Article: weblogs as an emerging genre in higher education

Article: weblogs as an emerging genre in higher education

According to the article, the value of weblogs in higher education is that, it provides a platform for the development of of critical individual voices within the text of internet resources.They are the development of the traditional learning logs for students in higher education as well as teachers.Weblogs have a great value in higher higher education because it has so many uses, this includes: documenting one's life, providing commentary and opinions,expressing deeply felt emotions, articulating ideas through writing,forming and maintaining community forums and more..."weblogs are streams of journal-like material in web-based formats that provides hyperlinks to other web materials with their developers,"bloggers"personal reflections and critiques".

As a student, my experience and knowledge about weblogs is not yet well developed,before i arrived at higher education i knew nothing about them,i only got exposed to them during my first year of study.According to me weblogs are very easy to setup and administrate compared to other technologies,they allow instant publishing in just one click.They have the ability to reach a large audience without loosing information or quality.weblogs can be updated easily,from anywhere.So my experience with weblogs is positive.I have learnt a lot of things especially from reading other people's posts, it is really exciting.

The effective use of blogs can be improved by:providing students with meaningful feedback from the blogs that they have posted, this can be very efficient because it can greatly enhance learning and improve student achievement.And by giving feedback,the teacher needs to be as specific as possible, for example,feedback like "great job!"doesn't tell the learner what he/she did right,and likewise,a statement such as "not quite there yet"doesn't give him/her any insight into what she did wrong and how they can do better next time around.Instead,we teachers can take their time to provide learners with information on what exactly they did wee and what may still need improvement.

Another way in which an effective way of using blogs can be improved to make them a meaningful learning tool to students is by presenting feedback carefully. As a teacher,when you are busy presenting feedback to students,it is very essential that you be careful as the way feedback is presented can have an impact on how it is received,which means that sometimes even the most well-meaning feedback can come across the wrong way and reduce a learner's motivation.To avoid this,fully explanation of the purpose of any monitoring, and insuring that learners understand how the fedback is meant to help them compete against their own personal bests rather than each other.