As mentioned in previous posts this blog is also part of a final year project on the value of blogs for education. The research project aims to answer the questions: Are blogs an effective educational media? If so, what elements makes blogs effective for education?
In this post I will quickly summarize the most influential literature I have explored, then briefly list the UX principles considered in the development and clarify the method used to answer my research question.
Are blogs an effective educational media?
In brief yes, it is! Literature such as The Application of Blog in Modern Education. was among the first to officially research the educational benefits of such tool, recognizing the powerful networks created by such platforms and stating “By making full use of the technical characteristics of network, such as bilateral interaction, hypertext link, dynamic update and wide coverage, blog records and releases the users’ working process, thinking experience, thought essence and flashing inspiration and selects and connects the most worthy, the most related and the most interesting information and resources among the worldwide Internet.”
Plenty other take similar approaches to the subject but notably The Implications of a Connectivist Learning Blog Model and the Changing Role of Teaching and Learning, explores the connectivist educational approach offered by blogs, approach that favourite the creation of communities, encourage people connections and create discussion.
Overall, the above mentioned and many other researchers agrees on the benefits of blogs for education, being a valuable tool for both producers and readers, teachers and students.
Knowing what researcher consider the valuable characteristics of blogs for education also helps me identify those elements and with some UX principles in mind answer the question of what elements makes blogs effective for education.
What elements makes blogs effective for education?
To make a valuable list of design elements that makes blogs good educational tools I utilize my knowledge in UX design obtained from the completion of Google UX Design Certificate, then explored over 25 of the most popular cybersecurity blog pages and keeping in mind what learned from the academic literature, I established 5 categories of elements that when included will improve the blog educational value.
Context definition, Hyper-linking, Effective writing, Indexing and Multimedia.
These categories will be explained in better detail in a future post,
See you soon!
