Newsgroups and Wikis and Blogs - Oh My!

     Ours is a wired world. User-generated content, regardless of quality, has certainly redefined the nature of the World Wide Web. However, while many people, including forward-looking educators, have incorporated Web 2.0 tools into the education process, in so many ways this aspect of electronic communication is still in its infancy. Sometimes it is difficult to see how grainy cell phone videos can in any way contribute to learning, or how unsubstantiated opinions can have any credibility. And quite frankly, so much of what is posted on the Web is garbage. We need to find ways to let our students express themselves as well as possible while ensuring that some real learning occurs.

     Newsgroups are really just e-mail or bulletin board postings between people with a common interest. The Outlook Express e-mail program is commonly used because it specifically supports the threading that is common in newsgroups. A subject is started,and answers are posted in return, then responses to those responses, and so on. It's an easy way to keep topics organized, and you can measure student participation easily. Imagine having a classroom discussion entirely online, a typical use of newsgroups.

     Wikis (from the Hawaiian wiki wiki, meaning "quickly") are basically user-created and user-edited gatherings of information and knowledge. The most famous wiki, Wikipedia, describes itself as "a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". The primary value of wikis is the collaboration that occurs in the building of new knowledge, but care must be taken to ensure the use of critical thinking skills when information is being taken from the wiki. A collaboratively-built web site for a specific lesson project would be a typical use of a wiki.

     Blogs, a diminutive term for Web Logs, are similar to newsgroups, except the format is more of a diary with added comments. Like newsgroups, an initial comment or idea is posted and the poster or others may add responses and responses to the responses. Blogs are another useful classroom tool for encouraging discussion, especially when classroom time is limited. In addition to the blogging software available through various web hosting services, blogger.com and wordpress.com offer free blogging programs and hosting.

     While newsgroups require the use of en e-mail program, wikis and blogs are actually web pages, and the content added by users edits those pages as soon as the comment is submitted. Some blogs and wikis require the site administrator to approve entries, as you would probably do when you moderate a class discussion.

     There is evidence to support the idea that blogging and other forms of online discussion actually enhance student skills in other areas. Think about it - writing a few paragraphs under the time pressure of a test in class is one thing, but reading what others have to say, thinking about how to respond, then posting that response casts this in a whole new light. Ellison and Wu (2008) studied the use of blogs in a college class and found that students enjoyed using the more authentic voice of the blog (as opposed to the formal language used in papers), the opportunity to read other students' postings and read the comments from classmates on their own postings, and the interactivity that the blog added to the learning process. By using the written word as a primary form of communication, student reading and writing skills are enhanced. Logic tells us that this can have a broad positive impact on learning.

     Newsgroups, wikis, and blogs are what as known as asynchronous methods of communication because the various users can access and input information at any time, not necessarily by coordinating a common time to be online. Asynchronous communication has the advantage of allowing users to perform other everyday tasks and access the venue at a time convenient for them (Smith, 2005). It has also been found that asynchronous communication allows for more consideration by the responder, leading to more thorough and considered responses (Bocchi, Eastman and Swift, 2004). Users can access any Internet-based venue from literally anywhere with an Internet connection, so participation is possible from people in different locations - even other countries - and while traveling. In graduate school I shared classes with students in Korea, Japan, Jamaica, and Germany, in addition to people in at least 30 different states. I know online teachers who continue to run classes while they are traveling throughout the world on vacation. Nothing at all needs to stand in the way of participation.

     Synchronous communication methods of course require that all participants be online at the same time. The most common synchronous communication method is chat, using various chat room programs. Chat adds immediacy to the communication, and you may want to use chat when active participation is part of the learning. I know, chat has gotten a bad name because of things like Internet predators and social networking sites, but it is still one of the many tools at your disposal.

     You can even share documents for addition and editing by a group. If all users are using the same server or network (such as coworkers), any document saved to a network drive can be used and changed by anyone with access. The Internet can be used by posting a document to an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site, and authorized users can do with it what they please. Even entire web sites can be revised.

