Web Blogs and Online Discussions as Tools to Promote Reflective Practice (Pedro Hernandez-Ramos)

As someone with no prior knowledge of the use of blogs, Pedro Hernández-Ramos’ article on reflective learning opened my eyes to the many potential educational benefits there seems to be through the use of blogs. Certainly the opening point about students thinking more about what they write, due to the more ‘authentic audience’ is something I find is interesting. Writing in this blog is the first real piece of writing I am doing which goes beyond the article reaching more people than a teacher or corrector. In school the limitations of my feedback came from the almost indistinguishable handwritten comments of my English and Hstory teacher, but on a blog, people’ s ability to comment on posts adds an entirely new dimension to  the feedback you can receive. Hernandez-Ramos comments that for some ‘feelings of ambivalence and even anxiety crop up’ in writing on blogs, which is understandable especially for people who are new to blogs and exposing their writing on a more public forum.

                Hernandez-Ramos points to the simplicity of setting up the blog by clicking on various options. Certainly from my own point of view I came to the class with a sense of apprehension that I wouldn’t be able to cope with the ‘technical matters’  which Hernandez-Ramos mentions, but as  I am now writing on my blog, I seem to have overcame that monumental hurdle unscathed.

                Another point that struck me in the article was how a blog is an entirely new way of engaging with topics on a course. Blogs seem to have the ability to engage people and express their opinions more rather than students acting as ‘consumers of knowledge’ as Hernandez-Ramos says. Blogs may be useful as a way of expression for people who are shyer about speaking out in a classroom environment.

                While Hernandez-Ramos outlines the possibilities of interaction between class mates commenting on each others posts he also points out that ‘the online discussion forum experience did not develop as the intellectual agora that the instructor and many others ... envisioned for this medium.’ He puts this down to the possibility of time commitments but I feel that students would also possibly feel very reluctant to comment or even criticise the work of their own peers.

                Hernandez-Ramos’ article summed up by stating that by getting students to write blogs and engage in online discussions they are successful in promoting reflective writing and I would agree that blogs can encourage students to engage with the course and express themselves more than being solely reliant on classroom discussions.