Abstract
Web 2.0 tools are frequently integrated in education. The main goal of this integration is to provide enhanced learning experiences to students. Among other Web 2.0 tools, blogs are often used. Many approaches have been presented that successfully exploited blogs in all levels of education. An aspect of interest is to outline main directions of the corresponding research work that will provide insight to researchers, teachers, students, developers, and policymakers. This chapter provides a brief survey of approaches integrating blogs in primary and secondary education. Initially, main concepts regarding blogs as Web 2.0 tools and educational blogs are briefly discussed. Then, 16 approaches concerning the use of blogs in primary and secondary education are surveyed. The results derived from these approaches are analyzed. The analysis shows that the results are positive, and blogs turn out to be useful tools for school education. It is likely that more such approaches will be presented in the future. The chapter also outlines future research directions.
TopBackground
Blogs are Web-based applications. According to Blood (2002), the term weblog was first used by Barger (1997), and the term blog, a truncation of weblog and was accredited to Merholz (2002). The first blog was created by Berners-Lee (1992) and considered a website that provided information and updates on new websites (Williams & Jacobs, 2004). Blood (2002) claimed that blogs looked like journals or diaries and reflected their creators’ personalities. In general, blogs are used for publishing posts and for discussing these posts (Andersson and Räisänen, 2014). Blog users may read, write and comment (Andersson and Räisänen, 2014). Blog posts are displayed in reverse chronological order which means the most recent posts appear first, followed by less recent ones (Duarte, 2017) with the original post appearing last. The main types of blogs are journalist blogs, product sales blogs, personal blogs and educational blogs (Duarte, 2017).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Web 2.0: An evolution of the web in which more emphasis is put on sharing, participation, interaction, and collaborative authoring of content.
Distance Learning: A type of instructional venue in which learners and teachers are in geographically dispersed locations and may participate synchronously or asynchronously. It is usually based on Internet platforms, but in previous time periods other means had been mainly used (e.g., traditional mail correspondence, radio, television).
Online Learning Communities: Learning communities fostered through utilization of Internet technologies.
Web-Based Learning: A type of instructional strategy that is based on resources available on the web. Learners may learn individually or in groups.
Collaborative Authoring: A type of authoring in which content is produced or shaped with the collaboration of multiple persons. Technological and non-technological approaches may be used for this purpose. Web-based tools may facilitate the overall process.
Blended Learning: A type of learning that combines classroom instruction and Internet-based learning. The purpose is to combine the advantages of both types of learning.
Cooperative Learning: A type of instructional strategy in which learners learn by cooperating and working in groups. Group members share goals and depend on each other.