     Newsgroups, wikis and blogs are really only simple manifestations of the read/write Web. Honestly, students use the read/write web every day in a non-academic context through social networking (MySpace, Facebook, etc., see below) and similar sites. See a funny ad? Download it from the advertiser's web site and post it to the rest of the Web! Got a cell-phone video of a fight at school? Share it with the world! Digital still and video cameras make developing your own content way simple. Heck, Queen Elizabeth II recently posted a message to her subjects on FaceBook (or was it MySpace? Whatever...). The real Web 2.0 is shown in the user-created content, the videos on YouTube and Flickr, the personal web sites and information that is shared online.

Social Networking
     We can't underestimate the importance of social networking sites. For one thing, we can't escape references to them in the popular media as the latest and greatest idea destined to change the world. Time Magazine recently analyzed whether Google, Yahoo, or Facebook held the key to the fure of the Internet. Personally, I think the 24-year-old gazillionaire founder of Facebook is just another talented code cruncher destined to walk away with an extra gazillion dollars when a major media company buys him out, but in the meantime his site provides a way for (usually young) people to intereact and look for romance. But let's face it - in a wired world, this has replaced pen pals and hours on the phone. This how they keep in touch, and it can indeed be used in school. Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, says that "We need to teach students how to be effective collaborators in [the] world, how to interact with people around them, how to be engaged, informed, twenty-first century citizens" (Smith, 2008, p. 22). He sees social networking as a method for sharing academic and intellectual information as well as it does the social and romantic. He encourages teachers to incorporate the power of social networking into education.  Here is a mini-guide to some of the more popular social networking sites:

MySpace - The granddaddy (all the way back to 2003) of social networking sites, MySpace more or less created this particular niche. Users use it to stay in touch by updating their status, uploading and commenting on pictures, and building profiles to tell others about themselves. Loaded with large, distracting ads.
Facebook - Younger but faster growing than MySpace, Facebook improved on the social networkng model and added many more applications (apps) than its predecessor. My informal, unscientific survey indicates far more preference for Facebook than MySpace. Some people live on this site, updating their information every few minutes and tracking their friends. The ads are much smaller and less obtrusive.
Note - I have pages on both MySpace and Facebook, and I have found them to be essentially similar in use. They do take a little work to become proficient, but really, they can be quite fun. And I have connected with friends and classmates from as far back as 1968.
Twitter - Social networking reduced to its most elemental, Twitter is "a service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" I guess that's better than "Where you at?", but do we really need constant updates of our friends' whereabouts?
Flickr - A site primarily used for the posting of pictures to share. Basic membership is free but you're limited to only 100mb of per month, which is fewer than 20 of the pictures I take with my digital SLR camera. For unlimited uploads and the ability to post video you need to buy an upgraded membership.
YouTube - The major site for the sharing of videos, you can find most everything here except pornography. It's a great place to post student videos anad get maximum exposure. This is where a;ll those wannabe cinematographers post their underground videos, although many of the files are of the "things in my room" variety.

     There are many others, and there are even sites that enable to set up social networks of your own. I've only listed the major ones.

     So why consider social networks as learning tools? Because it speaks the language of your students. It's how they communicate. You can start your own page and use it to tell students and parents about yourself and your class, or use it as a place for students to post, share and discuss class assignments. Use it to form professional learning communities.  Believe me, they know this stuff and use it a lot. Why not capitalize on that? Just don't try to be too hip unless you naturally overflow with hipness - the students can spots a phony a mile away.

The Message, not the Medium
     It is important to remember that for all the hype surrounding the ability of users to add content to the web and other sources, these are just a reflection of modern communication technologies. The content is what really matters, not the method. What used to be written on dorm walls is now written online, albeit it hopefully with a bit more thought and consideration. Some blog owners even refer to their blogs as graffiti boards. My point is that these technologies offer a chance to build learning communities much more easily. They are a way to draw the world together, whether that world is your classroom or every country with employees of a given company.

References:

Bocchi. J., Eastman, J. K. & Swift, C.O. (2004). Retaining the online learner: Profile of students in an online MBA program and implications for teaching them. Journal of Education for Business,79(4), 245-253 

Ellison, N.B. & Wu, Y. (2008). Blogging in the classroom: A preliminary exporation of student attitudes and impact on comprehension. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 17(1), 99-122

Smith, F. (2008) My school, meet MySpace. Edutopia, May 2008, 18-22

Smith, R. (2005). Working with difference in online collaborative groups. Adult Education Quarterly, 55(3), 182