Week 1: So What is a Blog?

Weekly blog topic: What is a blog, its usefulness in education and what is a concept map?
Establishing my blog was easy though I am having trouble formatting and editing it. The Blog as I see it is a place halfway between a wiki and a web page. Blogs allow the author to have control over its functionality and content while allowing other people to leave their thoughts and ideas. Given the nature of the middlephase learner I think that blogs are a brilliant tool for teaching and learning. Blogs allow freedom of expression while also giving the teacher the ability to drive and manage the topic contents. This week is my first experience with blogs and I can definitely see the benefits of their usage. One must be ever mindful to the fact that many students are either not as digitally literate as we assume them to be and that many “at risk” students do not have access to computers or simply do not care about computers. This places them at risk before the learning has even started and will divide a class into those who move forward with access to computers and those that fail and lack access to computers. The trick is to make the blog accessible, highly usable and fun. Providing alternate platforms for learning and assessment is critical as part of good inclusionary procedure.
A concept map is a schematic of one’s ideas, particularly how these ideas relate to each other. The concept map has an application in helping students link new and old ideas and also attach meaning to these ideas. For me personally concept maps are not my preferred method of understanding. I find that simply adding meaning to terms is enough for me to create links. I say this to highlight the fact that different people will have different methods of forming links to gain understanding and insight. The concept map is a simplification of often complex interconnected ideas that are cognitivistic and constructivistic in nature. People firstly gain an understanding of concepts through high level cognitive functions and then construct their reality of the concepts and their inter-relativity through constructivist mechanisms. Finally one cannot understate the variability and complexity of the individuals mind and its understandings and interpretations of the real world.

References:

Ashman, A., & Elkins, J. (2009). Education for inclusion and diversity (3rd ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education Australia.

Baron, R. A. (1998). Psychology (4th ed.). Needham Heights, MA, USA: Allyn & Bacon.

CQUniversity. (2010). Fahe11001_2102: practical activity: week 1 - blogs and concept maps. Retrieved July 14, 2010, from the CQUniversity Moodle web site: http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=99043

Snowman, J., Dobozy, E., Scevak, J., Bryer, F., Bartlett, B., & Biehler. (2009). Psychology: applied to teaching (1st ed.). Milton, Queensland, Australia: John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd.