06. writing and weblogs

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WRITING AND WEBLOGS: THE DIMENSION OF INTERACTION

Lus Filipe Barbeiro

School of Education and Social Sciences Polytechnic Institute of Leiria (PORTUGAL)

[email protected]

Abstract

The dimension of interactivity is one of the most striking features of Web 2.0. In addition to thedissemination of pupils texts, the possibility of leaving a comment on a post justifies the introduction ofweblogs in educational settings. This possibility raises certain questions concerning the functions thatthe comments fulfil within a learning community. The comments provide authors with feedback on theirtexts, and give readers the opportunity to express their opinions and personal experiences, interactingwith authors and other commentators. Are these possibilities being implemented in educationalweblogs? In order to answer this question, we performed an analysis of the comments on a weblogthat addresses a community of primary schools, the weblog Interescolas (Interschools). This blog

was created in association with projects promoting the use of the Internet and mobilises a diversity ofparticipants, namely pupils, teachers, and project monitors and coordinators. The results show a smallnumber of comments per post and a limited depth of interaction, considering the development ofconversations between the participants through comments. However, the cases that did occur revealsome strategies that promote interaction and its potential for learning.

Keywords: writing, interaction, weblogs, comment, primary education.

1 INTRODUCTION

The dimensions of participation, interaction and distribution [1] are among the characteristicsassociated with Web 2.0. Rather than sell finished products or artefacts, Internet companies areselling services with which users can create their own products and disseminate these on the web,

and interact with others. The potential of weblogs becomes salient in this environment. They permitthe creation and dissemination of products, which are generally written texts, and encourageparticipation and interaction through comments [2,3,4,5]. Blogs can mobilize different degrees ofinvolvement and participation, ranging from regular authorship to occasional visits, with or withoutcomments. Leaving a comment on a post makes the reader an active participant and opens up thepossibility of further interaction with the author or other commentators. The potential of weblogcomments is related to the bifacial nature of reading and writing: readers are invited to participate bygiving their own views and opinions in response to posts, while the author has access to feedbackfrom a wide audience in cyberspace [6]. This kind of interaction is not limited to the expression of initialreactions; bloggers can continue, deepening discussions and the exchange of opinions [3]. In thisway, readers can raise their level of competence in critical reading and authors can benefit from newperspectives that they can incorporate into their own creative processes.

The characteristics of comments, as discursive genre, are quite different from the characteristics of theposted texts. Blog comments promote informal interaction [2,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. Interaction caninitially take the form of a reaction and then develop through new answers or comments as furtherreactions bring readers into a "conversation", either about the text itself or triggered by the text.Besides getting their work published, bloggers expect to receive comments from others [2,11]. One ofthe most frequent activities of bloggers is checking whether their posts have been commented on [13].The comments may be the result of spontaneous reactions or may be the answer to a task embeddedin a learning activity. There are some school projects that take this approach. For example, S. Yang[6] presents a project involving future teachers, in which the participants were called upon to publishtheir reflections about the subject they were studying (theories of teaching) and to comment on otherstudents reflections. The results confirm that blogs constitute a good way to promote learning throughcritical reflection, and that the commenting activity can play a relevant role in this process. The resultsof Wang, Woo & Zhao [14], based on an interactive learning environment hosted on e-blogger and

involving posts and interaction through comments, also confirmed that writing online reflections andinteracting with peers has the potential to promote students critical thinking.

Proceedings of INTED2011 Conference.

7-9 March 2011, Valencia, Spain.

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According to Xie, Ke & Sharma, keeping a blog resulted in an increase in reflective thinking in collegestudents. Nevertheless, these authors did not find significant differences between the experimentalgroup, for whom blog maintenance was accompanied by interaction and peer feedback throughcomments, and the control group, for whom this interaction did not exist. The authors attribute thegrowth of reflective thinking to writing (When students are writing, in order to produce an articulatestatement they need to first construct ideas in their mind, p. 22), in accordance to the positions of

Britton [16]. As for the absence of a significant contrast between the groups with and withoutfeedback, the authors seek an explanation in the low level of reflective thinking found in many of thecomments studied (A closer look at the peer feedback in the study revealed that students did notengage in meaningful or constructive feedback activity. Their comments were more social (such asgood job, I agree) rather than providing informative or constructive prompting. p. 23). Miura &Yamashita [4] also point to the relevance of social factors. Their results suggest that communicationwith readers who gave positive feedback strongly encouraged blog authors to continue writing (p.1452). The results of Xie et al. [15] and Miura & Yamashita [4] confirm the salience of theinterpersonal or social dimension and launch the challenge of finding strategies through which toincrease the contribution of blog comments to learning.

