reusable blogs proposal for blended learning

IETC - April 26-28, 2010 Istanbul, TURKEY

REUSABLE BLOGS PROPOSAL FOR BLENDED LEARNING Carlos A. TORRES-GASTELÚ – [email protected] Facultad de Administración, Universidad Veracruzana - México Ana M. ARRAS VOTA – [email protected] Facultad de Ciencias Agrotecnológicas, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua - México Abstract

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In Mexican public universities there is a growing interest to consider educative models centered in student learning, this implies a change in earning, th thi professor’s traditional roll which involves a transition from explaining contents and knowledge to activities professor supports the ies es in which pro understanding of the course key concepts. So, two Mexican universities have been working in a research project ect related with the development of ways to incorporate new technologies in the educational process. One of the purposes is to perform an evaluation incorporation of Blended ion of the incorporatio incorporat Learning in on-site classes at the university. Blended learning takes the advantages of on-site learning ning with electro electronic learning. learning. This T document show a prototype of blended learning based in Internet free tools and also in the institutional technological located in hnological ological platform of one uuniversity niversity ver the South of Mexico (Universidad Veracruzana). Keywords: Blended Learning, Blogs, Google Docs, EMINUS, Mexican public universities, es, UV, UACH. AC INTRODUCTION

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Both universities,Veracruzana and Chihuahua, are public Mexican universities flexible model based in the fact es thatt have adopted an educative ed fl that students are responsible of discovering knowledge, this implies a revalorization activities were performed by valorization alorization of the way in which whi diverse div students and professors. And of course, both universities have made efforts to incorporate ate information technologies in the process of teaching and learning. Since technology boom, both universities have developed programs and forms rms of teaching based in the use of these devices, and offer careers and postgraduate programs in the virtual mode. Nevertheless, it is important ant nt to pinpoint that in the t Veracruzana University in 2003 the EMINUS software is launched as an official platform to support thee dev development of virtual learning environment at the university. This tool is incorporated earning env envi slowly in postgraduate programs with certain reserve and bachelor programs nd in bac ba ms with ith scarce impact. Nevertheless, the efforts that were done in the Information Technology Area (DGTI) prosper in thee emission 2. emission of o a new and improved roved ved EMINUS EM

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Although efforts were not solely made in internal ernal al development, but also al als evaluation on free tools from the Web 2.0 were done. Specifically the first author of this document has been using teaching ng blogs ogs in teachi ng since ce 2006. 20 2006 Each school period he has created new blogs for the same classes, adding new aspects, with the disadvantage with age ge of begging from cero, w ithh practi ppractically the same information, until 2009 when the creation of reusable blogs.

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With the design and application mentioned above was solved and enrichment of the function and content of blogs is n of reusable blogs the problem mentio attained to the point that allows ws elaboration of a prototype to apply them as a platform in a model of Blended Learning. Advances presented in n this document correspond correspon to a rresearch project that considers the inner informatics development of Universidad Veracruzana - the Public Veracruz - (Eminus 2), as well as free technologic tools such as Blogs from Blogger, with the ublic State University of Veracru purpose to evaluate students ate te their use and acceptance ac by st tuden courses in the Management Faculty. Both technological ological ical tools are characterized char d by b the easiness of Access, while EMINUS 2 is consulted through the account given by the university to students and can be consulted insi inside net, as well as outside of it. And the access to interact by Blogs is made through a free de the university´s univ un account created in the Blogger Blogg site. Also both toolss have been officially adopted. In EMINUS 2 any professor can have access with their account and university access key to their academic assigned Blogs have incorporated to the Academic Training Program (PROFA) of the Academic Development Area (DGDA) d load. And Blog as a course, with the purpose purpos of bringing technologies of Web 2.0 closer to teachers. Specifically, since the period of January-February 2008, the Veracruzana Universityy has been offering a course to their teachers with respect to the use of Weblogs in education. This type of courses are also b offered in the University of Chihuahua through the University Center of Teachers Development.

At this point the course has been taught in both universities, and can be point out that it has been imparted four times in the diverse regions of the Veracruzana University (Poza Rica – Tuxpan, Xalapa, Veracruz, Orizaba-Córdoba and Coatzacoalcos-Minatitlan). One of the authors has been the professor in these courses. Nevertheless, this study only considers courses in the Management Faculty of the Veracruzana University in the first author´s classes, and some students have made contributions in the design of the courses. This model will be replicated al the University of Chihuahua by the second author in the research classes in the Agrotechnological Sciences and Accounting and Business Faculties. Through this process it has been proved the fact that public Mexican universities face difficulties to appropriate of new learning modalities based in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). As an example of this, Santos, Galán and Del Olmo (2005) said that it is relevant to define exactly what can we get with ICT in order to make a correct programming and efficient communication with student.

