Using blogs to support group work

Jessie Tsang and Andrew Ho
Caritas Francis Hsu College
Hong Kong SAR, China


Web 2.0 refers to a new generation of web-based services -- such as social networking sites, wikis, blogs, social software, RSS feeds and folksonomies -- that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users to generate new information and knowledge. In this new wave of development, users no longer just surf the Web but generate ways for other users to engage in and establish their presence on the Web. Among the Web 2.0 technologies, web-logs (or blogs) have provided a web-based personal publishing platform for anyone who wants to establish a unique presence on the Web and to share with everyone his/her experience, profile, achievements, etc. A blog not only contains explicit knowledge about the user (or blogger), but also includes tacit knowledge about how the blogger went about his/her daily business or tasks. Currently, the Technorati search engine on blogs worldwide is tracking 112.8 million blogs (Technorati 2008).

Group work has always been practised in the classroom and many teachers assume that when students work in groups this will induce automatic collaboration, synergy, better quality work and learning from one another. However, some research (e.g. Hanson 2006) has shown that simply placing students in groups without preparation can result in their being ineffective as team players, as well as inducing conflict and unequal participation among group members. Group work does not necessarily result in higher academic achievement for all the members involved.

At Caritas Francis Hsu College, a pilot study into how blogs can support group work is underway in the course 'Integrated Project' taken by Year 3 students in the Higher Diploma in Corporate Management. In this course, students are divided into groups and required to conduct an investigation into a problem that covers a range of topics in corporate management, including management, financial accounting, taxation and law. The study will focus mainly on exploring the views of the students as group members and their respective learning needs, as well as whether they supported each other, and in what ways. The analysis will be based on the blogs of the students and the teacher as well as data collected through a questionnaire and interviews. It is hoped that the findings will shed light on how students can become effective learners in groups through ICT.