What Types Of Research Can Blogs, Wikis, And Online Sources Be Used For?

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Wikis and Blogs in E-Learning Context

Teodora Bakardjieva and Boyka Gradinarova

Varna Free University, Technical University of Varna

Bulgaria

1. Introduction

Much has been written about the effect that web technologies are having on commerce,

media, and business in general. But outside of the 'edublogosphere', there's been little

coverage of the impact it is having on educ ation. Teachers are starting to explore the

potential of blogs, media-sharing services and other social software - which, although not

designed specifically for e-learning, can be used to empower students and create exciting

new learning opportunities.

In the present chapter characteristics of some sample Web 2.0 tools for PKM (Personal

Knowledge management) are discussed. Educational uses of wikis and blogs are outlined.

Blogs and wikis represent new repositories of information and knowledge for personal and

institutional purposes. System architecture of semantic blogging framework is shown.

Challenges and future perspectives of Web 2.0 in e-learning are presented.

Social software driven approach represents a shift towards a new open and knowledge-pull

model for learning. The platform, developed and prototypical in use at Varna Free

University, is based on concepts like social tagging and networking and therefore offers its

users a new perspective of Web 2.0 driven learning.

Open source Learning Management Systems (LMS) have an advantage in universities and

developers can build and integrate easily open source web 2.0 tools into the LMS.

This chapter suggests that Web 2.0 tools provide an opportunity for new developments of

the e-learning concept and discusses these new approaches developed with the objective of

operationalising this social perspective in the context of managing personal knowledge. At

the centre of this approach are the challenges of personalization and collaboration. Rather

than integrating different tools into a centralized system, the idea is to provide the learner

with tools and hand over control to him/her to select and use the tools the way the learner

deems fit. Chatti et al. (2006) discuss the potential use of social software in learning

environments. Open blogs and cloud platforms such as Facebook have great educational

potential (Meyer, 2010). Setting up an e-learning system is very easy now. Almost anyone

can now establish an online learning community using open source learning tools that

comprise Web 2.0 features. That's why it is now possible for any organization to afford

personalized online courses with a learning management system having advanced features

to support mutual communication and collaboration. Production and delivery of e-learning

programs is far easier with the arrival of Web 2.0. Discussion forums, wikis, blogs and

podcasts are just a beginning in the field of online learning.

E-learning has evolved through a series of overlapping stages. Stage 1 consisted of

communication and course management tools, from web page to, course management

Methodologies, Tools and New Developments for E-Learning

4

systems, PowerPoint, email, bulletin boards, and chat rooms. Web 1.0 definitely improved

the learning experience. It facilitated student-faculty and student-to-student

communication. It gave students access to a broad range of databases and research

resources. It made it much easier for students to conduct searches. It broadened the range of

resources we brought into our classes, including audio and visual resources. And it allowed

us to reinforce student learning by presenting material visually. But too often, Web 1.0

involved an impoverished definition of interactivity.

E-learning's second stage emphasizes active learning, collaboration, and enhanced

interaction. Wikis, blogs, mashups, podcasts, tags, and social networking are the buzz

words. These technological innovations offer opportunities to students to engage in inquiry

and to share resources and create collaborative projects.

2. Web 2.0 in e-learning

Web 2.0 is a term which is hard to define because of the amorphousness of the concept. Web

2.0 (O'Reilly, 2005) or the Social Web has introduced new concepts and tools that are able to

operationalise a more social-centric vision. Online social networking systems, such as

LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook, allow people to manage their interaction with others on a

massive scale. Blogs, microblogs (e.g. Twitter) and instant messaging tools (e.g. Skype) have

provided communication tools to interact more effectively with others in opened communities.

Wikis and social bookmarking aimed at directly supporting PKM and fostering collective

intelligence. This trend has appeared so relevant and so promising that many specialists

consider this approach to be the future of knowledge management, hoping that these tools will

contribute to realizing the challenge of managing knowledge (Kakizawa, 2007; McAfee, 2006;

Shimazu and Koike, 2007). This perspective raises a number of questions related to the

application of a vision that was born from the need to incorporate more of the social

dimension (Nabeth et al., 2002; Thomas et al., 2001) and to better fit the individual needs of

knowledge workers (Razmerita, 2005). PKM on Web 2.0 is achieved by a set of tools that allow

people to create, codify, organize and share knowledge, but also to socialize, extend personal

networks, collaborate on organizing knowledge and create new knowledge.

After O'Reilly, Paul McFedries (2006) presents a tentative definition according to which web

2.0 is "a second phase of the evolution of the World Wide Web in which developers create

Web sites that act like desktop programs and encourage collaboration and communication

between users". McFedries identifies the main characteristics of the Web 2.0 "movement",

highlighting the social perspective of relation, collaboration and user-participated

architecture:

- content is user-created and maintained (peer production, user-content ecosystem);

- user-created and maintained content require radical trust;

- application usability allows rich user experience;

- combining data from different sources leads to creation of new services (mashup);

- services get better as the number of users increases in architecture of participation.

In the last few years, there has been an increasing focus on social software applications and

services as a result of the rapid development of Web 2.0 concepts. Nowadays, the web is a

platform, in which content is created and shared facilitating social connection and

information interchange. Social software technologies include wikis, blogs, podcasts, RSS

and social tagging. Web 2.0 tools are designed for ease of use and rapidity of deployment,

making possible powerful information sharing (Boulos et al., 2006). Web 2.0 is informed by

Wikis and Blogs in E-Learning Context 5

a "constructivist" understanding of learning in which students devise their own conceptual

models for understanding.

Collaboration is the best feature of Web 2.0 that can help e-learning. It was not technically

difficult to introduce a collaborative tool on top of a learning system accessible over web.

