Blogs: Supporting Staff Development (Presentation)

This poster aims to describe the uses of blogs from a staff development perspective and also to demonstrate how students can use blogs to fulfil learning outcomes. A blog (or web log) is a website that contains dated entries (or posts) in reverse chronological order. Sandars (2006) summarised the three main uses of blogs in education as ‘Read, Write and Interact’. A variety of educational blogging activities that can be undertaken by staff and students are described in terms of these three main uses of blogs. In terms of the Bologna process, blogs can be useful in allowing students to demonstrate that they have met learning outcomes. The benefit of using a blog to demonstrate fulfillment of learning outcomes, rather than ‘offline’ forms of writing, is that blogs allow for regular, formative feedback from lecturers and/or peer assessors (Wagner, 2003). In addition to being used by students as a learning tool, blogs are frequently used by staff for personal and professional development. In the field of education teachers or lecturers often use blogs to reflect on their teaching practice (West, Wright & Graham, 2005). In addition, blogs can afford staff the opportunity to interact with a wider research community. A number of staff development workshops on the educational uses of blogs have been conducted at WIT. These workshops have encouraged staff to use blogs for their own personal and professional development and many staff have, in turn, encouraged students to use blogs as part of their coursework. Blogs can promote a culture of reflective teaching and learning throughout an institution and also encourage more frequent interaction between students, staff and a wider research community.