Towards a framework for educational affordances of blogs

Liping Deng*, Allan H.K. Yuen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

169 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Accompanying the emergence of blog technology as a dominant online publishing paradigm is a growing interest in its educational benefits and applications. This study sets out to develop an empirically grounded framework for educational blogging in the context of teacher education. A working framework was first proposed that highlights four areas: self-expression, self-reflection, social interaction, and reflective dialogue. An exploratory study was then conducted to examine the framework by involving two groups of student teachers during their teaching practice. This study revealed that the salient values of blogs centered on emotionally charged and social-oriented individual expressions as well as self-reflection. The interactive functionality of blogs was used mostly for exchanging social support rather than reflective dialogue. A new dimension - blog-reading - has emerged through the investigation and been added to the original framework. The findings can contribute to a better understanding of the educational values of blogs and their meaningful applications as educational media.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)441-451
Number of pages11
JournalComputers and Education
Volume56
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2011
Externally publishedYes

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Computer Science(all)
  • Education

User-Defined Keywords

  • Authoring tools and methods
  • Blog
  • Learning communities
  • Pedagogical issues

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