eLearning

by Professor Linda E. Patrik, Union College, New York

Students taking their first philosophy course often express surprise when encouraged to use “I” in their papers. Unlike academic writing in most other disciplines, philosophical writing frequently and strongly states the “I” because philosophers have to develop and defend their own positions. They cannot weasel out of taking responsibility for their views, and thus the assertion of the “I” means that they are willing to stand or fall with their expressed position.

This is one reason why blogs are so effective for teaching students how to debate in philosophy. Blogs were initially developed as online diaries, and most college students still associate blogs with their own inward monologues. The blog medium softens students’ resistance to using the philosophical “I” in their writing, since they are accustomed to bloggers expressing their own views and taking personal responsibility for such. Blogs bridge the personal “I” of a diary with the philosophical “I” of an argument offered in public debate. Once these public debates are posted online, the ease of using “I” -- and meaning it -- makes students more confident that they are capable of having their own views.

The effectiveness of blogs for philosophical debate increases when each student has his or her own blog. It is better to give each student a blog than to have all students participate in a single blog; not only do students write more, but they argue more creatively. When students have to post a blog that is in competition with other students’ blogs, students become attentive to which blogs attract and generate the most interesting and heated debates in the course. They scan the various blogs posted by other students and keep returning to the blogs that have the best debates. When commenting on others’ blogs, students not only aim to make their points in those debates but seek to entice readers back to their own blog. Students spend more time and thought on their individual blogs in order to keep it popular, and they also take care when commenting on others’ blogs because they want reciprocal visits to their own blog.

When students each have a blog for posting their positions on philosophical issues, they not only develop a sense of personal responsibility and confidence in their work, but they also unlock their creativity. Some blog software allows them to select the graphic design and format of their blog; many blog programs allow them to include photos, images, video clips and audio files to personalize their blogs.

Creativity in blogs is not limited to graphics. Students learn to write hypertext and even techno-text[1] papers in their blogs. In the philosophy course on Cyberfeminism that I taught last spring, students posted all of their writing in their blogs. In addition to papers, they wrote summaries of reading assignments and posted commentaries on debate issues raised in class. As they gained familiarity with blogging, they began to experiment with links, images, video, and sound as digital enhancements for their posted written work. Over the course of the term, students gained new inspiration from visiting others’ blogs on a regular basis—the experiments attempted by one or two began to spur the others on to try something new. A few students created complex, multimedia forms of techno-text as the final project in their blog; as the term ended, students not only visited one another’s blog but celebrated these virtuoso multimedia creations. Who would have thought that philosophical writing could have images and video? Hegel’s old metaphor for philosophy—the owl of Minerva flying at dusk—was inadequate for the kind of philosophical writing posted by the most creative students: philosophical writing supported by rainbow colors and complex imagery.

Philosophical creativity involves raising the most thought-provoking questions and defending one’s own answers to such questions. Blogging encourages creativity in philosophical debate, especially when each student has his or her own blog, because it allows for fairly spontaneous expression of ideas and it invites students to journey out of their blogs into the blogworld established by another. In order to debate with one another, students in my Cyberfeminism course posted their own position on an issue on their own blog and then visited one another’s blog to find others’ positions on the issue. They posted their responses to others’ positions either on their own blog or on other students’ blogs. The more technically-adventurous included links to one another’s blogs in their own blog’s discussion of an issue.

Several course management programs have a Discussion medium that is similar to a blog, but most of these programs require students to participate in the same blog (e.g., Blackboard’s Discussion Board). The professor sets up the questions for discussion and debate, and then asks students to log in and comment on the questions. Course chat rooms are also a common online venture, lacking the individual character and control that separate student blogs have. The advantages of grading individual blogs outweigh the ease of grading discussions gathered in one blog or one chat room, considering that each student learns to write for a public beyond the professor; in addition, students can more easily compare their online work to that of others. Grades for individual blogs make more sense to students than do grades on what they have contributed to a common blog or chat room.

In sum, the advantages of individual student blogs for philosophical writing are personal responsibility, confidence in one’s own view, debate excitement, and creativity. The blog medium allows for dialogue and debate, which are essential to philosophical thinking, and the digital enhancements possible in blogs allow for new directions in philosophical expression.

[1] N. Katherine Hayles’ concept of techno-text is that of a digitally enhanced text that reflects back upon its own electronic medium. (Writing Machines, MIT Press, 2002)

Essay originally published on December 12, 2005 at:
http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/essay/blogs-philosophy

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The e-learning XHTML editor project, eXe for short, is an easy-to-use content authoring program.

How easy? You do not need to be knowledgeable in HTML or XML – or know what those mean, for that matter – to use eXe to generate your own e-learning content which can be put on the web or even accessed from a Learning Management System such as IVLE.

eXe is easy to use becauce of its instructional devices, or iDevices, as they are called. These iDevices are a set of tools which you can use to flesh out learning content. iDevices range from multiple-choice questions to case studies to image galleries.

Once you have chosen an iDevice, eXe lets you enter your learning content, almost like using a wizard, which guides you through the authoring process. While this approach connotes rigidity, eXe breaks the mould as it is flexible enough to help create varied and unique output based on mixing and matching various iDevices to create the pages and sections of your e-learning content.