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And another two problems arise: limited knowledge of professors in relation to new technologies such as blogs applied in teaching, and the second one is related to the inertia of a system in which students generally runs away from any protagonist adventure that demand too much effort. Nevertheless, we will concentrate in presenting one of the prototypes done for the course, Evaluation and Management Projects. (See http://eegep.blogspot.com). Evidence found indicate that the efforts to incorporate free technological tools are a sign of intangible value that is attained in the process of university formation of students through the courses in the study programs. BLENDED LEARNING IN THE UNIVERSITY

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Landaeta (2003) affirms that Blended Learning is: “a modality of mix teaching that combines the formation with new ation tion of on-site formation fo technologies (e-learning)”. We are agree with this definition, so it is necessary to review the current situation incorporation of Blended tion during the incorpora incorpor Learning in the university. Bartolomé and Aiello (2006:10) consider that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) T) assimilation assimilation could be an opportunity opportun because opport the students should develop enough competences to play in our society. This society has making But ng a lott of relevant changes around d information. in that could happen only if that assimilation of those technologies is performed answering the challenges always looking for lenges of the changes and aal quality. That quality is related with the research of the optimal conditions in order to the students ts could develo develop their critic, crit professional and academic competences.

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In this sense, Cabero (2006) express that the current problems are not technological, gical, l, bu bbutt problems ms are to figure out “what to know”, “how to do it”, and “why we want to do it”. However, this is not an easy task because itt is required in the professors and require uired d to develop skills skil and competences com also the students. Also Marqués (2006) emphasize in the necessity to acquire quire also instrumental instrumental compete competences to use the programs and resources available in Internet, but above all it is imperative to acquire didactic competences means in their job as a professor. Due that ompetences mpetences to usee all of the ICT mean m this kind of professor has to play many positions (mediator, advisory, organizer of learning, to motivate, ry,, tutor, to coach, source off information, informa and so on). So, this becomes in a titanic task if we consider that a lot of our professors Public Universities lack of the skills and technical ssors in the he Mexican Pu P knowledge to incorporate them as a part of their daily academic adem work. Nevertheless, ertheless, ss, this is not no happening only in Mexico, for instance Rakes and Casey (2002), affirm that many professors, even the most experienced, have been ost experi een incapable to use the technology in an effective way in their job.

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Besides of the technological and didactic problems forget process involves migrate from an On-site Teaching way ems ms we should not fo rg that the change h han to a Blended Learning Teaching way. However, make a constant efforts to valuate new didactic alternatives that ver, it is imperative that as academics aac offers Internet. We must to follow the instructions (2006) to point out that we have to become academic leaders that play structions ons proposed by Cabero abero (2 with the innovation, the creativity and principles,, avoiding the fear that every change generates it. In order to do that we as d the risk as our o principles avoi academics need to emphasize in the develop of didactic strategies and competences that we will be creating through study cases, learning circles com c and of course prototypes that reflects ects cts how we can do it step by step.

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In this sense, this document explain the way waay iin which the authors have been played with the innovation presenting the advances performed by an academic that began in 2006 006 with the incorporation incorporat of Web 22.0 tools such as blogs. This has been a very slow and progressive process trying to understand and assimilate in the ate how to use Blended Blendedd Learning Learn t university. According to ourr experience Blended supported by blogs help students to be a bit more responsible of their own learning. Of Blende Learning modality moda oda course it is necessary ecessary cessary a lot of participation parti of the pprofessor in the planning of the academic activities that must to publish in collaboration with other students during oral validation process when the professor decide to do it. In this way learning ents and nd be capable to t defendd his hi position po evidences ess are created during the course for the physical and personal interaction, readings and critic of his own individual work, such as his virtual work in the Teams of the class. ork that perform with their companions compa comp The final goal that we want to get in the future is to develop a tested Blended Learning prototype based in Web 2.0 tools. In order to do that we will analyze the viability both perspectives students and professors to elaborate a proposal that implies the systematic use of iability of use considering c new technologies in Mexica Universities to act as a continuous learning mechanism. Mexican U EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION PROJECT

Taking in consideration the Academic Development Plan of the Management Faculty of Veracruzana University (a South Public State University in Veracruz, Mexico) emerge the Educational Innovation Project. One purpose of this project is the habilitation of virtual learning environments. Although this project is defined in the state of Veracruz, due to the strong collaboration with the Chihuahua University (a North Public State University in Chihuahua, Mexico) actually this project has been performed by a group of research academics. The idea is eventually to assimilate Blended Learning designing and testing ways according to Mexican reality. We know that Blended Learning has been accepted in many universities around the world, buy we want to verify if Blended Learning could be a good option to on-site educational spaces for competences evaluation.

