Blogs: Enhancing the Learning Experience for Technology Students

Weblogs can be used to enhance the learning experience for technology students, by providing them with several features that are often absent in Learning Management Systems (LMSs). This research aims to demonstrate that weblogs can improve the learning experience by allowing students to reflect on their learning, and by allowing them to easily collaborate with their tutors and with one another. The incorporation of weblogs into the existing learning environment can provide several enhancements; Laurillard’s conversational framework is used a basis for describing how this should be done. In an initial study, students set up weblogs and created a weblog post each week over a 10-week period. Initial feedback from the students suggests that their experience with the weblogs was a positive one.