Revealing Student Blogging Activities Using RSS Feeds and LMS Logs

Blogs are an easy-to-use, free alternative to classic means of computer-mediated communication. Moreover, they are authentically aligned with web activity patterns of today’s students. The body of studies on integrating and implementing blogs in various educational settings has grown rapidly recently; however, it is often difficult to distill practical advice from these studies since the application contexts, pedagogical objectives, and research methodology differ greatly. This paper takes a step toward an improved understanding of employing blogs in education by presenting a follow-up case study on using blogs as reflective journals in an undergraduate computer-science lab course. This study includes lessons learned and adaptations following from the first-time application, the underlying pedagogical strategy, and a detailed analysis and discussion of blogging activity data obtained from RSS feeds and LMS logs. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-483-3.ch014