Providing learners with choices whether to post just to oneself, one’s instructor, to a small group of colleagues, or to the public, is crucial for encouragin learners to draw on intrinsic motivators. Learners new to blogging require a safe writing space, a sanctuary, to begin one’s moodlings, and then progress deliberately through an ever-widening sphere … [Read more…]
I started this course with a tentative mission statement, outlining my purposes for maintaining an edublog. Over the semester, I worked on drafting ideas that reflected my way-making (surfing explorations) and explored the use of discussion memes. A major task that contributed to my successful use of the blog involved exploring a lot of external … [Read more…]
I am building a theoretical framework which includes using edublogs for transformative learning, and I am especially interested in the issues conccerning the process of facilitating learners through thresholds, or liminal spaces, in which most learners experience transformative change. Current literature describing case studies on blogging emphasizes the need for public blogs, groupwork, and interaction; … [Read more…]
Private Edublogs offer a safe space for learners to cultivate personal voice and bolster self-confidence. Learners who prefer a private space to a more public one are typically more self-critical, apprehensive of peer feedback, and view self-disclosure to others too painful. “Incubator” Within such a protected learning space, often within a walled garden of a … [Read more…]
Quote from Barry Wellman, from Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism: This is a time for individuals and their networks, and not for groups. The proliferation of computer-supported social networks fosters changes in “network capital”: how people contact, interact, and obtain resources from each other. The broadly-embracing collectivity, nurturing and controlling, has become a fragmented, … [Read more…]