However, fostering collaboration among a group of users is a challenge and Web 2.0 makes

it very easy. Using Web 2.0 tools, people do not only passively consume information; rather,

they are active contributors, even customizing tools and technology for their use. Web 2.0

facilitates social networking and collaboration and therefore is also referred to as the Social

Web. The underlying principle of the Social Web is to make use of the "wisdom of the

crowd" and "user generated content". The wisdom of the crowd is a term coined by

Surowiecki (2005) who argues that large groups of people are smarter than an elite few. No

matter how intelligent they are, large groups of people are better at solving problems,

fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions and even predicting the future. In this highly

interconnected, dynamic world, new ways of cultivating and exploiting knowledge sharing

with customers, suppliers and partners are forcing companies to expand their knowledge

management concepts and agendas (Mentzas et al., 2007). There is also the second phase of

knowledge management where companies try to exploit a much richer form of knowledge

assets, including blogs, wikis and social networks, focusing on the social, collaborative

dimension of Web 2.0.

In Table 1 characteristics of some sample web 2.0 tools are highlighted.

Web Application Description Characteristics

Social

networking,

online social

networks

Category of Internet applications to help

connect friends, business partners, or other

individuals together using a variety of tools.

Architecture of

Participation

Social network

Search engines

Social network search engines are a class of

search engines that use social networks to

organize, prioritize, or filter search results

Architecture of

Participation

Blogs A weblog, (or blog), is a website where

entries are made displayed in chronological

order. They often provide commentary or

news on a particular subject, typically

combining text, images, and links to other

blogs, web pages, and other media related to

the specific topic.

User-created and

maintained content

Blog guides Specialized search engines for searching blog

and news Contents

Architecture of

Participation

Social tagging,

(folksonomy)

Ad hoc classification scheme (tags) that web

users invent as they surf to categorize the

data they find online

Architecture of

participation, trust

Social

bookmarking

Saving and applying keywords to one's

personal collection of Web site bookmarks on

a site that enables other people to share those

bookmarks

Architecture of

participation, trust

Methodologies, Tools and New Developments for E-Learning

6

Web Application Description Characteristics

Web Syndication,

Web feed

management

Web syndication is a form of syndication in

which a section of a website is made available

for other sites to use through to making Web

feeds available from a site in order to provide

other people an updated list of content from it

(for example one's latest forum postings, etc.).

User created and

maintained content,

content aggregation

Tag clouds A list of tags user in the site with some kind

of visual indication of each tag's relative

popularity (ex. large font). Web sites that

implement tag clouds functions allow both

finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity..

Selecting a single tag within a tag cloud will

generally lead to a collection of items that are

associated with that tag

Architecture of

participation

Peer production

news

Websites combining social bookmarking,

blogging, and syndication with a form of non-

hierarchical, democratic editorial control.

News stories and websites are submitted by

users, and then promoted to the front page

through a user-based ranking system

User created and

maintained content,

trust

Wikis

Collaborative web sites that allows users to

add, edit and delete content

User created and

maintained content,

trust

Collaborative

real time editing

Simultaneous editing of a text or media file

by different participants on a network.

User created and

maintained content

Content

aggregation and

management,

mashup (web

application

hybrid)

A website or web application that combines

content from more than one source

User created and

maintained content,

trust,architecture of

participation

Table 1. Sample web 2.0 applications: description and "social networking" characteristics

(Pettenati & Ranieri, 2006).

The traditional approach to e-learning has been to employ the use of a Virtual Learning

Environment (VLE), software that is often cumbersome and expensive - and which tends to

be structured around courses, timetables, and testing. That is an approach that is too often

driven by the needs of the institution rather than the individual learner. In contrast, e-

learning 2.0 (as coined by Stephen Downes) takes a 'small pieces, loosely joined' approach

that combines the use of discrete but complementary tools and web services - such as blogs,

wikis, and other social software - to support the creation of ad-hoc learning communities.

The learning process is social, personal, dynamic and distributed in nature, a fundamental

shift is needed towards a more personalized, open and knowledge-pull model for learning,

as opposed to the centralized, static and knowledge-push models of traditional learning

Wikis and Blogs in E-Learning Context 7

solutions (Chatti et al., 2007). Web 2.0 leads to this new generation of technology enhanced

learning. The communication with the students can be realized through blogs and wikis and

the concept of tagging and folksonomies offers a great potential for learners to express their

own vocabulary (Vanderwal, 2005).

Web 2.0 supports knowledge networking and community building. For example, wikis

create an opportunity for collaborative content creation and social interaction. Further, these

tools do not require advanced technical skills to use their features, allowing users to focus

on the information exchange and collaborative tasks themselves without first mastering a

difficult technological environment (Kirkpatrick, 2006). Such "transparent technologies"

(Wheeler, Kelly, & Gale, 2005) allow the user to concentrate more on the task because they

can "see through" the technology with which they are interacting.

3. Web 2.0 tools for PKM

PKM tools can be classified into six categories:

1. Personalized WebPages that enhance organizing and presenting information and

sharing it with others. An example of a personalized webpage service is iGoogle,

MyYahoo, Live.Com, etc. These sites allow people to create personalized WebPages by

subscribing to specific content through RSS feeds and aggregating different types of

information (e.g. blogs, favorite websites, weather forecasts), widgets or applications

(e.g. calendars, dictionaries) in one place. This integration of different information

sources facilitates access to information and the possibility of creating knowledge.

2. Personalized search tools that provide for retrieving and sharing of information. Swicki

(http://www.eurekster.com) is a personalized search portal on topics of one's choice

powered by a community. A Swicki learns from the community's search behavior; thus,

it is easier to find something interesting.

