Taking Blog as a Platform of Learning Reflective

Journal

Hsien Tang Lin1 and Shyan Ming Yuan2

1
Dept. of Computer and Information Science, Tahwa Institute of Technology
#1 Tahwa Rd. Chulin Hsinchu Taiwan 307
aehtl@et4.thit.edu.tw
2
Department of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University
1001 Ta Hsueh Road, Hsinchu, Taiwan 300
smyuan@cis.nctu.edu.tw

Abstract. Thinking is as important as learning. It is one of important and effec-

tive learning approaches by recording and reflecting student’s own learning atti-
tude and learning performance and referring to others’ learning portfolio daily.
Although many of students know this approach, but seldom of them put this ap-
proach into action owing to the problem of preserving content of reflection and
learning portfolio. In this paper, a networked learning reflection mechanism
based on blog service is presented. Students can make their learning reflection
and view others’ with ease. An experiment was conducted at an Institute of
Technology upon system completion. The experimental results show that there
is a positive correlation between students’ learning performance and attitude of
learning reflection. It reveals that students who have better learning perform-
ance tend to make more reflection on their learning. More than 80% of students
express this mechanism has positive affection on their learning.

1 Introduction
People usually acquire knowledge through education. The competitiveness of a nation
relies heavily on its citizen’s educational or knowledge level. How to provide an ade-
quate learning environment and system to its citizens is a very important part of the
function of government. Researchers and educators have proposed and advocated
many educational practices and theorems in the last century in an attempt to make
student learning more successful.
In computer nomenclature, logging is a process used to record all events that have
occurred on a computer or web system. This logged data, which is arranged in a
chronological manner, serves as useful information to trace activities of system, such
as system alerts, user login/logout time, or system malfunction records. Occasionally,
computer users record their working diary in a similar manner. Information exchange
became simple and convenient when the web became public. A computer user can
easily share his/her logging information with others, and vice versa. In 1997, John
Barger and Robot Wisdom coined the term “Weblog”. They defined it as “A Web
page where a web logger ‘logs’ all the other web pages he/she finds interesting” [1].
Since then, the term weblog has assumed various other identities, such as “web log”,
“blog”, or “edulog”. The most commonly used term is blog.

W. Liu, Q. Li, and R.W.H. Lau (Eds.): ICWL 2006, LNCS 4181, pp. 38 – 47, 2006.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006
 Taking Blog as a Platform of Learning Reflective Journal 39

Von Glasersfeld claimed that knowledge is constructed actively by individuals.

Knowledge that isolates from people’s own experience will not have any meaning to
people [2]. Chang & Lo [2] view from this point and conclude that if learners do not
actively participate into learning activity, the learning process is hardly to happen no
matter how teachers work hard to teach. From learner’s point of view, learners should
adjust their learning direction by understanding their learning behavior through reflec-
tion on reflective journal during knowledge construction process. In such a way, the
predefined objectives are likely achieved. This viewpoint conforms to Yancy’s view-
point [3]. Yancy described reflection as simultaneously looking forward (to goal that
might be obtained) and looking backward (to see what has been accomplished) [4].
Educational institutions have been implementing reflective journals for more than a
decade around the world [5]. Occasionally, people use some other similar terms such
as learning reflection, learning reflection, log-book entry, diary writing, or simply
personal journals. Woodward [5] developed an assessment procedure through the use
of reflective journals and portfolios that allows final semester students to track their
growth. In this settlement, students who have completed this assessment have com-
mented that they have learned more through this assessment than from any other such
activity. Kember et al. clamed that successful professionals need to reflect upon their
actions has been widely accepted [6]. The reason is that most tasks they perform in-
volve novel elements to which there are no defined solutions. Accordingly, develop
students’ abilities to reflect upon their actions is one of points course educating pro-
fessionals should aim to.
Shuman, Besterfield-Sacre, & Miller claimed that reflective journal could be kept
electronically and code using qualitative analysis software [4]. Lin & Kuo took a
preliminary study on using blog as a platform for learning reflection and found that
students are willing to use such a networked based platform [7]. To investigate how
such a networked mechanism affect on student learning, another blog system was
built and a serial experiment were conducted.

2 BLOG
Web-based learning came into vogue with www service. The emergence of blog lets
everyone have an opportunity to become a journalist. With the convenient editing
tools of weblog and the expansion of network connections, people can share their own
thinking and comments with others around the world. Blog is a kind of media in
which people can spontaneously express their own viewpoints and get support from
others holding the same viewpoints. Chou [8] stated that “weblog is a more delicate
record of learning, thinking and working. The author may improve writing skill and
thinking performance through daily data sorting and writing”. We believe the greatest
advantage of blog is sharing and interaction, which further promotes professional
sharing and cooperation. Blogspace is a plentiful and versatile social environment in
which different layers of learning are allowed. At the bottom are the individual blog-
gers, who can be defined in terms of age, geography, and interests. In the middle is a
web of friendships between pairs of bloggers. At the top is the evolution of activity
that can be tracked over time [9].
Generally speaking, there has been no official definition of a Blog term or a Blog
website. If a website constructor (called webmaster) wanted to share information and