I was much inspired and an article by Lorelle over the Blog Herald, on The future of education is in the blogs. We’ve all seen the power which blogs have given to businesses, and the next step is definitely in the education industry.
I used to attend a sociology class (yeah, cross faculty module) back in university, and this lecturer of mine actually uses a blog to distribute his lecture notes. While the university already has what they call an Integrated Virtual Learning Environment (IVLE) where both students and lecturers can log in to communicate, I personally feel that the interface is awfully boring and the terrible usability of the system simply turns people off.
The screen was basically cluttered with information from everywhere, and what I really disliked was the system didn’t really allow the lecturers to post announcements along with links to the notes or slides. The “announcement” section of the system was separate from the “workbin” section.
So instead, what the lecturer did was he used a blog for us to keep updated with his announcements, and used the blog comments for us students to post our questions. It was wildly successful. Because of the lecturer’s own participation (and its back to the basics – transparency, authenticity, and building relationships), it was fun for the students to discuss online. The lecturer also frequently posted jokes related to the module, so we could really enjoy studying the module.
Later, the IVLE system introduced “Module Blogs” where lecturers could use the IVLE to set up blogs for each of the modules they were teaching. Somehow, I think no one really likes the IVLE system, and it was not readily adopted.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many lecturers like my sociology lecturer. Most just stick to the system they were given to work on. I’m actually surprised that the lecturer who innovated with technology was one from the arts faculty, and not the computing faculty I was studying in. Weird.
No wonder I left. 
Anyway, I really hope things will change for the better as more people realise how wondrous platforms blogs can be, for information dissemination and discussion.
Visit Calvin
Hi Kian Ann,
haha.. I share the same sentiments.. The IVLE is rather messy and confusing. And the module blogs now are seriously under utilized as the lecturer does not bother to post and neither does students visit them.
In fact, I think the majorit of the students aren’t even aware of it’s existence. It would be interesting to see if any other lecturers adopt the same method which your Sociology lecturer does. Though none of the lecturers in my faculty adopts that.
Visit Kian Ann
Haha… Thanks Calvin, I think the university really ought to relook at the usability of the system
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