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INITIAL EXPERIMENT IN USING BLOG AS A LEARNING-AID

Authors:

Abstract

This paper is to report an initial study on the students' satisfaction in using blog (weblog) system as a learning-aid. For the purpose of this study, the authors had prepared a blog for the subject of Web Programming. This blog is a place where the lecturer posts the syllabus, lecture notes, presentations slides, lab manual, assignments, discussions, code samples and also announcements. The students are required to visit the blog to download the notes and to participate in the discussions. This study is to investigate the students' experience of using blog as a learning tool. It is a quantitative survey to find out whether the students having a good or bad experience in using the blog. The authors also would like to know the students' experience in using the blog; flexibility, content presentation or arrangement, communication, experience through blog, update medium, navigation and overall experience.
International Conference on Educational Research and Practice (ICERP) 2009, pp. 27-34, 10-11 June 2009,
Putrajaya.
INITIAL EXPERIMENT IN USING BLOG AS A LEARNING-AID
Khirulnizam Abd Rahman
Faculty of Information Science &
Technology
Kolej Universiti Islam Antarabangsa
Selangor, Bandar Seri Putra
43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
khirulnizam@gmail.com
Syahrul Nizam Junaini
Faculty of Computer Science &
Information Technology
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak,
Malaysia
syahruln@fit.unimas.my
Abstract
This paper is to report an initial study on the students’ satisfaction in using blog (weblog)
system as a learning-aid. For the purpose of this study, the authors had prepared a blog
for the subject of Web Programming. This blog is a place where the lecturer posts the
syllabus, lecture notes, presentations slides, lab manual, assignments, discussions, code
samples and also announcements. The students are required to visit the blog to download
the notes and to participate in the discussions. This study is to investigate the students’
experience of using blog as a learning tool. It is a quantitative survey to find out whether
the students having a good or bad experience in using the blog. The authors also would
like to know the students’ experience in using the blog; flexibility, content presentation or
arrangement, communication, experience through blog, update medium, navigation and
overall experience.
Keywords: blogging for education, blog.
1. Introduction
Blog is one of the Web 2.0 applications to disseminate information in the Internet. It is
actually small-scale website, usually composed of some brief and frequently-updated
postings in reverse chronological order (Ma & Wang, 2008). Blog is very popular
because it is normally free and has the ability to gather feedback. Now everybody can
have their own blog, like we have our e-mail. Thanks to the free services from
blogger.com, wordpress.com, live.msn.com, 360.yahoo.com and a lot of other blog
providers in the internet.
Blog is no longer a personal belonging where you write your own journal (diary), and
read only by the writer. The fact that blog is a medium of knowledge sharing (Chuang &
Shen, 2008) and is no longer a private belongings has become inevitable. It even becomes
a news portal (Schroeder, 2005) where the information is provided by the net citizen. Due
to the easiness of using the blog, people can do almost anything; even the lecturers can
share their learning materials to the students and to the masses.
2. Blogging for Education
International Conference on Educational Research and Practice (ICERP) 2009, pp. 27-34, 10-11 June 2009,
Putrajaya.
In the education activities, blogs are used to disseminate notes, a medium of
communication where announcement and discussion between teacher and students take
place (Demirel et al, 2008). There are ample of free blog providers to choose, even a
special blog provider tailored for education blogging called Edublog (http://edublog.org).
Special awards are also given out the best educational blogs (http://edublogawards.com/)
in different categories.
One of the educational bloggers directories is International Edubloggers Directory, which
has 686 members from all over the world, and variety of fields. It can be found at
http://edubloggerdir.blogspot.com.
Blog is used as a teaching resource, disseminating specialist information, and a place
where information interchanged (Gomes, 2007). It can also be the teachers’/lecturers’
digital portfolio, which is important for carrier growth (Wang, Ma, 2008).
3. How it is done.
We decided to use free blog hosting and tools, free file hosting, free image hosting and
free chat box. Why, because we do not want to think about acquiring grants, or pays the
hosting services. However we do choose reliable solutions. The blogging tools and
hosting are provided by blogger.com, which is one of the Google’s companies. Image
hosting is provided by picassa.com, also a Google’s company. The file hosting is
provided by the skydrive.live.com, a Microsoft’s brain child, which provided humongous
26 gigabytes of free online storage. The article editor is also provided freely by
Microsoft; named as Windows Live Writer.
3.1 The Blogging System
The authors chose the blogger.com as the hosting provider for the blog. One of the
reasons we chose blogger.com is the fact the system and the hosting provider is Google
Inc, which is accompany well known for high quality services. We found out that
blogger.com provides much more reliable and faster access compared to the nearest
competitor. We have tested the Wordpress (also a blog hosting provider) to host the blog.
However it did not impress us in term of the access speed. This finding is only applicable
during the earlier time when we were surveying for the best free blog provider.