3. Social bookmarking that provides a simple way for a community of people to share

bookmarks of internet resources. Heystaks (http://www.heystaks.com) is tool that

offers the collection, classification and sharing of web search results. Search results can

be added to one's own lists called stacks, but it is also possible to join existing lists and

benefit from others. Lists can be declared private or public, and can be shared with

colleagues and friends. Links can be evaluated to indicate their quality to others. Using

Heystaks, the management of bookmarks becomes a social activity.

4. Personalized live discussion forums that assist in analyzing, evaluating, presenting and

sharing information. With Tangler (http://www.tangler.com), it is possible to create a

live discussion forum and to share discussions with others.

5. Virtual worlds that encourage sharing of information. SecondLife

(http://www.secondlife.com) or Vastpark (http://www.vastpark.com) are 3D

platforms that allow users to create their own virtual world that they can own and

share with others. It can be used for 3D ga ming, building 3D presentations or creating

social networks in shared worlds where users communicate, cooperate, learn and

collaborate.

6. Blogs and wikis that support editing, presenting and organizing information or

knowledge by individuals or in collaboration with others. A special category of wikis is

personal wikis. They allow people to organize information on their desktop or mobile

computing device in a manner similar to normal wikis. They are installed as a

standalone version and can be seen as personal information managers. An example of a

Methodologies, Tools and New Developments for E-Learning

8

personal wiki is Pimki (http://pimki.rubyforge.org), which includes mind maps, search

functions or to-do lists. Pimki is a PIM (Personal Information Manager) loosely based

on Instiki's Wiki technology (http://instiki.org/show/HomePage).

4. Introduction to wikis

Wiki applications facilitate collaborative editing supported by revision mechanisms that

allow the monitoring of changes. Wiki technology can be used as a community platform but

also as a personal authoring environment. Wiki was developed in 1994 by Ward

Cunningham. Wiki comes from the Hawaiian word "wiki-wiki" meaning fast.

"WikiWikiWeb" was created in 1995 by Ward Cunningham as an online manual for

software programmers to share knowledge (Taylor, 2005). Jimmy Wales built on this idea

and created Wikipedia, and now everybody is familiar with Wikipedia, which is itself a

Wiki in the form of an online encyclopedia that can be edited by any user. Educators are

now experimenting with using Wikis in pedagogically sound ways. Each user has the ability

to modify any part of the Wiki space, analogous to a mini-website. Users create new nodes

in the hierarchy each time that they want to elaborate, change or add content. Using Wikis

can allow for a numerous opportunities for collaboration between students, but students do

not have to be in the same physical location to meet with each other. These kinds of

programs "allow for cooperation between the instructor and students or among students by

using different formats of social interaction" (Godwin-Jones, 2003).

Evaluating the quality of contributions in such collaborative authoring environments is a

challenging task (Korfiatis et al., 2006). However, based on the "wisdom of the crowd"

principle, one collects and aggregates enough data until there is a consistently reliable

answer. Oren et al. (2006) acknowledge that wikis are successful for information collection,

but point out that they do not fully satisfy the requirements of PKM. A semantic wiki allows

users to make formal descriptions of resources by annotating the pages that represent those

resources. Whereas a regular wiki enables users to describe resources in natural language, a

semantic wiki allows users to additionally describe resources in formal language. Semantic

wikis augment ordinary wikis by using the metadata annotations, and thus may offer better

information retrieval and knowledge reuse.

Wikis enable users to collaboratively create and edit web content directly, using a web

browser. In other words, a wiki is a collaborative web site whose content can be edited by

anyone visiting the site, allowing them to easily create and edit web pages (Chao, 2007).

Wikis can serve as a source of information and knowledge, as well as a tool for collaborative

authoring. Wikis allow visitors to engage in dialog and share information among

participants in group projects, or to engage in learning with each other by using wikis as a

collaborative environment in which to construct their knowledge (Boulos et al., 2006).

As defined in Leuf and Cunningham (2001), the proper term "Wiki" is used to refer to the

essential concept rather than to any particular implementation, the latter being called simply

a "wiki". From a technical standpoint, the Wiki concept rests on the World Wide Web, and

the underlying HTTP protocol defines how the client-server communications occur. At the

functional level, the essence of Wiki can be summarized as follows:

 a wiki invites any and all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki

site, using only a simple web browser without any additional add-ons;

 wiki encourages meaningful topic associations between pages by making the creation of

page links almost intuitively easy;

Wikis and Blogs in E-Learning Context 9

 rather than serving as a carefully crafted site for casual visitors, a wiki seeks to involve

the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes

the web site content;

 semantic wikis extend wikis with formal annotations describing the content and create

views;

 semantic wikis introduce background knowledge;

 semantic wikis for PKM – formal structure gives automated support and flexibility of

wiki gives people freedom.

4.1 Background

Wiki modifications are easy because the processes of reading and editing are both quite

simple. In essence, a wiki is a simplification of the process of creating HTML web pages.

Simply clicking an "edit this page" link allows instant revisions (Lamb, 2004). Wikis are

editable through a browser, and the editing interface is generally simple and easy to use.

Wikis provide a mechanism to record every change that occurs over time as a document is

revised. Each time a person makes changes to a wiki page, that revision of the content

becomes the current version, and an older version is stored. Versions of the document can

be compared side-by-side, and edits can be "rolled back" if necessary. This means that it is

possible to revert a page (if necessary) to any of its previous states.

Further, the administrator of the site has control over access, determining which portions

are user-editable. Some wikis restrict editing access, allowing only registered members to

edit page content, although anyone may view it. Others allow completely unrestricted

access, allowing anyone to both edit and view content (Olson, 2006).

