Students’ Reflective Blog

Research strategies in mobile learning research need to be adaptive to include alternative approaches such as analysis of interaction logs and students’ contributions to externalized constructions of meaning (Taylor, 2006). In this research participants were asked to blog their reflections on mobile learning activities. Students created blogs as part of the taught course, in which they blog on weekly themes that were given to them after the face-to-face classes. These blog posts and active participation in them was part of the course assessment.

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Several mobile learning studies have used a diary, for example the usage of the logbook to track daily activities of location, duration, and type of activity in order to reveal patterns and trends in technology adoption as in Sharples et al.’s (2005) Mobile Learning Organizer study. The use of students’ blog posts for data collection was deemed similar to the use of a reflective diary. This is because the blog is seen as a virtual diary. Vavoula (2005) suggests using structured diaries for mobile learning research; a structured blog post would also be a similar means of gaining insights into the deployment of mobile learning activities to support participants’ learning.

Vavoula (2005) proposes the following types of entries for a reflective diary which are: (1) when the participants had used the device for a specific purpose for the first time, (2) when the participants found the device particularly useful, and (3) when the participants found a specific problem or difficulty with using the device. These were the types of entry that participants in this study had to blog after the mobile learning workshop. The students were asked to write reflections on mobile learning after the workshop. They were also asked to reflect on the use of one mobile phone application that they perceived could assist in their studies. These applications were discussed in the mobile learning workshop and are listed in Appendix B.

The main aim of the blog posts was to capture the participants’ thoughts on using mobile learning as a HE student. They were also to ask to blog on issues that they had regarding the mobile learning activities or applications being used. They were also required to reflect on possibilities for using a mobile learning application to support their own learning. From a series of mobile phone applications introduced to them during the mobile learning workshop, students were requested to choose one application to try. Reflections, through the participants’ respective blogs, were requested in both Stage 1 and Stage 2.

Blogs are online journals which use a simple interface without the need to understand of web scripting such as HTML (Yang, 2009), and therefore they are easy to create. Stone (2012) recommends blogs for collecting feedback as they are a “low stakes, non-intimidating vehicle” (p.259) and issues can easily be raised by the participants. Brescia Jr. & Miller (2007) and Jones & Alony (2008)

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advocate blogs as a source of data as they are personal journals published online which allow for freedom of expression and can therefore provide rich personal views. The benefit of blogs as a data collection tool is that they do not require synchronization between researcher and participants, and are therefore more convenient (Jones & Alony, 2008). Unfortunately, blogs are not always well written or are not well elaborated, with poor phrasing or irrelevant context (Jones & Alony, 2008). However, I addressed this by personally contacting the participants through email to seek further clarification if there are any parts that required me to do so.

Yang (2009), in her study of using blogs to enhance reflection, found that HE students in Taiwan regarded the flexible time and space for them to reflect and discuss as liberating. However, the author did caution that anonymity is a big issue when grades and friendship were at stake, because in an Asian culture questioning and challenging are not favoured traits. I managed this situation by acting as a ‘prompter’ through all the participants’ blog posts. In the comments section of their blogs, I posted questions in order to engage students into further reflection when they replied to the feedback. I also declared that I was a guest tutor, hence was not part of the assessment team. My role in the research is highlighted in Section 1.3.1 of this thesis.

Nevertheless, as cautioned by Bryman (2008, p.228), just as with any form of diary usage for reflection, I was aware of problems that might arise, for instance: • Diaries can suffer a process of attrition as students could lose interest on the

task of completing a diary

• Students may become less diligent over time about their record keeping

• Failure to record details sufficiently quickly so that memory recall problems arise.

However, I overcame these issues by only requesting the students to submit 3 entries on the mobile learning topic for the duration of the whole course. This seemed not to be onerous for the students as they needed to write other weekly reflective blog posts about other topics in the course.

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