Blogger.com provides the blog hosting, and the administration tools. The blog
administrators can post entry, change the blog’s layout, template, and moderate
comments, add widgets, and so on. The reader could add comment (as feedback).
Depending on the setting, the administrators can allow anyone to post comment or only
selected few.
3.2 Article Editor
Windows Live Writer is provided freely by Microsoft (http://
windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com). It’s actually an article editing software that’s
available offline, and capable of storing our blog posting in the local storage. It is a very
useful tool for blog devotee to edit an article, and posting it without using the online
International Conference on Educational Research and Practice (ICERP) 2009, pp. 27-34, 10-11 June 2009,
Putrajaya.
editor provided by blogger.com. Compared to the editor provided online this offline
editor is much more user-friendly and easier to use.
It’s a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor, and has a lot of plug-ins to help
you do a specific task. For example, the Source Code formatter helps us produce
programming code that has several different color based on the code syntax category.
This kind of tool helps us a lot in presenting programming codes in such a way that the
user will find it more interesting, rather than a single-colored text. Such plug-in brings a
great convenience for us since the nature of our blog is programming. The default editor
does not provide this tool.
3.3 File Hosting
All the notes, presentation slides, lab manuals, assignments, past-year exam samples,
students’ assignments and projects, development tools and compilation of source codes
need a place to be available online. Thanks to Skydrive (skydrive.live.com) that
generously gives the user 25 gigabytes of free storage. We put all these materials in
Skdrive, and provide the download links from the blog.
4. The Experiment
The main author created the blog (kerul.blogspot.com) long before the class started. The
blog discussion theme is web technology and web application development. At the
beginning it was intended to publish tips and tricks acquired from the author’s experience
related to the discussion theme. On August 2008, the author decided to make the blog as
the main web resource for his favorite subject, the Web Programming.
The Web Programming course is basically separated into two different courses; Web
Programming 1 and Web Programming 2. Web Programming 1 covers HTML and the
basic parts of server-side programming lessons. While Web Programming 2 covers
advanced topics on server-side programming and web-based database application
development. The students are from Diploma of E-Commerce and Bachelor of Business
Administration and E-Commerce. They must pass Web Programming 1 before they can
sit for Web Programming 2. All of them, totaling 75 students, are involved in this
experiment. 50 of them are students of Web Programming 1 and the rest are Web
Programming 2.
On the beginning of the class (September 2008), the blog is announced to the students of
Web Programming as the main resource page for the whole semester. They are told to
visit the blog as frequently as possible because the blog will hold announcements, links to
the development tools, discussion, notes, lecture slides, students’ presentations,
assignments and everything regarding the course.
The main page contains the hyperlinks to the files on the program syllabus, notes,
manual, software download, exercises and final exam samples, refer Appendix 1. The
lecturer posted at least one article per week. The articles are related to web programming;
be it latest web technology, code samples, recent events or seminars, forums, web tools,
International Conference on Educational Research and Practice (ICERP) 2009, pp. 27-34, 10-11 June 2009,
Putrajaya.
interesting websites and etc. Most of the articles are out of the syllabus, purposely for
their additional knowledge.
There are few articles they must post a comment. Any voluntary comment is encouraged.
The compulsory comments got very responsive feedback. However the voluntary
comment is very few. We can conclude that the students are not interested in posting
comments, unless it is compulsory.
5. The Survey, Result
The authors distribute an online survey, and there are only 30 respondents (population is
75). The authors decided to publish the result although the response is not sufficient
(Krejcie & Morgan, 1970). We are providing the initial findings, but we do not want to
elaborate much. This experiment will be repeated during the other semester (which is
during May 2009 until August 2009). The questionnaire will be refined and a new survey
will be conducted. The discussion of the findings will be published later (after August
2009).
The research is to find out the students’ experience in using the blog. Is the blog useful to
the learning process, user friendly enough, and improving their learning experience?
5.1 Demography.
57% of the respondents access the Internet everyday with 97% of them accessing it more
than 2 hours per session. Most of the students access the blog more than 3-4 times a week
(77%), which means they access the blog quite often.
Table 1: Number of Internet access per week.
Item %
Everyday 57
3-4 times 33
1 time 10
Table 2: Duration of accessing Internet per session.
Item %
1 hour 3
2 hours 20
3 hours 33
4 hours 13
5 hours or more 30
Table 3: Number of blog access per week.
Item %
Everyday 20
3-4 times 57
International Conference on Educational Research and Practice (ICERP) 2009, pp. 27-34, 10-11 June 2009,
Putrajaya.
1 time 23
5.2 Purposes of accessing the blog.
From the total students who access the blog, 27 chose that the main purpose is to
download the learning materials, 16 to get the latest announcements, 15 to answer the
assignments given, and not many who really want or involve in the discussion.
Table 4: Purposes to access the blog.