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Although the main purpose of the Educational Innovation Project is to design and implement virtual courses in all the study programs of the Management Faculty, just one study program – Computer Science - has been selected. Three different techonological platforms has been used for this purpose: EMINUS (institutional platform), Blogs (created in Blogger), and Wikis (Wikispaces). EMINUS is the institutional technological platform used for virtual courses in the Veracruzana University. It is an internal software development with similar functions like MOODLE. EMINUS contains several bachelor and master degree courses of this university. Mean time reusable Blog are located in Blogger and the main characteristic is their capability to be used in later courses. Finally, the incorporation of Wikis has been doing using Wikispaces tool. In order to implement reusable blogs and EMINUS, a specific project was created and called: Use of teaching – learning technological tools for the study program of Computer Science in the Management Faculty. In that way we could design, test and create a prototype to replicate in other study program and universities.

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The goals of this specific Project are: x Design and implement in four courses of an on-site educational program according to the Blended ed Learning earning model. x Analyze the academics and students perception of Blogs and EMINUS. x Evaluate the efficiency of the incorporation of technological tools in the teaching – learning ngg process. pr x Identify the barriers in the process of formation of technological habits in the students and nd academics. academ

This document shows advances in the prototype design developed to be incorporated in reusable usable blogs ogs for subsequent courses and a the correlation with others technological tools. In other to get a better understanding we will take the case of one course (Ev (Evaluation and Management of Projects) that belongs to the Computer Science study program. REUSABLE BLOG PROTOTYPE OTOTYPE OTY

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The design, develop and implementation of the Blog will be explain answering wering ering four basic questions: (A) How H is organized the reusable blog?; (B) Which are the support technological tools?; (C) How the design of thee course was made?; and (D) How op operate the course based in the reusable blog?. The organization of the reusable blog (A) can be seen in the Figure 1. The numbers of the figure 1 show the four sections of the Blog. Section fi (1) HEADER shows the name of the Blog. In this case corresponds to Evaluation Management Projects (EE GEP: Experiencia Educativa on and Manag Gestión y Evaluación de Proyectos). The Section (2) POST the graphicc space for the visualization of the selected contents. Available OST represents re sections are: Course Content, Rules, Following the Course ourse and Tags. Ta T

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Figure 1 Fi

The course is composed sed by se several v units. Each unit has several sections or themes of concepts or information. So, the course content includes the material of each subjectt for each unit with the mention of the material source, information for this theme, images, tables, diagrams and links to download all these material. Also, includes the activities tables, where are described the activities of each unit. These tables have details about the description of the activities, their codes, assignation dates and delivery dates, validation dates, who will perform the activity, the state of the activity (if is an optional activity or mandatory activity), and the way to evaluate the activity. Besides each activity have a link that show a full description of the activity and the links to download all the available material to perform it.

The section of rules show general information about the course: Study Program, Competences to Develop, Minimal Description, Booklist, Course Material, Operations Criterions and the Scholar Calendar. It is important to explain that the programming of the themes, units, activities and evaluations of the course is organized taking in consideration the week number of the course instead of an specific date. In that way we could reuse the course in later years.

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On the other hand, the section of Following the course contains the support material for the development of the activities. While in the section Tags is responsible to categorize the labels of the Blog. The section (3) LEFT SIDE BAR shows the links of “Course Content” which is divided by units and themes. Also shows the links to the activities tables for each units. The content of these links can be seen in the section of “Post of the blog”. Finally, the section (4) RIGHT SIDE BAR is used for the links to the “Rules”, “Following the course” and “Tags”. The support technological tools (B) used for the course were Blogger, Google Docs and EMINUS. In Blogger all of the blogs were created. It is the main interface of the course and contains all necessary information to study, themes, activities, booklist, material to download, and so on. Google Docs was used to store support material to study and is also the recommended tool that student could use to publish, browse, upload and download documents. This tool store documents that must be published by each Team Blog. Finally, EMINUS is the institutional technological platform to elaborate and apply on-line theoretical tests, there is at least one by each unit.