In this article, we intend to analyse the blog Interescolas, seeking a basis on which to developproposals for the use of weblogs and commenting activity to facilitate writing development andlearning in general. Our analysis will focus on the dimension of interaction. Given the interactivepotential of the blog, we want to know to what extent interaction between the participants, authors andcommentators was achieved, the role it can play in learning, and the strategies that can beimplemented in order to promote this role.

2 MATERIAL AND METHODS

2.1 Setting: the blog Interescolas

The weblog Interescolas (http://www.interescolas.esecs.ipleiria.pt) constitutes an initiative promoted inassociation with two programmes: the CBTIC@EB1 and PNEP projects. The CBTIC@EB1 project(Basic ICT Skills in Primary Schools) was developed in 2006. The aim of the Project was to promotethe use of ICT in primary schools. The PNEP programme (Programa Nacional de Ensino do

Portugus / Portuguese National Programme for Language Learning) is a programme of continuoustraining of primary teachers in the discipline of Portuguese language. It includes as one of its goals theincreased use of ICT in association with language learning. It has been being developed since2007/08.

The creation of the Interescolasweblog took place in January 2006 in the context of the CBTIC@EB1project at the School of Education in Leiria. It was intended to provide space for participation, diffusionand interaction, taking advantage of the potential of ICT. From the beginning, the promoters of theblog invited the various participants in the project to take part: the members of the coordinating team,the monitors who were responsible for the training in the primary schools, the teachers, the pupils, andthe Internet public in general. The Interescolas blog became the main webpage of the project and theplace where pupils could see their work published. It was not intended as an instructional platformdirected at teachers and pupils, but as a project for the diffusion of pupils work in association with

learning. As a shared project, the blog gave the pupils from the primary schools involved theguarantee that they would be read by their peers at other schools. The fact that texts originated from alarge number of different schools and participants and the possibility of leaving comments transformedthe blog into an open space devoted to participation, reflection and interaction among participants.The participants to whom the blog was directly addressed, the different members of the CBTICprogramme, were regularly invited to contribute to the contents of the blog. A total of 242 schoolsparticipated in the blog in the form of posts.

When the CBTIC@EB1 project ended (in December 2006), the blog went through a period of reducedactivity. It was reanimated in October 2007, with the launch of PNEP. Having been incorporated intothis programme, it remained active through the school years 2007/08 and 2008/09. The blog teamincluded the coordinators of the programme, the teacher trainers who conducted the training sessionsat schools and the school teachers who were the trainees. All of them were allowed to publish and edittheir own articles, in addition to the activity of commenting, which was accessible to all

visitors/readers. The comments were made visible only after approval by the coordinating team of theprogramme.

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2.2 Corpus

The corpus under analysis consists of 660 texts (posts) and 1046 comments that were published onthe Interescolas blog. Our corpus of comments comprises all the comments that were received andvalidated from the launch (31 January 2006) until 31 December 2009. From the total, 489 posts(corresponding to 74%) are authored by pupils and 171 (26%) by teachers. Concerning the commentsit was possible to assign 420 (41%) to pupils, 287 (24%) to teachers, while a large amount (333,corresponding to 32%) is not assignable.

The analysis of the corpus concerns the distribution of the texts and comments with regard to thefrequency of comments, and to the level of interaction. As for the level of interaction, our analysisdistinguishes the following levels: 1) comment on the post, 2) interaction consisting of: a) responsefrom the post author(s) to a comment, and b) response from a commentator to another commentator(i.e. interaction between commentators).

3 RESULTS

3.1 Posts and reaction: the frequency of comments

The presence of comments is not universal or uniform throughout the blog. Not all posts receivecomments; on the other hand, there are some posts that stand out as having a large number ofcomments. On average, the number of comments is 1.6 per text. However, there are a largeproportion of posts (47.7%) that do not receive any comment (Table 1). Next, the most frequentinterval presents between 1 and 3 comments. Together, these two intervals represent 88.8% of thecases. There are 9 cases that received between 10 and 19 comments and 6 with 20 or morecomments. The maximum number of comments received by a post is 44.

