A Blog Sphere for Higher Education

Blogs are an important part of the rapidly developing Web 2.0 phenomenon that revolutionizes the current World Wide Web. It thus makes sense for universities to investigate whether blogs can support teaching and learning. Our paper describes the installation and deployment of a blog sphere for Graz University of Technology based on the open source software ELGG and extended by us with new features that are essential for teaching and learning. This paper summarizes the first experiences that have been made within one year since launching our TU Graz LearnLand. We describe how the use of weblogs for teaching and learning purposes will need not only further extension but also a new approach to the teaching process.

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