Also, you can easily tweak the look and feel of your content by applying predefined templates or – if you are technically inclined – by getting your hands dirty and tweaking the stylesheet.

eXe is an open source program which is funded by the Tertiary Education Commission of New Zealand. Although it is currently in development, a stable version exists which users can try. As it is open source, users are encouraged to give comments about the software and even to get involved in its development.

You can try eXe by downloading it at exelearning.org.

The Information Technology landscape is a treacherous minefield. One wrong step can lead to system damage, data loss, confidentiality breaches and copyright infringement, among other deleterious consequences.

In the hope of reducing the casualties of IT abuse and misuse, Computer Centre and the Centre for Instructional Technology have collaborated to produce the IT Security Awareness courseware. Besides aiming to raise awareness of IT security issues, the courseware also emphasizes the appropriate use of NUS IT resources so that the entire NUS community can enjoy a safe and pleasant online experience.

Screenshot from the IT Security Awareness courseware

Targeted at students, this e-learning courseware consists of explanatory videos, graphics, text and quizzes. The IT Security Awareness courseware points out common misbehaviour including hacking/password sniffing, copyright infringement, email abuse and massive downloading. The courseware also highlights and encourages best security practices regarding computer/software updates, computer viruses, phishing, spyware and good password practices.

Although the courseware is targeted towards students, NUS Staff are encouraged to use this courseware as IT security measures are universally applicable to computer users.

Academic Bookmarking
The latest development in social bookmarking has taken an academic twist. Adapting the concept of sites like Furl and del.icio.us, CiteULike and connotea, provide an online space for academics to collaborate by sharing all types of academic resources.

CiteULike is designed to automatically import citations from IEEE Xplore, JSTOR and ScienceDirect – databases accessible from NUS Libraries. Both CiteULike and connotea automatically import PubMed citations. Other resources can also be bookmarked in both sites, but the entries have to be made manually.

Tracking topics is easy as RSS feeds are available for various tags. These tags are user-defined index entries which allow easy searching and retrieving of resources.

Another advantage of these academic bookmark sites is that they can be accessed anywhere there is Internet access. Accessing the same set of bookmarks from the office, the lecture theatre or the library is now possible. Besides peer-reviewed sources, connotea allows bookmarking of relevant and useful websites. CiteULike also allows this but prefers peer-reviewed resources.

Wikis | Podcasting | Furl | Mind Mapping Software | Desktop Search | Blog of interest

Wikis
You may have heard of wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. If you have not heard of it, you might be surprised that anyone can edit it. Yet this is the essence of a wiki; they are websites which are authored and edited by a community of users.

Wikis are a useful tool for collaborative learning and building content. They are also useful for collating and organizing new areas of knowledge and research.

Here are some illuminating websites which explain all you need to know about wikis.

  • Ways to use wiki in education
  • Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 95-104). Perth, 5-8 December.
    http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html

Podcasting
The convergence of mp3s, iPods and RSS has resulted in one of the latest trends in instructional technology – Podcasting. Pre-recorded audio clips are ‘podcasted’ via RSS. This method of disseminating audio content is gaining popularity among faculty in American and Canadian universities. Recorded lectures are among the audio content that can be made available through podcasting.

The podcasting process begins with educators or other users planning and recording their audio programmes/content to mp3 format (or other compressed audio formats) on their computers. The mp3 file is then uploaded to a web server. The file is linked to a RSS feed. People who are subscribed to this feed and who have suitable RSS feed readers will receive the file on their computer, as the RSS feed reader will automatically download it. All that remains is for the user to transfer this audio file to their iPod or other media players for listening at their convenience.

Furl
Furl is a new online tool which enables people to go beyond bookmarking websites. Furl users can save entire websites remotely and access them at a later date. They can also share these websites via e-mail or RSS. Users can also make their Furl list public, enabling other Furl users to see what has caught their interest.

Faculty can use Furl to share internet resources with their students. Furl also enables students to see what websites other students using Furl have bookmarked – a kind of collaborative bookmarking system.

Mind Mapping Software
Those familiar with the concept of mind mapping will find the MindManager software from Mindjet Software truly revolutionary. Combining mind mapping techniques with software, MindManager is a visual solution for knowledge and information management. The Faculty of Medicine are extensive users of MindManager.

MindManager maps can be integrated with Microsoft Office products and can contain links to online resources. Used in an educational context, MindManager assists in developing course structure and organizing course content. Since the maps are visual, students and faculty can easily conceive the entire course in a glance.

A free alternative to MindManager is FreeMind. This software provides similar mind mapping functionality for different computing platforms, while not affecting users' wallets.

Desktop Search
Desktop Search tools are now being offered by several major search engines and an information management company. These tools let users search for items on their desktop instantly, as they index the contents of users’ computers. Beyond this basic functionality, the desktop search tools vary from company to company, both in features and deployment. For example, MSN Desktop Search – part of the MSN Toolbar Suite Beta – is the only desktop search tool which features integration with Microsoft Office. Some of these tools are integrated with the browser while others are standalone applications.

While desktop searching may help ease our information overload, there are possible security and privacy concerns that potential users should be aware of before deciding to use these tools. For the time being, they are recommended for home use only.

Blog of interest
PhDweblogs.net
This website brings together international PhD students’ and researchers’ blogs. PhD students can submit their PhD or research-related blogs for listing on PhDweblogs.net. Listed blogs are classified by research area, country and language for easy reference. This website is a boon for PhD students and researchers alike, enabling them to be aware of their contemporaries' interests, insights and progress.