Many wiki systems are adding functionalities such as web-based spreadsheets, calendars,

documents, photo galleries, private workspaces, hierarchical organization, WYSIWYG (what

you see is what you get) web editing, importing Word or Excel files, and even integration

with centralized content management systems (Lamb, 2004). WikiMatrix (2007) provides a

tool to compare the features of various popular wiki engines.

Educational benefits of wikis revolve around the fact that they offer an online space for easy

interaction and collaboration. Both teachers and students can easily create web pages using

wikis without prior knowledge or skill in web development or programming, eliminating

the extra time necessary to develop these skills. A wiki offers the ability to interact with

evolving text over time as well, allowing teachers and learners to see assignments as they

are drafted, rather than commenting only on the final draft. Considering the complications

of scheduling after-hours meetings for students, a wiki can also be extremely useful for

communication within groups. Further, as more organizations adopt wikis for internal and

external collaboration and information dissemination, interacting with them at the

educational level builds important work skills.

4.2 Observations and discussions

Varna Free University incorporated a wiki module in its e-Learning system (Fig 1), which

encouraged both tutors and students to harness their collective intelligence in order to

achieve their common educational goals and the exploration of new and effective uses of the

Wiki tool is also presented.

Moodle has the most transparent and easiest navigation especially for a generation of students

well trained in text editing in programs such as Microsoft Word (Fig. 2, Fig.3, Fig.4, Fig.5).

Methodologies, Tools and New Developments for E-Learning

10

Fig. 1. VFU E-learning System.

Fig. 2. Wiki HTML Editor.

Fig. 3. Wiki in Moodle

Wikis and Blogs in E-Learning Context 11

Fig. 4. Adding images to a wiki in Moodle.

Fig. 5. Moodle Wiki Editing.

Wikis find application in the educational process and in the university management system

as well. Placement centers use wiki pages to store and organize content for job postings and

career development. Wikis act as a sounding board so that students can voice opinions

about university policies.

The free-form, collaborative nature of wikis makes them easy to apply in creative ways. Any

sort of group process can be facilitated using a wiki. Creating a wiki for group lecture notes

after a lecture gives students a chance to combine their notes. Those that missed information

get it from their peers. The group decides what information is critical and gives it proper

emphasis. Group lecture notes are done.

The most straightforward use of a wiki is as a tool for group collaboration for creating group

projects. A teacher assigning a group project gives students a place to work by creating a

wiki with the group mode enabled. This gives each group their own space to record

research, to develop outlines and to create the final product. The teacher creates a submission

date on which to turn off editing capabilities for students so that he/she can grade the final

projects. Afterwards, the teacher enables visible groups so that everyone can see each other's

work. Also, a teacher develops a wiki for a student group and urges people to submit ideas

around a brainstorming topic. People can add ideas as they occur and link to other pages

for elaboration.

Methodologies, Tools and New Developments for E-Learning

12

A teacher might assign students the task of contributing to another wiki on the Web, on any

study topic, perhaps by assigning students to groups and challenging them to

collaboratively create an article they would feel confident posting to a public-information

space. Students use the course wiki to create drafts of the article they will eventually

publish to the community at the end of the semester.

This type of assignment has a number of benefits:

 It gives students additional motivation to do their best, since they know their work will

be viewed and critiqued by the public instead of just by their instructor.

 It can act as a summarizing activity for an entire semester's worth of material.

 Students will know their work will be used by other people, not just graded and filed

away.

Response Ease of use Enhanced

learning

Useful for

exam prep

Fair assessment of

students' efforts

1 – strongly agree 15 13 25 22

2 - agree 65 24 27 40

3 - neutral 13 59 30 17

4 – disagree 7 4 18 21

5 - strongly disagree 0 0 0 0

Table 2. Student Survey of Wiki Projects (MBA 257 - 60% response rate).

An inquiry was made among 257 MBA students and as a result they had mainly positive

reactions to the Wiki projects. Some students commented that Wiki was a useful tool and a

good way to put a summary of the lecture content together in a way that all students could

benefit. Others mentioned that it allowed them to carry on dialogue with varying view-

points that offered a more holistic learning experience. There was dissatisfaction about the

fact that it is hard to grade participation because often people post the same things. Pointing

out the pedagogical benefits from the project we have to stress on the assessment. As seen in

the survey results above, this is one area in which students were the least satisfied. Students

were assessed on their participation in the Wiki. Any user can see who has made a

contribution, the date and time of each contribution.

Another difficulty in integrating Wikis successfully comes from the switch to a student-

centered approach. Using student-created Wikis as a major content source shifts the creation

and ownership of knowledge base from the teacher to the student. The role of student in this

Wiki project is that of primary content producer. The teacher's role changes to one of

facilitating and correcting errors. As mentioned above, Wikis are quite straightforward, and

Moodle has Wiki interface that resembles common word processing programs, so students

may find it easy to use.

4.3 Conclusion to wikis

Using Wikis in an LMS such as Moodle can be a useful teaching tool and can support a

student-centered learning experience. Maybe the two most important factors to consider

when implementing a Wiki are how to integrate the Wiki project and how to assess student

learning and participation in the Wiki project. Students are quick to realize when a project is

an add-on requirement and perceive this as extra busy work. The teacher must provide a

clear assessment procedure that will be as objective as possible. For this purpose student

Wikis and Blogs in E-Learning Context 13

self-assessments can be used and this procedure could also include more specific

requirements concerning the number and length of each post, or could include a note grade

instead of pass-fail based on content and form.