Table 1 Frequency of comments per post

Interval No. %0 315 47.7[1 - 3] 271 41.1[4 - 6] 44 6.7[7 - 9] 15 2.3[10 - 19] 9 1.4[20 6 0.9(maximum: 44)

If we take a closer look at the posts that attracted a higher number of comments, we find thatparticular types of posts provoked more comments. These were posts that consisted of a traditionaltext genre (such as rhymes, riddles, etc.), which gave rise to comments presenting new examples ofthe same text paradigm. In the case of riddles, we must also consider that, in addition to presentingnew examples, the comments also function as a way for the readers to make their attempts at

guessing the answers to the riddles. The post with the highest number of comments is one particularpost that presents a riddle to the readers of the blog. Among the total of 44 comments, 39 contain newpuzzles and the remaining 5 consist of answers to the riddle presented in the post or to the riddles inprevious comments. In addition to this post, there are two others of the same kind in this subset ofposts with a high number of comments: one presenting a series of rhymes using people's names (38comments that add new name rhymes) and another presenting a tongue-twister (28 comments with 26new examples). Theparadigm of traditional text genresis thus activated through these posts and thisactivation extends to the comments.

Another productive field for comments is found in posts that focus on current issues, such asecological concerns. The posts whose theme is the issue of water, A importncia da gua (Theimportance of water), and A utilidade da gua (The utility of water) are the next most commentedposts, with 25 and 23 comments respectively.

The sixth post to have over 20 comments combines some of the features already described with newcharacteristics. This specific post presents a collection of traditional games, which gives rise to thepresentation of new games, extending the paradigm as happened with riddles, rhymes and tongue-

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twisters. However, it also gives rise to the expression of gratitude to the authors for the usefulness thatthe games had for school work that the visitors had to accomplish, and some comments ask for newgames or descriptions of specific games in order for these to be included in those school projects.Such expressions of thanks and requests come from pupils at all school levels. The identification ofthe Interescolasblog as being relevant for ongoing school projects is found in relation to other postsand topics, too. In general, the traces of these visits in the comments show the readers' appreciation

and recognition of the authors' work.

3.2 Comments: reaction and interaction

The results for depth of interaction are presented in Table 2. These results clearly show that a largeproportion of the comments remain at the first level, i.e., they are direct comments on the post that donot involve any other comments that might be present. The sequence of posts, if any, is thereforepredominantly additive, parallel, and non-interactive across the different posts. The percentages forthis level are very high (above 90%).

However, there are cases where we can find some interaction, in which the authors respond tocomments or comment on other comments. In the next section, we will take a closer look at thesecases, in order to explore which strategies can lead to interaction.

Table 2 Level of interaction

Reaction Interaction

Direct comment to the postResponse from the

post author(s)Interaction between

commentators1015 (97.0%) 5 (0.5%) 26 (2.5%)

3.3 Strategies for interaction

The results in Table 2 show the very limited depth of the interaction that takes place on the blog.However, some cases of deeper interaction occur, and these deserve a fuller analysis in order toreveal strategies that can be adopted in connection with the use of ICT and, specifically, weblogs inschools. These strategies include ending the post with questions, putting questions to the authors inthe comments, suggesting text reformulation,commenting or responding to the previous comments,and continuing a story in the comments.

In the previous section, we concluded that certain kinds of posts attract more comments. This appliesto posts that present texts from traditional genres (rhymes, riddles, tongue-twisters) or that focus oncurrent issues. However, regardless of the topic, there are some posts that adopt certain strategies inorder to get comments from readers.

The most common strategy is the presentation of questions or challenges at the end of the post. Onesuch example appears in the post "The frog", published by a group of third-grade pupils. The pupilsreport on the unexpected appearance of a frog in the schoolyard:

A r [The frogOl a todos!Ontem vimos uma r no recreio da nossaescola.Era grande, castanha e tinha pintinhascastanho-escuras.Ela estava a esconder-se.

