Reading 01 – ‘Blogs in Media Education’ by Adrian Miles
Education has had a large influence on mankind. The process of learning was practiced by reading books or some sort of tangible, hard print. However, with the emergence of the internet and today’s innovative technology, learning can occur in other platforms, and not just in books. In ‘Blogs in Media Education‘, by Adrian Miles, the main takeaway point of this piece is the use of blogs as a tool of education.
There are several characteristics that blogs possess, which make it a suitable platform for a learning environment. These are several traits of blogs that have sparked interest in me.
These characteristics include:-
- Networked/Interlinked
- Able to serve as a recording/documentation platform (i.e. assignments, meetings, lectures, notes, readings, discussions, etc.)
- Collaborative study space.
- Publicness
Networked/Interlinked
Users can find that blogs are constantly maintaining a liquid-like flow of information among each other. A sense of community is introduced, creating a blogosphere where bloggers and readers communicate over the internet through the blogging platform. Through links and shout-outs, bloggers can provide easy access to other blogs or webpages that they deem worthy as part of their identity. Readers can click on these links and follow whatever interests them, and possibly facilitate discussions.
Recording/Documentation platform
Blogs possess the ability to record or document anything and everything, and is easily accessed at all times. Students can use this trait to document things they’ve learned, or even problems they encounter while trying to solve a question.
Collaborative Study Space
Students can use this study space to actively help each other out. As feedback and discussions are always welcome, blogs make it extremely easy to facilitate discussions. It serves as a platform for students to discuss ideas, questions, and also problems. The blogosphere creates a platform for peer support.
Publicness
This characteristic of blogging is highly important, as the style of writing, tone, and also content are affected by this. This characteristic creates a huge difference how we write. Between writing personally, and writing with the knowledge that this post will be read by others, we tend to exercise more care when writing with the knowledge of someone reading our material. Our minds immediately filters the content, develops a style of writing, and also controls the tone of our messages.
Blogs can certainly provide tremendous use in the context of education. A takeaway question for my readers would be, “If blogs become the newest platform for education, what would be the next platform after that? Can we predict how or where the education platform transforms into? Are there other platforms that could be of higher value in terms of education? Perhaps learning via interactive videos? Interactive games? Perhaps an entirely new product of education such as learning using the internet at early ages? Who knows?