THE USE OF WEBLOGS IN HIGHER EDUCATION:
BENEFITS AND BARRIERS

RELATED WORK

Weblogs are defined as “personal web pages written in chronological diary form and maintained through weblogging software”.

Benefits: 1. Students can share their results with others 2.students can
focus on content 3.students learn about web page creation in an intuitive way.

WEBLOG TYPES, USES AND ADVANTAGES

Types

Style: there are the interactive weblogs and the closed weblogs mostly based on whether
the weblog author allows for comments on the weblog.

Content: there are many sorts of weblogs: personal topics, political/social/economic commentaries, information technology, etc.

Merging the styles and the contents, some types are suggested: personal journal, links galores,
interactive commentary, one-way commentary, hodge-podge, etc.

Uses

There are many uses for weblogs in many fields: providing commentary and opinions; expressing deeply felt emotions; articulating ideas through writing; and forming and maintaining community forums. Certainly, these motivations are not mutually exclusive and might come into play simultaneously.

Advantages

  1. Weblogs are easy to setup and administrate in contrast to other technologies 2. 24/7 (anytime, anywhere) access to information posted in weblogs 3.Instructor does not need to periodically request the learning logs to the students

BENEFITS

  1. The first and foremost benefit of weblogs in HEIs is their use as e-learning tools. This way, the
    teaching-learning process can continue outside the classroom.

BARRIERS

  1. System administrators tend to be restrictive in installing new software.
  1. Even though most weblogs are hosted in public, free ASPs, learning weblogs should be hosted in private servers, so that they do not show neither advertisements nor banners (which are the most common method of ASPs financing).

2.Collaborative weblogs support team work and group learning.

3.The use of weblogs (new technologies) prepares students better for the current labour market.

SECURITY CONCERNS

  1. Should there be a concern about people posting under other people's names?
  1. Is it always preferable to have classroom discussions done publicly? Should all these weblogs be open to the entire blogosphere or is there value in having discussions open to class participants only? This does not mean that only students in the classroom should be able to comment, but in general whether the readership should always be a wider audience.
  1. What happens with the information once it is published? As a final point, people should be aware of the future effects of the information hosted in a weblog, since, as Nielsen has pointed out, yesterday’s a comment may be read by future employers.