Is blogging the same as discussion board activity?

Yes, in the context of this course, it is exactly the same as the weekly discussion board activity.  The class is broken up into a few small groups, given a discussion prompt based on the assigned reading, instructed to make an initial post and comment on other posts before the end of the week.  The only difference between the discussion board and the blog (in this instance) is the location that the conversation occurs.  Blogs offer the opportunity to customize the background upon which the material is presented but the discussion board has the same capabilities to link, insert or copy material from elsewhere.  Within seventeen years of Oravec (2002) publishing her article expounding the virtues of blogging, the benefits are mostly benign as comparable technology has caught up to or surpassed this decades old invention.  I have highlighted the key components of her article with a quick explanation of how, I believe, they are outdated below.

In the absence of a well-developed discussion board, blogging can be a very useful tool for encouraging participation across a wide swath or education.  For formal learning institutions without a well-developed discussion board, blogging offers the benefits of allowing students to find their own voice as well as critically assess online material (Oravec, 2002).  Using blogging in a non-formal education setting, such as workplace training, can be even more beneficial because it is rarely used in these environments. 

Levin and Arafeh’s (2002, as cited by King and Cox, 2011, pg. 95) “digital divide” was interesting because as new technology appears faster and faster, blogging is quickly becoming an obsolete technology.  Training, or re-training, people to use a blog takes precious time and resources away from learning (unless it is a course learning objective/outcome).   Social media today takes many tenants of blogging and makes them easily accessible to the masses.  Facebook, for example, offers all the benefits of a blog along with the option of who gets to see the post through the use of privacy options.  Facebook provides free advertising for your post (through the use of its Newsfeed) and ensures people you know will see what you had to say.  The problem is, Facebook is already becoming an “old technology”.  New (primarily younger) users are flocking to new forms of social media (and blogging) such as Snapchat and Instagram.  The “blog” posts may be shorter and less academic but are being used at a far higher frequency.  The revolving door of social media platforms proves difficult to educators because as one form technology is implemented it already starts to become obsolete.  I think blogging is a good step in the right direction for many forms of education.  I am sure when projectors were first introduced there were plenty of teachers who said that blackboards were far superior.  Taking any step to introduce technology into the classroom is better than no step at all.

Oravec’s (2002) implementation of weblogs in education:

1. Weblog in the classroom – All of the benefits of a blog are currently contained in Canvas’ discussion board
2. Developing student voices – Can be done as effectively on a discussion board
3. Preventing information overload – Google (and related search engines) have improved significantly since 2002. This isn’t the same time frame as conducting a search on Web Crawler using dial up internet.  There is exponentially more information on the internet today than in 2002 but it is categorized far better today. When is the last time you’ve had to go past the first page in your search results?
4. Influence on Journalism – Blogs have significantly changed journalism.  Online articles mirror early blog posts (making them obsolete) and print versions of journalism are going under. These articles mirror a blog post but are still under an umbrella of reputable journalism which is especially important in today’s news climate.  News blogs, unaffiliated with a reputable news source, have been relegated to the realm of radicals, read with extreme caution.
5. Making sense of internet resources – Google (and related search engines) has an entire team of analytical scientists ensuring the best and most updated results appear with each search.  This team will undoubtedly produce better and more up to date results than a single blogger for most general searches.

Resources:

King, K. P., & Cox, T. D. (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. [Kindle PC Version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Oravec, J.A. (2002). Bookmarking the world: Weblog applications in education. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(7), 616-621.