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For the design course elaboration (C) we take in consideration the study program of the course, but it wass necessary to elab elaborate the estimated advance detailing for each unit their purpose taking in consideration how and when the technological tools the “What”, ools will be used. It means mea me “How” and “Why” about the contents, activities and evaluations. Each unit has a set of contents, so it was necessary What essary to answer the question: qu q do the students need to learn?. Inherent to the develop of each theme it is associated with a set of competences expected mpetences that is expect ed to develop de devel in each student. It means, the skills attending to the question: What do the students must know how? Also, o, was designed the stablishment stablishment of o the th activities for each unit as the academic as the students. Answering two questions: What the academic need too do to help the students to lea learn? And What le the students must do to learn?.

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Finally, a set of learning products were defined to act as a parameters for the evaluation. work with the students in tion. The strategy adopted was to wo teams. Each team has their own team blog to publish, and only members of the team am m and the professor can have access acce acces to the team blog. In that way the students published learning evidences in their own team blog, and laterr the an specific th professor professor or dedicate ded speci session to make an oral evaluation to validate all the material published and have an idea about what have been students. een assimilated by the students The way to carry out the course (D) was made through the use of three ee blogs: Course Blog, Blog, Student Bl Blog and Team Blog. The management of the Course Blog is made by the professor and contains all necessary modality of Blended Learning. Student Blog is y elements to incorporate inc incorporate rate the modali modalit also controlled by the professor, but here the students could have communication comments in the posts published. For mmunication with wit the professor ofessor using u the Team Blog is necessary to follow the instructions published in thee Rules section th that belongs on to the Course Blog. These three blogs are linked in this way: The Course Blog gives access to the Student Blog by a link in the Following lowing Course Cours section located in the RIGHT SIDE BAR. In the other hand, inside Student Blog is possible to have access the LEFT SIDE BAR. Of course it is possible in the ss to the Team Blog og usingg a link in tth Student Blog and Team Blog to return directly to Course rse Blog.

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CONCLUSIONS CONCL NCL Mexican universities have a growing demand to attend more students each day, and they need to optimize their resources. In this sense, the incorporation of Information and Communication ommunicati mmuni on Technologies could bbe an acceptable alternative to strength the teaching – learning process, to develop collaboration skills and too promote a critic sense in the students. student Because of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) becomes a rational way for different modalities: dalities: On-site and Electronic or Virtual. Vir

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So, the determination of the in Blended lessons at the university could be the way to cover some of the necessities in he efficiency effi Blende Learning during du Mexican universities. Inn order to consider that as a valid alternative, the design of Blended Learning prototypes becomes in a useful resource to al measure the efficiency. ncy. Preliminary results in the use of o the t proposal prototype indicated a moderate acceptation for the professor and the students in the change management anagement nagement process involved i So far the designn and implementation of thre threee courses were finished using reusable blogs. Also the perception of the students in two courses has thr c been done. ne. However, several points remain pending for the near future. For instance, the purpose that refers to evaluate the efficiency in the incorporation during the teaching-learning process, and the identification of the barriers in technological habits in the tion of technologic technological ttools ools ls duri durin students and professors. profess

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REFERENCES Bartolomé, A. (2002). Universidades en la Red. ¿Universidad www.lmi.ub.es/personal/bartolome/articuloshtml/bartolomeSPcritica02.pdf

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Greciet, P. (2003). Los métodos didácticos más eficaces: aprendizaje colaborativo y práctico. Educaweb, Nº 69. Monográfic Monográfico sobre Formación Virtual. Retrieved October 15, 2009 from http://www.educaweb.com/esp/servicios/monografico/formacionvirtual/1181109.asp Landaeta, A. (2003). Acerca del blended-learning. Educaweb, Nº 69. Monográfico sobre Formación mación ión Virtual. Retrieved March 115, 2010 from http://www.educaweb.com/esp/servicios/monografico/formacionvirtual/1181079.asp Marqués G. P. (2006). Buenas prácticas didácticas en el uso de las TIC. Las claves dell éxito. Retrie Retrieved February Febru 1, 2010 from http://dewey.uab.es/pmarques/cantabria2006.htm

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Peña, K., Torres, R. (2007). Edublogs: Apuntando a una didáctica constructivista sta en la red. Blog og sobre sob los edublogs. edublog Retrieved December 20, 2009 en: http://metaedublog.wordpress.com/edublogs-apuntando-a-una-didactica-constructivista-en-la-red ctica-constructivista-en-la-red nstructivista-en-la-re Rakes, G., Casey, H. (2002). An analysis of teacher concerns toward instructional structional technology. Internation International Journal of Educational Technology, 3 (1).

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Santos M. J., Galán J. M., Del Olmo R. (2005). Nuevas estrategias de enseñanza: experiencia experiencia con Weblogs. Retrieved November 18, 2009 from http://www.adingor.es/Documentacion/CIO/cio2005/items/ponencias/120.pdf 0.pdf

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