Question One: how do blogs compare to discussion boards? I don’t see these as competing technologies. I’ve successfully used both at the same time! But blogs have some important advantages when it comes to creating meaningful educational interactions.

Obligation and Responsibility
Blogs have a performance obligaion that discussion boards typically don’t have. Even if a discussion forum is not hidden behind a CMS or login, their format (technically and functionally) don’t lend themselves to outside reading and participation. Posting to a discussion board feels– and most often is– a little more risky. The whole world could be watching, and it’s likely that someone out there is reading what you wrote. Even behind an alias this factor is present and important.

Ownership
Blogs (assuming individual student blogs) are a personal space. They can be customized, tweaked, and twiddled. Students can– and should be encouraged to– use their blogs as their space. Their obligation to class discussion should only be one, hopefully lesser, part of their blogging experience. It’s their space, which they are kindly sharing with me as a participant in the learning experience.

Thinking, Responding, Contemplating
Discussion boards encourage a linear seed and response format. Even if presented as an open space their functionality implies a topical confinement. Responding to directed discussion pointers doesn’t always (or even often) involve thinking and synthesis. I have my share of directed blog participation, but that is purposefully only part of what is evaluated. Blogs are a space where students can initiate conversations on their own and, more importantly, think for themselves without constantly having to engage in response seeking behavior. New topic, old topic, or their own topic– it’s all open to them, encouraging contemplation.

Positive Practice
Learning to reflect on what is being taught, to express questions– even of the unanswerable kind, to examine one’s own learning process, to think critically about new knowledge and the way it is acquired… these are the essential stuff of learning how to learn and then learning effectively. Blogs present an opportunity for practice (in both the traditional and the Zen senses) in a form that many students, particularly the emerging digital native, intuitively understand.

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