Blogging Across the Disciplines: Integrating Technology
to Enhance Liberal Learning

Abstract
As the use of web logs (blogs) becomes increasingly popular, many faculty members have incorporated them into college courses to engage students in discussing course materials, to foster a sense of community, and to enhance learning.   This study, conducted at a business institution, introduces blogs as a tool to help students prepare for meaningful classroom discussion. The authors assigned a similar blogging exercise in three different courses—expository writing, e-commerce, and government--in order to introduce students to the use of blogs in their disciplines.  This study finds that by completing the required readings and then posting discussion questions and reflections on topics of interest to which their classmates can respond--essentially beginning the conversation prior to the class session--students become more engaged in the course material. This exercise requires students not only to read the required course materials but to engage with them critically in order to move beyond a superficial understanding of the materials.  By using the same assignment and assessment tool in three different courses, the authors argue that blogs can be effective in enhancing class discussion across the disciplines.

Facilitating cross-cultural learning through collaborative skypecasting

Abstract

The authors were involved in an international project in which first year (freshman) students studying comparable IT courses at two universities, one in the United States and the other in Australia, formed virtual teams and engaged in collaborative learning and content creation via the Internet. Each team was tasked with jointly producing a short "Skypecast" (an audio podcast recorded over Skype), in which team members from each institution participated in conversations on topics related to technology and culture. The students had to overcome issues related to cross-cultural communication, as well as other challenges that arose from working with people whom they were unable to meet face-to-face, across disparate time zones. This paper presents an analysis of the views and experiences of the students from both institutions, elicited through surveys and focus group interviewing. The findings suggest that in addition to developing their technology skills and enhancing their understanding of the course material, the exercise provided the students with exposure to diverse perspectives from their peers on the topics studied. It also fostered the development of generic skills in research, interpersonal communication, and teamwork essential to the 21st Century knowledge worker. In the absence of the need to produce tangible objects of shared activity (Skypecasts) and without the explicit articulation of common goals within each team, the students may not have used the available technology to engage in the processes of collaborative dialog and problem solving that were evident in their reflective self-reports. In addition to its successes, the problems encountered and lessons learned from the experience are discussed, before outlining the authors' future plans. It is hoped that the paper will be of value to other educators wishing to undertake similar efforts, and make a contribution to the development of best practice in the area of Internet-mediated, cross-institutional collaborative learning.