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•Become aware of one’s own cultural identity or identities
Benefits for the Instructors
Benefits for the Students
Structured Blogging Task
•Students are required to:
•Post after every class, field trip, guest speaker and
reading assignment
•To comment on the post of their classmates
•To ask a question, either a general question or one
directed to a specific classmate
The Cyber Notebook
November 3, 2010
Blogging Your Way to Cultural Understanding
Sylvie Debevec Henning, International Studies Program
Luci Fernandes, Department of Anthropology
“Collaborative Constructionism”*
•Collaboration "goes beyond simple interaction in the
sense that it is clearly focused on a problem or dilemma
where students are deeply engaged in purposeful
discourse to construct meaning and collaboratively
share meaning and validate understanding" (Garrison
and Akyol p. 23).
•“Blog conversations [offer students] opportunities to
reflect on course related concepts outside of the class
and to share different perspectives on the course
material.” (Halic, et al, p.)
•Blogging stimulate[s] student thinking and learning by
offering alternative perspectives related to the course
content, “triggering careful examination of the content”
and extending discussion about course content outside
of the class. (Sharma and Xie p.143)
Abstract
*Halic, et al.
INTL 1050 and ANTH 1050 are sections of the Global
Understanding class, the first taught by the director of the
International Studies program, the second by a member of the
Anthropology faculty. Both classes meet in the Global
Classroom. Class time is divided between face to face sessions
that use video conferencing and Internet chatrooms to link
ECU students with students in partner institutions around the
world. Blogging creates additional opportunities for student
interaction outside the classroom.
One of the ways we have chosen to help develop cultural
understanding is through a blog that transforms the traditional
reflective journal into an open forum of discourse. The Blog is
being used to post journal entries. The goals were for students
to reflect on what they heard and read as well as to interact
with their peers outside the classroom environment. They were
assigned the task of posting after every class, field trip, guest
speaker and reading assignment. They were required to
comment on what they learned through each activity and to
dialogue with their classmates through questions and
responses.
Peer to Peer Learning
•Democratizes the discussion
•Students develop confidence in the articulation and
development of their own ideas with a minimum of faculty
intervention
Community Building
•“Network orientation” helps students develop a social
rather than simply a writing/textual orientation (Burgess,
2006, pp. 109-110).
•Virtual international community established through
Global Classroom technology
•Sense of local community created that goes beyond the
classroom through blogging
Developing Critical Thinking Skills
•Sharing knowledge
•Validating understanding
•Becoming aware of different perspectives and
interpretations within one’s own culture
•Coming to understand that students from other
cultures may have distinctive perspectives and
interpretations
A blog is an innovative way for students to maintain the
reflective journal that is required in the Global Understanding
course. Students share reactions to course readings and
cultural observations after linking sessions with international
partners. Their interactions with one another outside the
classroom help overcome class time restrictions, expand
opportunities for peer to peer learning and create a sense of
student ownership. By democratizing discussion, the blog helps
students articulate their ideas more freely, develops critical
thinking skills and builds confidence. The technology is flexible
enough to allow for inclusion of media. So far student response
has been enthusiastic.
A shift from an old way of doing things:
• no more collecting a stack of notebooks
• quicker correction/turn around time
• Access not limited to professor
• Audience is now the entire class
•Collaborative effort
•Peer pressure: entries are not anonymous
•Students take assignment more seriously because
remarks are in an open forum
How Can Blogging Help Develop
Cultural Understanding?
Teachers, Don’t fear technology!
 Students share with their classmates a new awareness of
daily routines, customs, and behaviors in other cultures.
 Students share with their classmates what they have learned
about their partners’ feelings, concerns, values and attitudes.
 Students then compare what they have learned about other
cultures to what they know and feel about their own culture.
 Through interacting and dialoguing with their classmates,
students come to appreciate the range of perspectives that
exist around the world.
•Easier than you think (IT training and support readily
available)
•Greater access to student assignments (more often, more
flexible
•More opportunities for seeing what students have learned
and to correct misconceptions or factual errors
•Ability to customize blog to meet class needs
–Variety of formats
–Inclusion of photos, links, podcasts, vidcasts
Example of Blog Discussion
Avenues for Further Exploration
Introduction
•Including international partners in the blog dialogue
•Developing and assigning podcasts and vidcasts
Works Cited
Burgess, J. (2006). “Blogging to learn, learning to blog,” in
A. Bruns & J. Jacobs (Eds.), Uses of blogs (pp. 105-115).
New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing.
Garrison, D., & Akyol, Z. (2009). “Role of instructional
technology in the transformation of higher education.”
Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 21(1), 19-30.
Halic, O., Lee, D., Paulus, T. & Spence, M., “To blog or not
to blog: Student perceptions of blog effectiveness for
learning in a college-level course,” The Internet and Higher
Education (2010), doi: 10.1016/j.iheduc.2010.04.001
Montgomery M & H Reid-Thomas (1994) Language and
Social life, The British Council, 1994.
Ying Xie, Fengfeng Ke, Priya Sharma, “The effect of peer
feedback for blogging on college students' reflective
learning processes” Internet and Higher Education 11
(2008) 18–25.
What Do We Mean By
Cultural Understanding?
• Understanding of the diversity of cultures that exist around the
world
• Understanding that culture encompasses “the whole way of
life of a people or group” (Montgomery and Reid-Thomas,
1994:5)
• Understanding of both differences and similarities between
and among cultures
Why Should We Develop
Cultural Understanding?
• Develop curiosity toward other cultures and our own
• Challenge cultural intolerance and develop cultural tolerance
• Recognize the diversity of ways of dealing with life situations
• Develop critical thinking as citizens
• Become aware of one’s own cultural identity or identities
Conclusion
Blogging provides students with opportunities to comment on
what they have heard and read, to see what their classmates
are posting, to ask questions and to respond to the comments of
others. These peer to peer interactions are relatively rare in the
classroom and often rather artificial and stilted. Blogging
interactions are less inhibited by the classroom setting and
professorial oversight.
Students become aware of both insider and outsider
perspectives. They learn about themselves and their own culture
as they learn about other cultures. This learning is heightened
when the class includes exchange students from non-linking
countries. Thus blogging can help them develop a better sense
of their own personal identity as well as of their own
cultural/group identity.