Taiwan participated in this study,
and were divided into nine groups. Most of them knew how to handle a digital camera
and blog on blogs. A new method of teaching English as a second language was
introduced into an English for specific purposes (ESP) courseEnglish Public Speaking.
This teaching method included online and face-to-face instructional blogging (p884).
In this course the students blogged, recorded less-than-five-minute video clips, and
filled out self-reflection sheets. They also made comments on other groups video clips.
At the end of the course, the feedback, interviews (only from six of the students), and
self-reflection from students and the instructor were collected as qualitative data; a
learning satisfaction survey was also collected as quantitative data. After analyzing all
the data, Shih concluded that students public speaking skills were improved through
blogging and video making. Technology and proper teaching method can together foster
students second language learning. However, language practice activities should be
properly designed and the internet speed and the accessibility of digital camera should
be also considered in order to facilitate students improved learning in their second
language.
Article 9: Economics with Training Wheels: Using Blogs in Teaching and Assessing
Introductory Economics by Michael P. Cameron in 2011
Cameron used a communal constructivist approach (p398) to design the
teaching and learning through blogs. The students of ECON110, an introductory
Economics course, from 2007-2010 participated in this study. There were between 34
and 63 students each year in this class. A blog assessment was introduced into this
course, and was worth about 12.5% to 15% of the students final mark. Students
6
should post and start at least two discussions in the 14-week semester. These
discussions should include news online and the application of economic theories.
Quantitative data, such as marks, time spent on blogging, and students ways of taking
this course, was collected. The correlations between students performance and
different factors were analyzed. The students with higher GPA, and some economic
background had a better performance on this course. Distance learners did not perform
as well as the other students. Students blog participation did not correlate to their class
performance. Although there was not much correlation found between students blog
participation and their class performance, a large portion of students found the blog
assessment was a good approach for learning.
Article 10: The Impact of Economics BlogsPart I: Dissemination Effect by David
McKenzie and Berk zler in 2011
In order to understand whether the academic blogs change the publicity of economic
research papers, the researchers followed 94 papers mentioned in six different popular
academic blogs held by economists. After archiving and analyzing the statistics of
abstract views and downloads of papers before and after the blogging taking place on
these blogs, they found that blogging did increase the abstract views of these research
papers and the downloading of them. An apparent spike can be found on the graph to
show the sudden increase of abstract views and the number of downloads after these
papers were blogged by these economists.
CONCLUSION
Word Count: 574
People started blogs for personal journals to present their lives, opinions,
expertise etc. with friends, families, or strangers with similar interests. Nowadays, blogs
have been brought to extreme and wide use in different domains, especially in
education systems. Instead of asking whether it is good to use blogs as part of a course
delivered either in traditional or in virtual classrooms, instructors should ask how they
should blend the use of blogs into their regular courses properly and wisely. As we can
see different results found from the articles above, it is difficult to present the black and
white of blogs in our regular courses. For example, in article 2, students blogging was
not monitored or instructed by any instructors or teachers, thus students used the blog
as a platform for socializing. In article 5, blogging is part of the assignments, and the
course blog was monitored and instructed by the instructor. Students used the blogs for
downloading assignment instructions and for uploading their reflections as well as their
work, thus they found blogging didnt foster their socialization with other classmates.
7
In Article 1, 3, 5 and 8, positive results were found. Using blogs as part of the
courses did help students learning and instructor teaching. Well-designed blogs can
facilitate communication/discussions between students, team collaboration, and
question posting and answering between students and the instructor. In article 9, there
was no correction found between students time spent on blogging and their final marks
for the course. Since there was no other control group with which to compare, it is hard
to draw the causality between the marks and the time spent on blogging. However,
most students still agreed that the blog assessment was a very good approach for their
learning.
Blogs can be used to help with our traditional courses as well as online courses.
Since most students dont see each other during their online courses, blogging gives
them another channel to communication and get to know each other better. In Article 7,
when students knew who their classmates /audience were, they spent more time and
put more effort on the blog. However, blogging can be limited to only the people who
are familiar with the technology and have access to computers. I dont think it would be
a big problem as was mentioned in article 3, because the younger generation has grown
up with high technology in their homes.
In articles 6 and 8, communication improvement, even in a second language, was
found. Through making video clips or writing their reflections, they learned to
communicate better with others. We now know the power of blogs in a course as well
as in the general public. We as students, could work on our skills on designing a good
blog for communicating with our future students and their parents, as shown in article 4.
Also, if we like to present our papers in public, we should own a personal blog to post
our findings, to cite others work to increase our publicity, as well as try to get the
attention of some famous bloggers in order to get attention, like in article 10.
Presently, I am not a teacher, nor a researcher eager to be known, but I use
blogs to gain some information on different topics, such as cooking and child raising.
However, it is good to know what we can do with blogs and I might need it one day for
different reasons.
REFERENCES
Bouldin, A. S., Holmes, E. R., & Fortenberry, M. L., 2006. "Blogging" about Course
Concepts: Using Technology for Reflective Journaling in a Communications Class.
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 70(4), 1-8.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1636988/
Cameron, M. P., 2012. 'Economics with Training Wheels': Using Blogs in Teaching and
Assessing Introductory Economics. The Journal of Economic Education, 43(4),
397-407.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220485.2012.714316#.VIXv4G
d0xjo
Churchill, D., 2009. Educational Applications of Web 2.0: Using Blogs To Support
Teaching and Learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol 40, 179183. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00865.x/abstract
Kerawalla, L., Minocha, S., Kirkup, G., & Conole, G., 2009. An Empirically Grounded
Framework to Guide Blogging in Higher Education. Journal of Computer Assisted
Learning, 25(1), 31-42. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.13652729.2008.00286.x/abstract;jsessionid=9083202F0AA10F273136085DD4CDB21F
.f04t02?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
Kurt, A. A., Izmirli, S., & Sahin-Izmirli, O., 2011. Student Experience in Blog Use for
Supplementary Purposes in Courses. Turkish Online Journal of Distance
Education, 12(3), 78-96.
http://files.eric.ed.gov.proxy2.library.mcgill.ca/fulltext/EJ965059.pdf
Leslie, P., 2008. Post Secondary Students Purposes for Blogging. IRRODL (The
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning) Vol 9, No 3,
2008. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/560/1099
Lujn-Mora, S & Juana-Espinosa, S., 2007. The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education:
Benefits and Barriers. Proceedings of the International Technology, Education
and Development Conference (INTED 2007), p. 1-7.
http://desarrolloweb.dlsi.ua.es/blogs/use-of-weblogs-in-higher-educationbenefits-and-barriers
McKenzie, D. & zler B., 2011. The Impact of Economics BlogsPart I: Dissemination
Effect. Policy Research Working Paper 5783.

http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/pdf/10.1596/1813-9450-5783
Ozcinar, Z., & Ekizoglu, N., 2013. Evaluation of a Blog Based Parent Involvement
Approach by Parents. Computers & Education, 66, 1-10.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.01.012
Shih, R.C., 2010. Blended Learning Using Video-Based blogs: Public Speaking for English
as a Second Language Students. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology,
2010, 26(6), pp 883-897. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/shih.html
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THE POPULARITY AND UTILITY OF USING BLOGS IN HIGHER EDUCATIONA LITERATURE REVIEW

Eva Yu-Ti Huang #260574607

The Popularity and Utility of Using Blogs in Higher Education

Word Count: 631

(SDT) (p157) should be applied to promote students motivation on learning through

Word Count: 2034

Turkey in 2008-2009. These participants needed to use a course blog as well as a

Word Count: 574

Effect. Policy Research Working Paper 5783.

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