By carefully designing the implementation, integration, and evaluation of a Wiki, a new,

enjoyable collaborative space can be created which allows for much more efficient,

asynchronous, and evaluated interaction between groups of students and teachers. Also, the

flexibility of this medium allows for extremely varied adaptations in an extraordinarily large

range of educational contexts.

Some educational uses of wikis can be outlined:

- Students use a wiki to develop research pr ojects, with the wiki serving as ongoing

documentation of their work.

- Students add summaries of their thoughts from the prescribed readings, building a

collaborative annotated bibliography on a wiki. Wiki is used for publishing course

resources like syllabi and handouts, and students comment on these directly for all to

see.

- Teachers use wikis as a knowledge base, enabling them to share reflections and

thoughts regarding teaching practices, and allowing for versioning and

documentation.

- Wikis map concepts. They are useful for brainstorming, and editing a given wiki topic

can produce a linked network of resources.

- Wiki is used as a presentation tool in place of conventional software, and students are

able to directly comment on and revise the presentation content.

- Wikis are tools for group authoring. Often group members collaborate on a document

by emailing to each member of the group a file that each person edits on their

computer, and some attempt is then made to coordinate the edits so that everyone's

work is equally represented in a single, central wiki page.

Wikis usage in an e-Leaning system can be a powerful teaching tool that enhances and

increases collaboration outside of class.

5. Introduction to blogs

Blog posts or blogs are primarily textual and can vary widely in their content. They can be

devoted to politics, news and sharing opinions or dedicated to technical developments. Blog

entries are usually maintained in chronological order, but are usually displayed in reverse

chronological order. Nardi et al. (2004) identified five reasons why blogs are used:

1. to update others on activities and whereabouts;

2. to express opinions to influence others;

3. to seek others' opinions and feedback;

4. to "think by writing";

5. to release emotional tension.

Blogging is increasingly finding a home in education (both in school and university), as not

only does the software remove the technical barriers to writing and publishing online - but

the 'journal' format encourages students to keep a record of their thinking over time. Blogs

also of course facilitate critical feedback, by letting readers add comments - which could be

from teachers, peers or a wider audience.

Students use of blogs are far ranging. A single authored blog can be used to provide a

personal space online, to pose questions, publish work in progress, and link to and comment

Methodologies, Tools and New Developments for E-Learning

14

on other web sources. However a blog needn't be limited to a single author - it can mix

different kinds of voices, including fellow students, teachers and mentors, or subject

specialists. Edu-blogging pioneer Will Richardson (author of the main books devoted to

Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts) in 2001 used the blog software Manila

(http://manila.userland.com) to enable his english literature students to publish a readers

guide (http://weblogs.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/bees) to the book The Secret Life of Bees. Richardson

asked the book's author, Sue Monk Kidd, if she would participate by answering questions

and commenting on what the students had written - to which she agreed. The result was a

truly democratic learning space.

Richardson marked 10 years since his first blog post, a full decade of writing and sharing

online. He defines the education reform: "We don't need better, we need different"

(Richardson, 2011)

Today's students are immersed in the digital age, but can our educational system keep up?

Best-selling author Will Richardson's comprehensive collection of posts from his acclaimed

blog (http://weblogg-ed.com) outlines the educational reform we must achieve to stay

ahead of the curve:

 Project-based learning

 Student-created media that develops critical thinking

 Extending learning beyond the classroom and school hours

 Cooperative and collaborative learning

 Student empowerment and career readiness

The necessary shift will not magically happen, but experts agree that it must happen now.

This compilation will inspire educators and parents to engage in the technology their

children already embrace, and to take an active role in transforming education to meet the

challenges of the digital revolution.

5.1 Observations and discussions

Herring et al. (2004) defined three types of blogs: personal journals, "filters" (because they

select and provide commentary on information from other websites) and "knowledge logs".

The majority of blogs are the online diary type. Bloggers are interested in reading new

information, sharing knowledge and being connected with other users. While blog writers

are more extroverted, blog readers are more consumerist.

The use of blogs and semantic blogs has recently been associated with a decentralised form

of knowledge management (Cayzer, 2004, Breslin & Decker 2007). Semantic blogging is a

technology that builds upon blogging and enriches blog items with metadata. For

publishing information such as research publications, there is need of some structure and

semantic blogging provides this. Items may be classified using ontologies. Semantic links

may exist between items (Cayzer, 2004b). Semantic blogging uses desirable features of both

blogging and the semantic web to deal with the challenges of traditional blogging. The

semantic web is well suited for incrementally publishing structured and semantically rich

information. On the other hand, the easy publishing nature of blogging can boost the

semantic web by publishing enough data and resources (Cayzer 2004a; Cayzer, 2004b).

Semantic blogging can help users discover items of interest in blogs. Navigation through the

blogosphere can be more flexible and meaningful due to interconnections among various

items and topics. Aggregation of useful materials across multiple blogs and the semantic

web is possible. Semantic blogging can extend blogging from simple diary browsing to

Wikis and Blogs in E-Learning Context 15

informal knowledge management (Cayzer, 2004b). Publication is easy in semantic blogs too

because only some additional metadata data have to be added compared to traditional

blogs. The users do not need to put any effort to enjoy the additional features provided.

Hence, there is not much effort added in using a semantic blog instead of a conventional

one. The rich metadata and semantic structure work behind to give the user the added value

experience of semantic blogging. However, the semantic capabilities currently implemented

for semantic blogging are still limited. It is difficult to obtain blog entries relevant to a topic

in an aggregated and organized form.

There is newly developed framework for semantic blogging capable of organizing results

relevant to user requirement (Shakya, 2006). Attempts for implementation of that

framework are made at Varna Free University (VFU) to provide more effective navigation

and search by exploring semantic relations in blogs.