Algum sabe como coberto o corpo dasrs?Esperamos que respondam pergunta.

Hello everyone! Yesterday we saw afrog in the playground of our school. Itwas big, brown and had dark brownflecks.She was hiding.Does anyone know how the body offrogs is covered?We expect you to answer the question.]

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The last sentence is a direct appeal to the readers to provide answers through comments. As a result,within three days of the publication of this post, there were six comments with replies. This type ofstrategy is found in other posts. Another example is the post "Penguins", which presents the film withthe same title and which ends with the question "And what you know about penguins?". Some of theanswers, as with the text "The Frog", are the result of researching information on the Internet. In thewhole corpus, 16 posts present this strategy of including questions and challenges at the end. Almost

all of them (14) get some answers to the questions.In the case of the strategy just described, the search for interaction emerges from the post itself. Inother cases, that search occurs in the comments, which may also present questions to the authors (19cases). The number of responses is lower (5 cases). This may be due to the interschool nature of theInterescolas blog. The connection of the authors (pupils) to the blog is shared with many others. It maybe that the authors did not regularly check whether there were any comments. In the five cases ofauthors responses through comments presented in Table 2, the authors return to the blog to giveadditional information or opinions through comments results from direct appeals by commentators.

One example arises with the post conversa com Jos Fanha (Talking to ... Jos Fanha". Theauthors, pupils from the 3rd and 4th grades, report on a visit to the Municipal Library, where they tookpart in a meeting with the writer Jos Fanha (a Portuguese writer of children's books). In their text, thepupils mention certain aspects of the writer's life, his children, his previous professions, his dreams for

the world, etc. But they do not mention the books he wrote. In a comment, a member of theprogramme's coordinating team asks them questions about the writer's books, which book theypreferred, and invites them to choose a poem to share on the blog. In response, the authors talk aboutthe writer's book that they had worked on at school before meeting him, reveal their preferences, andchoose an extract from the book they read in class. The comment now presents relevant informationabout the book and about the activity of reading that was carried out in class. This case shows thepotential of comments for further explanation of knowledge, calling pupils to increase the level ofrelevant information explicitly presented to the reader.

In another example, the comment involves the reader participating in the process of rewriting the textby making suggestions. This applies to the post O Outono bom ("Autumn is good ..."). In thispost, two pupils present two acrostics, one with the word "Outono" ("Autumn") and another with theword "Bolinho" ("Small cake"). However, there were two lines in which neither pupil could form theacrostic with the initial letters of the first words, which caused them to use the second letter of thewords tUdo ("all") and lIndo ("beautiful)." In the comment, the member of the coordinating teamsuggests that they continue to search for words in order to rewrite these two verses. Three days later,responding to the challenge, pupils from the same class present new versions of the acrostic using thewords Uva ("grape") and Imagino ("Imagine") instead of the previous ones.

For comments that focus primarily on other comments, rather than on the initial post, we find thefollowing in the corpus: answers to riddles presented in previous comments and appreciation of thoseriddles and rhymes as well as more interactive content, such as expressions of agreement withprevious comments and responses that give information and express opinions that have beenrequested through comments. In one case, some pupils from a primary school use a comment on amore recent post to announce that they are forming a band. They reveal the bands name ("Boys &Girls") and ask readers if they like the name. They get some comments congratulating them andexpressing agreement with the name.

Finally, comments can also be used to continue and expand a story that began in the post. Thishappens in the case of the story As aventuras de um rato de computador ("The adventures of acomputer mouse"), which pupils in a school began and published on the blog, ending their text withthe question "E agora amigos, o que ter acontecido?" ("Now friends, what happened?") for readers tocontinue.

4 DISCUSSION

The possibility of interacting through comments is one of the dimensions commonly invoked in favor ofthe use of blogs in education [2,3,4,6]. The results of our analysis of comments on the Interescolasblog reveal this potential but also some limitations on the use of blogs in schools.

