Blogging Helps You Design

Blogging is good for creative learners - but why? In this article I drill down to the logistics of good practice to explain why it helps develop best art or design practice.

The research of Jim Turner of John Moore's University, in which he used blogging with fine art students, suggested that the main benefit of blogging was to move learners' perceived identities from being students to active professionalised participants in a knowledge community. The fact that the blogs were public, rather than part of the institution's virtual learning environment made them more meaningful, but also forced the bloggers to consider their public persona and to enforce professional practice.

Using Turner's findings as the basis of my research I conducted a study of my own University of Kent learners throughout the academic year 2011-12 as part of my PGCHE. The methodology used was two surveys at either end of the year, which included control answers from non-bloggers; as well as focus groups and I also included information from ad hoc conversations.

My findings showed that the overriding reason that the learners preferred blogs was that of convenience. They appreciated being able to use mobile devices - on the way home, for example - and being able to record processes and get feedback while on the job (Headington et al,2012). They did not report any overt acknowledgement of identities becoming more professional. Nevertheless, the logistics of this convenience have created a series of best practices, set up a new signature pedagogy and enabled a "subconscious" professionalization via personalisation.

Best practice

Contemporaneous recording of processes has significantly developed because of convenience, thus enabling more effective design thinking and outcomes. Art and design learners are notorious for sticking research into their sketchbooks the night before submission of an assignment - but this does not help them to think and problem solve. Making blog posts on a regular basis at the right time, allows thinking to take place in good time and for a range of solutions to an art or design problem to be evaluated.

Logistics have also improved blog content - for example, surveyed learners reported that if a sketchbook page ran out they would leave off the analysis, but in a blog the space increases exponentially to accommodate what needs to be said. Writing skills have improved via the necessity to create a rounded post. (Kirkup) Evaluations and reflections are used more often, perhaps through convenience of cut and paste questions.

Signature Pedagogy

Last year many bloggers were keeping sketchbooks as well as blogging for ideas generation but controversially sketchbooks, part of the old signature pedagogy, have now been almost abandoned, with learners preferring to post sketches straight into the blogs. Research is more meaningful and concise in blogs. Staff also find blogs more convenient in that they can be checked and commented on at any time. This continual formative feedback has been developmental for students (Shrand and Eliason, 2011).

Professionalisation/Personalisation

By using a practice from contemporary design the bloggers are penetrating their professional knowledge community (Wenger). They have ownership of their blogs and use them as digital portfolios and some of them have used the links to their blogs to gain work experience and indeed full jobs. The blogs are personalised learning spaces to report on visits, inspiration, out-of-college design work, and even grandma's recipes. The professional/academic "voice" chosen with which to curate themselves in blogs has also enabled several bloggers to start side-blogs, for differing purposes and to link them into their extensive social/professional networks. Professionalisation is taking place perhaps inadvertently.

Tips for blogging learners

Choose a professional name for the blog and connected emails - you won't want employers to see names like Pink Fluffy Bunny or Super Stud. That's hardly professional.

If anyone needs to assess or check your blog work make sure you use categories to help index the posts and Enable readers to find their way around with ease.

Comments are moderated, meaning that they don't go straight out onto the public blog space. Instaed the blogger can choose which ones to allow into the public.

Consider spelling and things like text-type. You may wish to work quickly in the blog to help creativity flow, but remember that people may see your posts and if yu send your links to employers or work experience places they'll see your spelling too.

Sancha de Burca 2013

Here is a slide show to go with the article. Scroll down the page to Design Students Blogging and click on Powerpoint presnetation on the right: https://showtime.gre.ac.uk/index.php/ecentre/apt2013/schedConf/presentations

See also www.thegraphicdesignproject.com for a range of design projects in which the tutor will work with you via a Wordpress blog.

Refs Adenekan, Shola, (date unknown), Academics give lessons on blogs, BBC News, http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/eduction/4194669.stm, accessed 10.3.12 Author unknown, 2007, In their own words: Exploring the learner's perspective on e-learning, JISC Leonard Cassuto, 2011 "The measure of blogging: the use of different media in academic publishing" from The Guardian Higher Education Network, August 31st 2011 www.thegaurdian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2011/aug/31/print-blog-academic-publishing Cohen, Dan, 2008, Evans and Cebula on Academic Blogging, www.dancohen.org/2011/11/08/evans-and-cebula-on-academic-blogging/, accessed 10.3.12 Framer, Brett, Audrey Yue and Claire Brooks, 2008, "Using blogging for higher order learning in large cohort university teaching: A case study", Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2008, 24(2), 123-136 Gray, Lisa, 2008, Effective Practice with e-Portfolios: supporting 21st century learning, JISC Grose, William and Shayla Thiel-Stern, 2008, "Live Blogging in the College Classroom: A Professor and Student Perspective", Journal of Electronic Publishing, Vol 11, Issue 3, Fall 2008

Headington, Rita, Hetty Barron, Michael Smith and Duncan Callnon, 2012, "Food for Thought: Exploring Students' Perspectives of Assessment and Feedback", Compass: The Journal of Learning and Teaching at the University of Greenwich, Issue 5, June 2012 Littlejohn, A., Milligan, C., & Margaryan, A. (2012). Charting collective knowledge: Supporting self-regulated learning in the workplace. Journal of Workplace Learning, 24(3). [impact factor expected 2012] Kirkup, Gill, 2010, "Academic Blogging: academic practice and academic identity", London Review of Education, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes (accessed online 9.3.12) Mahers, a, 2011, 6 Easy Ways of Using Writng on the Internet to Promote Yourself, Red Lemon Club at www.redlemonclub/traffic/6-easy-wayss-of-usng-writing-on-the-internet-to-promote-yourself accessed 10.3.12 O'Donnell, Marcus, 2006, "Blogging as Pedagogic Practice: Artefact and Ecology", Asia Pacific Media Educator, Issue No 17, Dec 2006 Reeves, Tony, 2013, Bridging the Gap between University and Industry, Micro Summits, http://www.microsummits.org/tony-reeves/bridging-the-gap-between-university-and-industry/ accessed 11/04/13 Sheldon, G, 2008, Start Your own Graphic Design Business, Entrepreneur Press http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=umbwaDWIY8oC&pg accessed 10.3.12 Schrand, Tom and John Eliason, 2011, "Feedback practices and signature pedagogies; what can the liberal arts learn from the design critique?", Teaching in Higher Education 17:1, 51-62 Skallerup Bessette, Lee, 2011 (?) Profiling the academic blogosphere, Guardian professional Higher Education Network, accessed online 10/3/12 at http://www.theguardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/oct /24/academic-bloggin-landscape Turner, Jim, Blogging and Identity, own notes from conference talk given at Greenwich, 7.7.11

Websites with no listed author: By the Blog: academic tread carefully, The Times Higher Education accessed 21.10.11 http://www.thetimes highereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=403827 The Immanent Frame, 2.Blogging and academia, SSRC, date unknown, http://www.blogs.ssrc.org/toff/religion-blogosphere/religion-blogoshpere-2/, accessed 10.3.12 The Value of Blogs in Academia: An American physics student in England, 2007, http://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2007/02/11the-value-of-blogs-in-academia/, accessed 10.3.12