The system is built upon a blogging infrastructure backed up by an RDF metadata store. The

metadata schema enriches the blog entries input. The metadata schema also helps the query

processor to search by metadata. Users input queries to the system according to their

information requirement. The query processor searches for matching blog entries and

instances in the ontology of the domain of application. Integrated with the ontology is the

inference engine, which can deduce implicit relations from the ontology. All the blog entries

related to the relevant ontology instances are obtained from the blogontology mapping. The

total relevant blog entries obtained are finally organized into an aggregated and navigable

collection by the organizer. The system also produces output in RSS format which

computers can understand and aggregate.

Fig. 6. System architecture of the semantic blogging framework.

Methodologies, Tools and New Developments for E-Learning

16

Some edu-blogs that are used at Varna Free University (Fig. 7, Fig. 8, Fig. 9):

Fig. 7. Edu-blog for the Ranking System for the Bulgarian Universities.

Fig. 8. Edu-blog for Choreography

Wikis and Blogs in E-Learning Context 17

Fig. 9. Edu-blog for Spatial Design.

5.2 Conclusion to blogs

Teachers are using blogs to provide up-to-date information and commentary on their

subject areas, as well as posting questions and assignments and linking to relevant news

stories and websites.

Ontology has been introduced to utilize semantic relations, enhanced by inference. Blog

entries are mapped to the ontology using language processing. Search results are organized

by introducing semantic aggregation. Blog entries are enriched by metadata and an

annotation mechanism has also been developed. The framework has been tested and

evaluated by implementing a system for the Institute of Technology domain ontology at

VFU. Experiments have shown quite good results. Single sample ontology is created for

demonstration.

6. Challenges

The wave of new web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis, and especially e-portfolios, and

open source content management software such as WordPress enable students as well as

instructors to create, load and edit content. This increases active learning, and provides means

to collect, organize and assess student work in more authentic ways than tests or essays.

However, learning management systems still have major advantages, in that they provide

an institutionally secure environment, enable the management of learning, and integrate

with administrative systems. Thus designers are looking for ways to integrate web 2.0 tools

with learning management systems (Mott, 2010).

Methodologies, Tools and New Developments for E-Learning

18

Also as students get more tools and more encouragement to use these tools for learning,

there is the possibility of creating 'personal learning environments', software interfaces that

the learner can add to or edit, to facilitate their learning. These might include a portal to

their courses that would include access to an LMS, but would also include links to their

blog, e-portfolio, and social networks such as Facebook (Bates, 2011)

Students now have access to mobile phones with camera and audio recording capabilities

and access to video editing through software on their laptops and video publishing through

YouTube. Students now can collect data, organize and edit it, and publish it. In addition,

through the Internet, they can access a multitude of resources far beyond the limits of a

traditional class curriculum. They can do all this outside the confines of the classroom. This

is resulting in new course designs focused on learner-generated content, but working to

overall academic guidelines and principles established by the instructor.

The traditional best practice instructional system design model of analyze, design, develop,

implement, and evaluate (ADDIE) is giving way to the new, dynamic web 2.0 tools, and

learner-generated content.

As a result, we are beginning to see some high quality design models that are developed, in

response to changing input from students, the arrival of a new technology course, or

breaking news in the subject area. This allows courses to appear more spontaneous and

more authentic, grounded in the real world. These new developments are happening more

in the area of training and vocational education than academia, although they have potential

especially for professional programs.

7. The future is mobile & learning analytics

The major technology development during 2010 was the launch of Apple's iPad. The iPad

has yet to prove its worth as an educational tool. It is valuable for 'consumption', for

example access to media and e-books, but has more limitations on 'production', as it stands

at the moment. Version 2 includes more 'production' functionality, such as a camera, and

software to facilitate multimedia creation. With the movement towards learner-generated

content this is a major limitation of tablets so far for educational purposes. Furthermore,

phones, tablets and laptops are converging, so that, combined with cloud computing, the

full functionality of a computer will eventually be available on the smallest devices.

Also there were further improvements in 2010 on the functionality of mobile phones,

although educational applications remain tiny compared with other areas, such as

entertainment and publishing. One barrier to educational applications is the multiplicity of

mobile operating systems; another is the lack of a clear model of design for mobile learning.

The release of the HTML5 standard for web applications, which will provide a 'standard'

platform for mobile applications, is unlikely before 2012.

Оpen content is most likely to be used in a context where courses are explicitly designed

around the concept of open content. Instead, students would be encouraged, within certain

guidelines and academic criteria, to search the Internet and to collect local data to create

their own blogs and wikis that would demonstrate their knowledge within a particular

subject domain. Another strong development in these resources is the increased use of

multimedia such as video, animations, simulations and, to a much lesser extent, games.

The application of business intelligence software to learning and learners is likely to be the

next perspective in e-learning. Institutions accumulate a great deal of data about students.

This is rarely used for the purposes of academic decision-making, mainly because it has up

Wikis and Blogs in E-Learning Context 19

to now required a huge effort to analyze such data in terms of specific decisions. Learning

analytics do this through software that 'sits on top' of the several different databases used in

universities, such as student information systems, learning management systems, and

financial systems.

8. Main conclusions

The social software driven approach reflects the nature of learning and knowledge as being

social, personal, distributed, flexible and dynamic. It represents a shift towards a more

personalized, open and knowledge-pull model for learning. The platform, developed and

prototypical in use at Varna Free University, is based on concepts like social tagging and

networking and therefore offers its users a new perspective of Web 2.0 driven learning.

