In Germany openly accessible blogs for student education on the undergraduate level are still not very common. After explaining the ideas behind using a blog students were given the assignment to post at least two own entries and to comment at least five times on an openly accessible blog during the semester. The blog was centred on a common topic and all students were invited to the blog.

1. Acceptance, Usage,
and Communication Patters of a
Blogging Exercise for Students
Ulrich Schrader
mail@ulrich-schrader.de
http://info.ulrich-schrader.de

2. Content
by Adriaan Bloem
• Weblogs
• Application in Education
• Exploratory study
• Results of the study
• Lessons learned
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

3. Weblogs (Blogs)
Entries (posts) are organized in a reverse chronological order (diary)
•
Others can comment on each entry
•
• 5 features typical (Paquet 2003)
– Personal editorship
– A hyperlinked structure of posts often linking to content on the
internet
– Frequent updates
– Free public access to the content via the internet
– Posts are archived
• RSS-Feeds
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

4. Blogs in Education
• Acceptance, Attitude well studied
• Not all applications were successful
Partly due to technical problems
(Review: Farmer and Bartlett-Bragg, 2005 )
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

5. Typical Application
• One blog for all students
• One task
• Required number of posts per students
• Required number of comments by students
• Fixed time frame
• In school environments access often limited to students and
teachers, or defined groups
(Example: Cooper and Boddington 2005)
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

6. Exploratory Study
by Kazze
• Questions
– How do students cope with such an exercise
– Are there specific patterns or strategies
emerging
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

7. Study Group
• Winter semester 2006/2007
by RichardAM
• 29 nursing management students
• Part time students employed as nurse managers
parallel to their studies
• Job experience prerequisite to study in this track
• → Older students than usual!
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

8. Blog Assignment
• Students were invited to the blog
• Write 2 own posts and comment on 5 others
• Time frame: 153 days
(November 17th, 2006 to April 18th, 2007 )
• Common topic
– Research literature or the internet for sources that
mention advantages of nursing information systems
over traditional paper based solutions and write a
short critical appraisal of the source and its contents.
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

9. The Blog
• Realized using Blogger (Google)
• Freely visible
– Not actively advertised
• Students could use an alias for blogging
• Blogger records date and time of a post or
comment
• No data when posts or comments are only read
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

10. First Reaction of Students
• At first apprehensive about being seen world-wide and by
fellow students
• Discussion about professionalism and using names on the
internet
– Last name and initial of first name (4)
– First name or known nickname (16)
– Fantasy name (9)
• First external visitor leaving a comment after one week (total
of 5)
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

11. When did students start the
exercise?
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

12. Number of students
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
17.11.2006
24.11.2006
01.12.2006
08.12.2006
15.12.2006
22.12.2006
29.12.2006
Early adopters
05.01.2007
12.01.2007
19.01.2007
26.01.2007
Date
02.02.2007
09.02.2007
16.02.2007
Procrastinators
23.02.2007
02.03.2007
Cummulative frequency of students started with exercise
09.03.2007
16.03.2007
23.03.2007
30.03.2007

13. Number of students
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
17.11.2006
24.11.2006
01.12.2006
08.12.2006
15.12.2006
22.12.2006
29.12.2006
05.01.2007
12.01.2007
19.01.2007
26.01.2007
Date
02.02.2007
Day in computer lab
09.02.2007
Christmas
16.02.2007
23.02.2007
Lecture-free
02.03.2007
Cummulative frequency of students started with exercise
09.03.2007
16.03.2007
23.03.2007
30.03.2007

14. How long were students active in
the blog?
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

15. Duration of activity
6
10 days
5 5 5
5
number of students
4
3
2 2 2 2 2 2
2
1 1
1
0
0
0-1 2-5 6-10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91-100
duration

16. Duration of activity
6
Publishing Communicating
5 5 5
5
number of students
4
3
2 2 2 2 2 2
2
1 1
1
0
0
0-1 2-5 6-10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91-100
duration

17. Duration of activity vs. date of first entry
100
90
The duration of activity of
students in the late group
80
duration of activity (days)
was significantly less than
70
in the early group.
60
(α = 5%)
50
40
30
20
10
0
09.11.2006 09.12.2006 08.01.2007 07.02.2007 09.03.2007 08.04.2007
date of first entry by student student

18. Concurrent activity
04.04.2007
Date of start and end of activity
15.03.2007
23.02.2007
03.02.2007
About 8 students were
14.01.2007
active at any given time
25.12.2006
05.12.2006
15.11.2006
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
Students

19. Who did comment on whose posts?
• 2 strategies tested
– I comment on posts with a common topic
– I comment on your post, you comment on my
post
Both strategies could not be seen!
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

20. Distribution of time difference between post and comment
70
65
60
Posts in temporal proximity to the time of
50
activity were most often commented.
Frequency
40
→ Workload minimizing strategy
30
20
20
14
10
8 8
10 6
3 3
2 2 2
1 0
0
10-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
130-139
60-69
70-79
90-99
100-109
110-119
0-9
80-89
120-129
Days

21. Limitations (1)
• The blog was observed with Google
Analytics
• Unfortunately no possibility to separate
only reading visitors into students and
external visitors
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

22. Limitations (2)
• Only small group of students (n = 29)
• Significantly older than other students
• Part time students in demanding jobs with family
responsibilities
• Managing background → quot;Lone wolf syndromquot;
• Probably biased towards work saving strategies
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

23. Problems
by iirraa
• Login
– Login-process not understood by some
– Invitation mails lost or not answered
– Difference between learning management system and
Blogger not understood by some
– Change of login procedure due to Google acquiring
Blogger
• Formatting problems due to copy and paste from
text processor to Blogger
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

24. The blog was read
in the German-speaking countries
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

25. Lessons learned
by sindesign
• Assure that all students sign on
and start posting early
• Advertise blog - external visitors seem to motivate
• Encourage a strategy of: quot;Do small pieces at a time
and wait for others to respond. Build on their
responses!quot;
• Probably having personal blogs and individual topics
could be better
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

26. Summary
• Blogging was accepted as challenging and motivating
• Writing style seems to have improved
• Having an audience seems to be motivating
• Some technical problems still remain
• The blog was more used for publishing than communication
(quot;Do the work and get it done quickly!quot;)
• To engage the students for a prolonged time could NOT be
met for about half of the students
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences

27. … und where can I find
more information?
Just go to
http://www.ulrich-schrader.de
Thank you!
Photo by Stephen Downes
Ulrich Schrader, FH Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences