The Future of Education

The blog, even if it has been in use for more than ten years, still provokes great interest among scholars for its multiple potentialities, above all in didactics.  Among the uses for this instrument, let us consider the case where the teacher collects material to put at the disposition of the students, as a support for the activities done in class.  This type of blog-repository is little studied because it utilizes a minimal part of the functionality of the instrument: in particular it puts the collaborative aspect into second place because communication is one way only, the teacher to his or her students.  However it accomplishes the important functions of organization, through the chronological archiving (registration) of the documents and through stimulating the studying in depth by means of the insertion of chosen resources to help learning and to motivate the students.

This contribution proposes to describe an experience of the blog as a repository for didactic material with three aims:

1)     To analyse the choice of this instrument as an archive, preferring it to the  sharing environment  (such as Google Drive and Dropbox): describing the realization (themes, widget, tag), the didactic  activities and evaluating the efficiency;

2)     To suggest this experience to those teachers who must familiarize themselves with technology, favouring the approach of computer science instruments from the viewpoint of education.  In fact the blog is considered easy to use because it does not require technical skills; furthermore its updating does not generate pressure because the material can be inserted periodically and, since comments are not foreseen, no moderation  activities are needed;

3)     To propose to the students as an activity, the realization of a personal portfolio or logbook under the supervision of the teacher.  With respect to Cloud, where the documents can be archived, the blog allows the students a personalization through the choice of themes and instruments; furthermore it permits the categorization of the resources, making research easier, contributing to ameliorating the method of studying.