Using Blogs to Traverse Physical and Virtual Spaces

Introduction

A recent trend in Australian higher education has been the creation of physical learning spaces that are claimed to be flexible, engaging and efficient, and which will attract students and teachers to them. Concurrently personal and social technologies are prominent within society and it is inevitable that these physical spaces will incorporate these social collaboration technologies based on assumptions of improving the learning experience for students.

It can be argued that these environments are not being designed with the view of supporting students in the variety of learning environments in which they find themselves from day to day (Wilson et al, 2007; Attwell, 2007; Mazzoni & Gafurri, 2009). For some students, the learning space will be these physical spaces provided by, and at, the University campus. For others, the physical spaces will be of their own choosing—the lounge room, the train, the tea-room, the café, the office or the playground. For many it will be a combination of spaces and learning strategies, and the supportive technologies provided will need to traverse these spaces.

The consistent element in the traversing of spaces is the student. In order to negotiate the challenges inherent in this variety of learning spaces, both the educator and the student will benefit from a shared space which transverses the physical and virtual and is arguably most easily facilitated in the virtual space.

The virtual learning space is today commonly conceptualised by reference to Web 2.0, so named as it is said to represent the second generation of web software. Web 2.0 refers to social software such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, Real Simple Syndication (RSS), social bookmarking (e.g. Delicious.com), and media sharing software (e.g. Flickr). In the educational context McLoughlin and Lee (2007) suggest that the essence of Web 2.0 is “about linking minds, communities and ideas, while promoting personalisation, collaboration and creativity leading to joint knowledge creation” (p. 668). Mazzoni and Gafurri (2009) suggest that Web 2.0 technologies are less restricted by and to formal learning than were the Web 1.0 technologies. It is generally accepted that Web 2.0 technologies provide enhanced opportunities for online collaboration, peer assessment, individual and group reflection, and development of e-portfolios (for examples see Table 1).