May 22, 2012 | By: Nick Morris

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Science communication: the use of blogs?

This morning I had an interesting meeting with a colleague to discuss a new module on Science Communication. One of the aims of the module is for the students to develop and understand the principles and techniques of science communication in different media and targeted to different audiences. As part of this module students will have to write and post a number of blog articles about specific lectures they have attended, and then submit what they consider to be their best work for assessment. This sound like a really good idea to me, but there are a number of problems.

One problem will be how do we get students over the "geek barrier". That is, how do we get the students to engage?

As this is an optional module I would hope (expect?) that the students would already be committed to the ideas and concepts. However, I have encountered the "geek barrier" before on a module where I teach students about scientific databases (see Do you speak my language: D is for Database, debug, DNS), how they are structured, and how we search them. As soon as I mention the word "database" I can see the students start to think that this is all "geeky" stuff that they don't need to know. To get the students over the "geek barrier" I established that they are all in fact geeks, and the way I do this is with the following questions.

First I ask the class (~300 students) how many own and regularly use a database. This usually gets a show of about 2 or 3 hands. My next question is: "How many of you own a mobile phone?". To this question most of the class, if not all, put up their hands. Finally, I ask the class to put their hands down if they don't use the address book feature on their phone. Typically I find very few of the class put their hands down. I then take great delight in pointing out to the class that in fact they all own and use a database (i.e. the address book), and the proceed to call them all geeks.

The way to get over the "geek barrier" with blogging is to maybe ask class if they use Facebook, and my guess would be that around 90% of the class will say yes. At this point it could be argued that 90% of the class already blog because if you look at Facebook it is essentially just blogging, with a few bells and whistles. That is, on Facebook, just as you would on a blog, you post a message and then receive comments on it. I think that should remove the "geek barrier".

The next problem is technological. That is, where do the students do their blogging?

One obvious answer, and one I would personally go with, is to use a local install of WordPress (see Software I use: Wordpress), and there are several reasons for this, which are: it is a real blogging platform; it is incredibly powerful; the blog will be available to anybody on the Internet and therefore give students a real feel for blogging (plus it has RSS feeds - see Do you speak my language: R is for RSS, Router, Root, Ruby and Blogging: RSS is dead. Long live RSS! Using RSS in eLearning); and the platform can be extended with a number of available plug-ins. However, at this stage it looks like we will go with the blogging system which is part of Blackboard.

Having briefly looked at the blogging tools available on Blackboard, it is certainly not blogging in the true sense as the word as it is hidden away from everyone other than those on the course. However, it does provide a safe environment in which students can learn how to blog, and from what I can see it also has sufficient administration tools (such as automated notification of new blog posts and comments - although you do have to log into Blackboard to see these, i.e. no RSS feed) for the course instructor to do their job.

So, what do you think? Will this work? Have you used student blogs in your teaching? Were the blogs used as part of a summative assessment? If so, do you have any tips or advice that you would care to share below?

5 Comments

May 31, 2012 | 05:12 PM

Posted By: Ilona Miko

Also, this Sean Nash is also quite successful with using social media and a class blog to engage students on science topics...(http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/natureedcast/episode_13_st_josephs_sean)

May 31, 2012 | 05:02 PM

Posted By: Ilona Miko

Also, and maybe you know this one, but Scitable has a free eBook called "English Communication for Scientists" that may be a resource for the students taking this new module you mention at the top of your post.

Nothing in here about blogging but it's a very useful document all the same. I think it should be required reading for every upper level University Student or Graduate Student in science. (http://www.nature.com/scitable/ebooks/english-communication-for-scientists-14053993)

Cheers!

May 31, 2012 | 05:01 PM

Posted By: Ilona Miko

Hi Nick-This looks like a great module! More science programs should take this as seriously as you and your colleagues do. I have 2 blogging-related suggestions:

1) Check out Stacy Baker's "Extreme Biology" blog (http://missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog/), which was extremely successful for her high school students as a model for making the blog a communal endeavor and also baked into class assessment. Stacy has since moved onto another school but some of her students from that group now blog for Scitable (see the "Young Voices" column on the blog landing page). I can connect you with Stacy if you would like to hear exactly how she motivated students--some tactics for that age group might also apply to yours.

2) Casey Dunn at Brown University created a communal blog for his students to showcase final video projects. You may have already seen it on Scitable, its called Creature Cast (http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/creature-cast)

May 24, 2012 | 09:24 AM

Posted By: Nick Morris

Melissa - you should try emailing the blog community manager Khalil Cassimally at kacassimally@gmail.com.

May 22, 2012 | 05:14 PM

Posted By: Melissa Chua

Hi Dr Nick,

Sorry for the spam. But would you mind to let me know how to blog @ scitable? I have an account but I can't seem to blog.

Thanks

Regards,
Melissa

Science communication: the use of blogs?

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