EduBlogging for Learning Partnerships

Based on the podcast and written notes found on http://edublogging.posterous.com/ I am summarizing some main points of the use of edublogs by independent learners within private learning spaces.

The first assumption I feel needs to be questioned is that learners not posting publicly to their blog or participating through posting or commenting on the group edublog are in fact merely lurking.

The second assumption I have often encountered in articles and in blogs is that the activity of lurking seems to be passive, and thereby less important for learners, and the activity of collaborative learning seems to be identified as the ideal.

The reality is that the nature of the activity of learners engaging in indirect, connective, learning
via lurking, is not as passive as many theorists assume. A great deal of learning actually occurs this way. This “lurking” needs to be cultivated, encouraged, and built into structured instruction, and not ignored and considered less useful, less important.

I discuss the role of solo edublogging, as well as blogging activity involving learning partnerships between the mentor and student. Neither of these blogging spaces are ever made public. In the case of solo blogging, the individual learner typically does not open up their edublog to the mentor.

A great deal of my own ideas have gone through a private drafting space, and I received feedback for these ideas through email from my course mentor. Much of the preliminary work never reaches the public edublog in me2u or in posterous. They are kept private, and worked on till they are ready for presentation to others.

Oftentimes, after some time is spent developing skills and knowledge required for effective solo edublogging, the interaction between the learning partner and the student within the edublogging learnign space itself, is the next phase of edublogging that most students need to feel comfortable with before being ready to post to a wider audience.

Interestingly, these two steps towards becoming autonomous bloggers are yet supported. Learners currently need to blog publicly, often before they feel they are ready to do so.