Online Learning Tools: The Power of Reflective Blogs

I have been blogging for a while now. However, my main blog, Ed Tech Matters, exists mostly as a function of my job. In this blog I try to highlight different educational technology projects and implementations from districts around my county. While this is important work in communicating with

the educational technology community around Riverside County, it is definitely not a reflective blog. I had been resistant to the idea of a reflective blog until going through the reading this week.

Stavredes (2011) asserts that the practice of self-reflection supports the growth of self-directed, independent learners. I can see how a reflective blog, for students and/or the instructor, can be an important piece of that self-reflection. The reading by Stavredes (2011) also indicates the importance of social presence, instructor presence, and cognitive presence in an online course. Blogs can contribute to social and instructor presence when an instructor shares his/her thoughts on a topic and invites interaction from the learners. Cognitive presence can be facilitated through the use of reflective blogs by having students engage in interactive blogs to construct knowledge. "Blogs are an excellent reflective tool for learners to communicate about their learning experiences in the form of an online jo
urnal" (Stavredes, 2011, p.176).

Some adult learners use reflective blogs to learn course content, to foster reflection, to monitor and assess their learning process (Kidd & Keengwe, 2010). The last item in that list, monitoring and assessing their own learning process, is where I think a reflective blog would be good for my own professional practice. I could take a lesson from my wife. She keeps up a professional reflective blog called Balancing on the Leading Edge. It has been her experience that this practice of reflecting through her blog helps her internalize her learning as well as share it our with others in our profession.

I have some concerns about my ability to keep up two professional blogs - one that is part of my job function, and one that is a reflective blog. But I can see the benefits and I do hope that I can make a reflective blog part of my regular professional practice.


References

Kidd, T. T., & Keengwe, J. (2010). Adult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes (pp. 1-293). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-60566- 828-4

Stavredes, T. (2011). Effective online teaching: Foundations and strategies for student success. John Wiley & Sons.