Web 2.0 brings new possibilities and tools to e-learning. Social software supports active

social networking processes and a community model to foster knowledge sharing and

collaboration. Blogs and wikis represent new repositories of information and knowledge for

personal and organisational purposes. High quality contributions are assured not only by

guidelines, but also by reputation and rating the contributions. Through social software,

students especially in LLL process are more motivated to share knowledge with others.

Organizations have to decide whether they want to build their own internal proprietary

solutions with blogs, wikis and/or social networks or with the use of existing tools.

Although anyone can use social software and edit a blog or a wiki, not everybody does.

Effective social structures may create incentives and guide fruitful collaborations.

The Web 2.0 era has emerged as a shift of perspective from a world of plentiful information

that has to be searched using powerful search engines to a world in which the social process

has become central for identification and access to information and knowledge. In this new

world, a variety of tools have been developed to better manage the social capital (with social

networking systems such as Plaxo, LinkedIn), to communicate more effectively with blogs,

and/or to harness collective intelligence with systems such as wikis.

Open source LMS, such as Moodle, have an advantage here in that designers in universities

with access to open source developers can build and integrate open source web 2.0 tools into

the LMS quite easily.

This chapter suggests that Web 2.0 tools provide an opportunity for new developments of

the e-learning concept and discusses these new approaches developed with the objective of

operationalising this social perspective in the context of managing personal knowledge.

Web 2.0 enables a new model of e-learning that contributes to collective intelligence through

formal and informal communication, collaboration and social networking tools. This new

model facilitates virtual interaction, social processes, collaboration and knowledge

exchanges on the web. A characteristic of such systems is the fact that they are open and

designed to invite collaboration and to facilitate social interaction.

There are numerous ways that faculties can use the Web 2.0 tools to enhance student's

interaction in online learning. Incorporation of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis into

online and hybrid courses has the potential for improving student engagement in learning.

As shown through examples from our teaching and from the literature, these tools can

facilitate rich interaction among students, the faculties, and the online interaction, the

cornerstone of effective online learning.

In blogs and wikis externalisation of personal knowledge is self-initiated. Furthermore,

despite using Web 2.0 tools it is still difficult to find the right piece of information. Better

Methodologies, Tools and New Developments for E-Learning

20

search functionalities and sorted entries are an issue that needs to be addressed in further

development. Semantic Web technologies enhance Web 2.0 tools and their associated data

with semantic annotations and semantic-enhanced knowledge representations, thus

enabling a better automatic processing of data which in turn will lead to enhanced search

mechanisms.

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... Higher education institutes are remodeling, reinvigorating, and reconceptualizing their practices and pedagogical models by incorporating innovative ICT tools to enhance the learner environment (Butler 2004). These include, but are not restricted to, eMentoring, YourTutor, ePortfolio, Wikis, blogs, and podcasts, integrated with the learning management systems (LMS) such as Modular Object-Orientated Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle), Blackboard, Canvas, and Desire2Learn (Alexiou and Paraskeva 2010;Bakardjieva and Gradinarova 2012). The LMS are used to post announcements, homework, assignments, and lecture notes and support modern pedagogies such as discussion forums, course resources, quizzes, and surveys and also acts as a communication tool between facilitators and students (Georgouli et al. 2008;Mirri and Salomoni 2011). ...

The Pacific Island communities face challenges such as digital divide, shoestring budgets, and escalating costs in the delivery of quality education to their people. In addition, the widely scattered nature of islands and communities requires proper communication infrastructure for learners to access education. This chapter heralds the emergence of mobile learning (mLearning) initiatives in higher education in the Pacific region. As a case study, the study focuses on the introduction of mLearning at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in the Pacific which developed a fit-for-purpose mLearning infrastructure that primarily utilized the short message service (SMS) for its delivery and services. The USP hosts an in-house setup open-source SMS gateway that facilitates its custom made SMS services such as course notifications, exam timetable information, and online quizzes. More recently with the proliferation of smartphones in the Pacific, USP has invested largely on web-based services and mobile apps. The chapter presents the recent journey into the use of smartphones and tablets to access education and promotes lifelong and life-wide learning in the Pacific.

• Liana Razmerita

This paper elaborates on the role of user modeling for enhanced support in Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs). User models, also addressed as user profiles in KMSs, include user's preferences and are often similar to competency definitions. The proposed user model extends a typical user profile with relevant characteristics of the users such as: level of activity, level of knowledge sharing, type of activity etc. This paper shows that users' characteristics are key components for enhanced features for KMSs. The paper provides concrete examples of how ontology-based inferences can be used for enhanced user support in retrieving implicit knowledge. The user model is defined as an user ontology based on Information Management System Learner Information Package (IMS LIP) specifications and is integrated in an ontology-based user modeling system.

Since learning nowadays is conceptualized as a social system within communities of practice, the best way to learn is with others, in groups. In the past few years, there has been an increasing focus on social software applications as a result of the rapid development of new web technologies. Furthermore, mobile and ubiquitous technologies have provided capabilities for more sophisticated open social systems, where mobile knowledge sharing is the norm. In this paper, we explore the use of these concepts for learning and present a smart phone driven mobile Web Services architecture for collaborative learning.

The main aim of Knowledge Management (KM) is to connect people to quality knowledge as well as people to people in order to peak performance. This is also the primary goal of Learning Management (LM). In fact, in the world of e-learning, it is more widely recognised that how learning content is used and distributed by learners might be more important than how it is designed. In the last few years, there has been an increasing focus on social software applications and services as a result of the rapid development of Web 2.0 concepts. In this paper, we argue that LM and KM can be viewed as two sides of the same coin, and explore how Web 2.0 technologies can leverage knowledge sharing and learning and enhance individual performance whereas previous models of LM and KM have failed, and present a social software driven approach to LM and KM.

