Weblogs as an emerging genre in higher education

Weblogs are genres that support the creation of an autobiographical internet presence and development of a critical intellectual voice . They consist of links to particular web materials with specific commentary, generally presented in chronological format, harkening to older, more traditional forms of expression such as diaries and travelogue.

Weblog production and consumption can help students place the various emerging hypertext variations with older media in the broader context of “media ecology”. Experimentation with and discourse on weblogs can also stimulate student interest in larger notions of the social construction of information as well as presentation of self (and perhaps make plagiarism less attractive), as student explicitly link to each other’s works in a format that fosters currency, individuality, and critical commentary. Weblogs are also serving important roles in the approaches toward knowledge acquisition of many individuals and groups in education as well as in other professional contexts (journalism).  

A number of portals have been established in higher education contexts to highlight certain web resources as well as to provide news and search services (Eisler, 2001). Weblogs provide educators with assortment of new strategies for using hyperlinks on the context of presentation of self. Weblogs provide a structure that recasts limited, text-based notions of plagiarism. Weblogs have primarily served as modes of personal expression, providing a vehicle of individuals to contribute time-bound commentary on internet material, react to current events, or relate personal reflections. Weblogs also provide selective revelations of individuals’ information gleaning and knowledge management routines.

My experiences with blogs as a student have been extra-ordinary. We can now utter our views to the world through weblogs; it is like a personal diary, opened for everyone to see. We are also able to be in contact with our lectures and share our work with them through the blogs. It makes our work/studying much easier. We study and get used to the internet world at the same time. Some students can no longer claim someone else’s work as their own (plagiarism). We are not only communicating with our lecturers through blogs, but we are also communicating with our fellow students and other people out there.

To make blogs effective learning tools, I think that there should be an online corrector or advice application, that ca help us with the work we want to post. I think there should be a sensor of plagiarism that refuses you to post anything stolen or without acknowledging the writer/owner of that specific material. Except for that for that I thing weblogs are correctly structured.

Weblogs are the future of the coming generations of learners. Internet learning tools are much easier to be used and they make our work simpler.

References 

1. Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliterecies: literacy learning and the design of social features. New York: Routledge.

2. Eisler, D. (2001). Campus portals: Supportive mechanisms for university communications, collaborations, and organizational change. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 13(1), 3-24.