Blogging

A very good example of an educational blog is thelearningprofessor of Professor John Field (University of Stirling). It is available at https://thelearningprofessor.wordpress.com. 

This is one of three blogs that I will be using in a course I am currently developing about adult education in the online dimension. The other blogs are The Learning Age by Paul Stanistreet, available at https://thelearningage.wordpress.com and Where the Blog Has No Name by E Wayne Ross, available at http://blogs.ubc.ca/ross/. The students will also be asked to follow John Field's tweets and new postings on his academia.edu page.

Like most blogs thelearningprofessor is made up of entries or posts that appear in reverse chronological order with the most recent entry appearing first. After each post come the comments which often develop into discussions triggered by Field's ideas. Like other blogs it also shares features such as the search facility, a list of links to 'recent posts' and 'archives', 'categories', 'META' and 'blogroll' widgets on the narrower right-hand column. It also has plugins  that automatically share a new post details to all the most popular social networking tools, including Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, Reddit and Facebook, a plugin to share the post by email, a Wordpress 'like' button, and another to convert the post into an easy-to-print document. The sidebar (right column) offers two ways to follow the blog: an RSS feed and email.

I integrated this blog into the online course mainly becasue John Field is a prolific writer in the fileds of adult education and lifelong learning, as his bio attests. The posts in his blog provide short, straight-to-the point and personal essays which, however, convey the same feelings and ideas present in his more profound and longer publications. Therefore, they are perfect introductions to John Field for students who are new to the writer, and his research interests. The posts are also easy to read and highly accessible to students.

The blog with its clean layout, minimalist design and, the author's use of perfect grammar, is also a model of good design for an educational blog. In my course it will be used for three teaching needs: (i) to provide short essays intended to stimulate asynchronous discussions, (ii) as an example of a blog to initiate a discussion on adult informal education, and (iii) as an example of good practice for a student project involving the development of a personal blog.