What are the strengths and weaknesses of blogging for supporting collaborative working?

Introduction

In the time before web logs (blogs) collaboration was done through e-mail and newsgroups, this was a very functional and effective for it’s time (mid 90’s) but in the 21st century, new technologies are constantly changing the way people learn and how they are taught. Blogs “take as much skill as sending an email”¹, and enable the technically “challenged” post articles about progress and concerns and receive feedback from those in the community or the entire web depending on the blog settings.

“Blogging is not about choosing a topic and writing responses for the rest of the term. It is about meaningful, thoughtful engagement with ideas.”²

Strengths
Collaborative working is strengthened by blogs, most blog websites can be searched for “labels” or “categories” and the search function will return blogs with similar labels/categories. This allows the user to view international blogs, do research on similar articles and possibly begin networking with other bloggers. Blogging reinforces the learning/working environment, peers, colleagues, teachers etc can leave comments with their opinion and suggest ways in which the student, colleague can improve or expand.

Blogs can be used as an inexpensive but effective distribution tool; many of the features in a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) can be recreated, such as controlled access to content and students accessing tasks online. The virtual environment also has more advantages for the user in terms of being able to communicate across a broader audience, submit work from any computer and voice opinions they may be too shy to say in a physical environment.

Weaknesses

Human interaction is fundamental to learning³ and development, with the increase of distance/web based learning this idea becomes obsolete and users will lack the ability to interact or communicate outside a virtual environment. Relying on blogs as distribution tools may encourage the learner adapt a “don’t need to go in” approach to learning. This has a negative impact on the user, causing them to miss physical classes and socially interact with their peers. The power of collaboration in the virtual environment is damaged also and many people would see it only as a means to distribute tasks and collect work when collaboration is much more effective in learning.

Reference:
1. Richardson, William (2006), Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
2. Glogowski, Konrad (2007), "Blog of proximal development", [accessed 17 Feb 2008].
3. Walder, P. (2007), Learning Technologies Lecture Notes, University of the west of Scotland