The first issue that arises from the results concerns the number of comments that the posts get.Mishne & Glance [3] call attention to the scarcity of quantitative studies on blog comments. The studyby Herring, Scheidt, Bonus & Wright [17], which examined a random sample of 203 weblogs on the

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Internet, found a relatively small number of comments (an average of 0.3 comments per post). Theauthors emphasize that most of the posts had not received any comments at all. As a corollary, theynote that "in general, the evidence of readers commenting on blog entries is less than previous claimsabout blog interactivity and community had led us to expect." (p. 8). In their study, Mishne & Glance [3]used a much larger sample (36044 blogs), 10132 of which had comments. The results show a valuehigher than that of Herring et al. (2004) for the number of comments per post: 0.9. In our study, the

average number of comments per post is even higher: 1.6. If we look for an explanation for this highervalue, we should point to a peculiarity of our corpus: both the study of Herring et al. [17] and that ofMishne & Glance [3] collected the blogs in their samples in a broad way, on the Internet, without anyrestriction to a specific area. Therefore, these areas are very diverse.

In our study, we examined a blog that is clearly in the area of education. Is this an indication that theblogs in the area of education receive a higher number of comments? We must remember that thestudy focuses on a single blog. In another study [18], (we analyzed a larger sample, consisting of 270primary schools blogs. In that study, the mean scores for comments per post is 0.6, which is lowerthan the values reported by Mishne & Glance [3]. Thus, the hypothesis of a greater number ofcomments on blogs in educational contexts should be further investigated. Perhaps the differentcategories of blogs should be taken into account with regard to the educational context in which theyappear, the dynamics of the teachers involved and the type of administration that is adopted. Anyway,as a particular case, the Interescolasblog presents a higher number of comments per post than that ofMishne & Glance [3], although the extent of that difference is not very great. On the other hand, in ouranalysis of the Interescolas blog we also find the presence of a large number of posts withoutcomments (47.7%) - this value is 36% in Barbeiro [18] and much higher in Mishne & Glance [3]: 85%.

In the case of the Interescolasweblog, the larger number of comments per post may be due to twointerrelated factors: i) the interschool nature of this weblog, ii) and the blog link to training activities inICT and Portuguese language. As for the first factor, the blog brought together in the same project alarge number of schools (in association with the CBTIC and PNEP programmes). This was reinforcedby visits by the trainers to classrooms, and contributed to pupils and teachers feeling closer to theircolleagues in other schools and entering into interaction with them by commenting on their posts. Thefact that this blog was linked to ICT training enabled trainers to include some content and activitiesrelated to the blog as a teaching tool, in which interaction could play an important role. These activitiesrelied on the guidance and cooperation of monitors or trainers, especially in the CBTIC programme.

The activities that were implemented included the dimension of interaction. They showed that it ispossible to include comments in the process of teaching and learning. Teachers play a key role in thisinclusion, organizing and directing the activity of commenting when reading the weblog texts. This kindof activity can become part of the regular use of ICT in school, together with the activities of reading /researching and writing / publishing on the Internet.

The second question concerns the level of interaction that is achieved. When we consider theeducational use of weblogs, it is not just a matter of the number of comments per post but also ofmobilizing the potential for construing knowledge of interaction among different participants, authorsand a diversity of readers. In their study, Herring et al. [17] argue that the interactive potentialassociated with this ICT tool is not always confirmed ("Consistent with earlier findings, the frequencyof links and comments in blog entries remained low. This finding is contrary to the popularcharacterization of the blogosphere as interconnected and conversational, p. 12). Accordingly, the

results of our analysis of the Interescolas blog showed a low level of interaction in the form of"conversations" between authors and readers or between different readers (commentators). However,the presence of some episodes of interaction that go beyond reaction to the initial post shows that it ispossible to develop this interaction. This may involve questions or comments from readers to authors.It may also involve questions, comments and responses among the different commentators. For thisinteraction to develop, it is necessary that participants return regularly to the blog and the post. In thecase of individual blogs or blogs involving a whole class, this happens quite easily. In the case of theInterescolas blog, which was a transversal one connecting a large number of schools, this was notassured. In fact, even if an email alert was received that there had been a comment, it was not certainthat the teacher and the class would return to the post to read and respond to the comment in order tocontinue interaction. For this to happen, at least initially, the teacher should establish working methodsin the class to ensure regular visits to check for comments and consider the replies that should begiven. The regularity of visits to the blog can also widen participation because pupils can leave

comments on other posts. The teacher's guidance may also increase the adoption of strategies thatcan be followed in comments to promote interaction (as is the case with questions to the authors or toother visitors; in turn, this strategy will motivate further visits to check for the presence of responses).