Item %
To download learning materials. 27
To get the latest announcement. 16
To answer assignments. 15
To participate in the discussion. 5
5.3 Questions on the blog’s features and criteria.
Table 5 is the summary of all the questions on the blog’s criteria. The categories are the
element of flexibility in blog, the content, blog as communication tool in teaching and
learning, the proper way to inform the students about the blog update, navigation and
overall perspective on the blog.
Table 5: Questions on the blog criteria and features.
Question Disagree
%
Neutral
%
Agree
%
Flexibility
1 Time flexibility to download learning
materials.
0 23 77
2 Personalized learning support. 0 17 83
Content
3 The blog content is useful. 0 10 90
4 Sufficient learning materials. 0 10 90
5 Communication
6 Personally communicate with lecturer and
friends.
13 33 53
7 Easy to discuss questions/problems with
other students.
6 63 30
Medium to update
8 Update new content or announcements
through email.
7 40 54
9 Update new content or announcements
through SMS (to mobile device).
7 50 43
International Conference on Educational Research and Practice (ICERP) 2009, pp. 27-34, 10-11 June 2009,
Putrajaya.
Navigation / Content Arrangement
10 Easy to search a specific article. 20 33 47
11 Easy to answer assignments posted in
blog.
13 33 53
12 Easy to use. 0 17 83
13 Code samples are easy to locate. 3 20 77
14 Do you prefer a forum-style discussion? 3 43 53
Overall
15 This blog is successful. 0 10 90
16 Enhanced education experience. 0 13 87
17 Suggest each lecturer to have own blog. 3 7 90
6. Conclusion
Although this is just a preliminary study, we hope the info that we share can be used for
further study. We failed to gather sufficient samples, but this study will be enhanced and
repeated in the near future.
7. Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Blogger (http://blogger.com), Skydrive
(http://skydrive.live.com), Live Writer (http://writer.live.com) and Google Docs
(http://docs.google.com), Picasa Web (http://picasaweb.google.com) for providing the
free tools to make this research possible.
8. References
Chuang H. M., Shen C. C., (2008). A Study on the Applications of Knowledge-sharing
Blog Concepts to the Teaching in Elementary School. International Conference on
Cyberworlds 2008. http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/. Accessed on April
05, 2009.
Demirel T., Duman D., İncesu S., Göktaş Y. (2008) . Using Blogs (Web Logs) In
Higher Education: Toys or Tools. Proceedings of 8th International Educational
Technology Conference, http://ietc2008.home.anadolu.edu.tr/ietc2008/219.doc.
Accessed on April 05, 2009.
Du H. S., Wagner C. . (2005). Learning with Weblogs: An Empirical Investigation.
Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
Gomes, M.J. (2007) . Blogs: A Teaching Resource and a Pedagogical Strategy.
Computers and Education: Towards Educational Change and Innovation.
International Conference on Educational Research and Practice (ICERP) 2009, pp. 27-34, 10-11 June 2009,
Putrajaya.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k4806u135n23j172/fulltext.pdf. Accessed on
April 05, 2009.
Krejcie, R. V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research
activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 30, 607-610.
Schroeder, R. (2005). Blogging to Disseminate Best Online Learning Practices and
Technology News, The Annual Conferences on Distance Teaching and Learning.
www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/03_75.pdf .
Accessed on September 23, 2008.
Wang S. H., Ma L. H. . (2008). The Application of Blog in Modern Education.
Proceedings of International Conference on Computer Science and Software
Engineering, Volume 4, Issue , 12-14 Dec. 2008 Page(s):1083 – 1085.
Khirulnizam Abd Rahman is a Lecturer in Selangor International Islamic University
College (KUIS), specializing in web programming and e-commerce. His research
interests are information retrieval, e-commerce and educational technology. His main
blog is kerul.blogspot.com, where he post a lot of articles related his favorite subject; the
web programming.
Syahrul Nizam Junaini is a Senior Lecturer in Malaysian University of Sarawak. His
main blog is in syahrulnizam.com. His research interests are in user interface,
information retrieval and e-commerce.
International Conference on Educational Research and Practice (ICERP) 2009, pp. 27-34, 10-11 June 2009,
Putrajaya.
Appendix 1: Screenshots of the blog (kerul.blogspot.com)
The main resource page. The search facility is on the left.
The menu for the samples code and the place to enter general comments.
Search facility
Menu for the program
samples
Place to enter comment
International Conference on Educational Research and Practice (ICERP) 2009, pp. 27-34, 10-11 June 2009,
Putrajaya.
The place where general comments are displayed.
Article comments or feedbacks are shown at the end of the article.
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Blogs: A Teaching Resource and a Pedagogical Strategy. Computers and Education: Towards Educational Change and Innovation
  • M J Gomes
Gomes, M.J. (2007). Blogs: A Teaching Resource and a Pedagogical Strategy. Computers and Education: Towards Educational Change and Innovation.