In this work informal learning theories and practices and social networking features are taken as starting points to build a reference collaboration model to support collaborative knowledge construction in Distributed Communities of Practices. Sample web 2.0 applications to fit the collaboration model purposes are then described. The provided model can give contribution to the design and to the improvement of a specific collaborative virtual environment to support knowledge management in DCoP.

• Mary Coupland

This thesis uses a theoretical framework derived from activity theory to investigate the introduction of computer algebra systems (CAS) in first year university mathematics subjects. Both qualitative and quantitative data relevant to a case study of a group of approximately one hundred students, and two academics, were collected and analysed using a range of methods. The major question for this study was: What are the socio-cultural dynamics of learning with a new tool? More specifically, there are three questions: first, how do students in a particular context respond to their initial experience with a CAS as part of their first year mathematics subjects? Second, what relationships exist between aspects of students personal histories, their goals for mathematical learning, and the range of experiences they report concerning using a CAS for the first time? Third, in a particular case in a particular setting, how do academics see their role in the introduction of computer algebra systems into mathematics teaching? The main findings include the identification of the critical nature of purpose, or multiple motivating objects in activity systems. Personal identity as a learner of mathematics is constructed through choosing to engage at surface or deep levels, alone or with others. Students with a low level of computing background who had a high level of engagement and sense of purpose in their mathematical learning reported that they appropriated the new tool for their own personal use. Students with a high level of computing experience who were unable to form goals congruent with the learning tasks were less likely to appropriate the tool. In a similar way, lecturers with different purposes and different epistemological views of mathematics, in responding to contexts and personal goals, planned different teaching and learning experiences for their classes. The significance of this study is that it demonstrates how activity theory can be used successfully as a framework for an investigation that takes an expansive view of learning as a socio-cultural activity. Personal socio-cultural histories and motivations and social contexts influence students and academics as they form and reform their goals for engaging in learning and teaching activities. The study also highlights the gap between high school experiences of learning mathematics, dominated by rule following and the replication of pen and paper algorithms, and the more creative and challenging possibilities for making mathematics opened up by new technologies such as computer algebra systems.

In this paper we describe the design of a managed learning environment called MTutor, which is used to teach an online Masters Module for teachers. In describing the design of MTutor pedagogic issues of problem-based learning, situated cognition and ill-structured problems are discussed. MTutor presents teachers with complex real-life teaching problems, which they are required to solve online through collaboration with other teachers. In order to explore the influence of this online learning experience on the identity and practice of teachers, we present the results from a small-scale study in which six students were interviewed about their online experiences. We conclude that, within the sample, students' engagement with online problem-based learning within their community of practice positively influenced their professional practice styles, but that there is little evidence to suggest that online identity influences real-life practice.

• Jonathan Mott

Learning management systems (LMSs) have dominated the teaching and learning landscape in higher education for the past decade, with a recent Delta Initiative report indicating that more than 90 percent of colleges and universities have a standardized, institutional LMS implementation. While the LMS has become central to the business of colleges and universities, it has also become a symbol of the higher learning status quo. Many students, teachers, instructional technologists, and administrators consider the LMS too inflexible and are turning to the web for tools that support their everyday communication, productivity, and collaboration needs. Blogs, wikis, social networking sites, microblogging tools, and other web-based applications are supplanting the teaching and learning tools previously found only inside the LMS. Where the LMS is vertically integrated and institutionally centralized, the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is the educational manifestation of the web's "small pieces loosely joined," a "world of pure connection, free of the arbitrary constraints of matter, distance, and time." Proponents assert that the PLE's greater flexibility, portability, adaptability, and openness make it far superior to the LMS as a teaching and learning platform. The PLE is not without its weaknesses, however. Potential security and reliability concerns abound. This conundrum leaves higher education with what appears to be an unsatisfying either-or choice that requires significant tradeoffs whichever path is chosen. In an increasingly sophisticated technology environment, however, the author contends that one can bring together--or mash up--the best of both the LMS and the PLE paradigms to create a learning platform more ideally suited to teaching and learning in higher education--an "open learning network" (OLN). An OLN is intended to be, at the same time: (1) Secure and open; (2) Integrated and modular; (3) Private and public; and (4) Reliable and flexible. This article outlines a framework that provides a blueprint for developing what KnowledgeWorks calls a "lightweight, modular infrastructure" with built-in resilience to meet the dynamic needs of today's "learning agents." (Contains 1 table, 7 figures and 36 endnotes.)

• Boyka Gradinarova

The employment of Web 2.0 within higher educational settings has become increasingly popular. Lectors are starting to explore the potential of blogs, media-sharing services and other social software - which, although not designed specifically for e-learning, can be used to empower students and create exciting new learning opportunities. Reasons for doing so include student motivation, didactic considerations of facilitating individual and collaborative knowledge construction, and the support Web 2.0 gives the learner in transgressing and resituating content and practices between the formal and informal learning settings in which s/he participates. However, introducing Web 2.0-practices into educational settings leads to tensions and challenges in practice because of conceptual tensions between the views of knowledge and learning inherent in Web 2.0-practices and in the educational system: Implicit in Web 2.0-practices is a conception of 'knowledge' as, on the one side, process and activity, i.e. as use, evaluation, transformation and reuse of material, and, on the other, the product side, as a distributed attribute of a whole or community of practice. In contrast, 'knowledge' within the educational system is traditionally viewed as a state possessed by the individual, and learning as the acquisition of this state. This paper is an analysis of the challenges which these tensions lead to for the learners.

What Types Of Research Can Blogs, Wikis, And Online Sources Be Used For?

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