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The activity of commenting need not be limited to spontaneous and individual reactions. It can bedeveloped in a systematic and organized way in the classroom, as shown by the fact that theauthorship of the comments on Interescolasblog is joint authorship in a high proportion of commentsmade by primary school pupils (67% of the pupils comments present joint authorship). Indeed, thetask of commenting was often carried out in the context of classroom activities that focused on the useof ICT and were conducted by the classroom teacher or the trainer.

Pupils develop a sense of ownership towards personal and classroom weblogs and this may promoteregular contact with the blog. In the case of the Interescolas blog or similar ones, pupils above alldevelop feelings of participation, even if they do not develop a sense of ownership to such a highdegree as in the case of classroom or personal blogs. Both aspects are important. The first solutionallows for greater monitoring of the blog. The second solution increases the number of visitors,promotes participation and dissemination of work in a wider circle and allows a greater diversity ofroles. Indeed, in this second case, pupils mobilize the roles of author (in relation to their own posts),reader (in relation to the posts by pupils from other schools or by other participants) and can also playthe role of commentator.

5 CONCLUSION

Comments, the blogosphere's tool for the achievement of interaction, are present in the Interescolasweblog. However, the results show that the degree to which interaction was achieved remains low.This conclusion is supported by indicators such as: i) the average number of comments on each post,ii) the limited presence of interaction between posts authors and commentators beyond the initialcomment, iii) and also the limited interaction between the commentators. In particular the values ofthese last two indicators are very low.

These results are consistent with those obtained by other studies, including those of Mishne & Glance[3], Herring et al. [17], and Herring et al. [19]. Blog comments offer some potential for learning. Thislies in the fact that blog comments make it possible to positively reinforce the authors of posts byexpressing recognition of their participation within a community and of the dissemination of their texts.They also make it possible to add contributions from visitors personal experience to the initial post.Through the sequence of comments, interaction becomes possible with the authors of the post andalso with other participants and commentators. Readers may ask for additional information and

explanations, present their own points of view, and react to other opinions and direct specific requeststo the authors of the post, to the blog administrators or to the visitors in general. In the space devotedto comments, the authors themselves may provide additional information about their post, explainingthe activity in which they were produced, and expressing how they felt during that activity or afterpublishing the text. These possibilities, with respect to both visitors and authors, all emerge in the caseof the Interescolasweblog. However, the development of interaction beyond the response / commentto the original post only appears in a few cases. Nevertheless, those that do appear indicate directionsand guidelines for the development of this dimension of interaction among participants.

In the classroom, commenting on a blog can acquire the status of an organized activity that is at theservice of the learning process. To achieve this goal, the teacher must be aware of strategies andtasks that s/he can implement in order to guide the pupils' commenting activity. Among thesestrategies we find questions to the authors or to visitors in general. Another strategy is to express the

pupils' specific links to authors, subjects or situations described in the text, when these privilegedconnections exist. The pupils, as commentators, may also present their own experiences to thereaders, make suggestions about text reformulation, and so on.

When interaction is a purpose, the strategy for promoting it can be applied to the post itself, generallythrough questions directed to the readers. These questions become good hooks to get commentsfrom readers.

Rather than being left solely to the readers immediate reaction after reading the post, the commentson the text of the blog may be the object of previous work in class, in order to enrich and explorepossible comments that may be submitted by each pupil or group of pupils. As was seen in theInterescolasweblog, especially in relation to the situations where commenting was implemented in theclassroom, the comments do not have to restrict authorship to individual work. Pupils can be arrangedin pairs, in small groups or in groups corresponding to the entire class in order to ponder, discuss and

jointly create the comments that they will leave on the blog concerning a particular post.

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Before submitting the comment, proposals may be communicated and explained to the class in orderto find points of convergence and differentiation. Thus, interaction will be included in the process ofwriting the comment, before being achieved through the products (posts and comments) published onthe blog. This interaction can enhance the activity of commenting and the comments themselves.From the perspective of authors, responding to the challenges posed by the comments of readers alsocontributes to learning. Besides, it brings the benefit of making the reader's perspective known to

authors.

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06. writing and weblogs

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