Week 9 Article review

Week 9 Blog Entry


     The article by Hui-Yin Hsu and Shiangkwei Wang titled, "The Impact of Using Blogs on College Students' Reading Comprehension and Learning Motivation," was very interesting and was a little surprising to me.  The article is about an experiment done with 3 college level reading classes that were preparing lower level college freshmen students to improve their reading comprehension and ability.  The whole purpose of the experiment was to compare students who learned via traditional paper and pencil college work with students who used technology in the form of blogging to complete assignments.  After completing the semester the scores and feelings of the students were compared and studied to see if in fact using technology can better aid college students in acquiring reading comprehension skills better than traditional methods.  When the outcomes were studied i was very surprised to read that there was little evidence through this study that students who used blogs learned and gained more than those who did not.  Even student motivation seemed to be very similar in both classes as well, which to me seems interesting.  The one place where there was a difference was in the retention rate of students.  The students who took the reading class with blogging and technology had a much higher retention rate from one semester to the next while the students in the classes where standard teaching was used saw a much poorer retention rate.  I think that this is an interesting point to look at and may be a telling sign that students who engage in technology in their learning may feel more personally invested in their own learning and in their specific learning community.  They will feel a closer sense of community and furthermore may gain more friends and colleagues that they can talk to and socialize with, in class and outside of class.  Blogs are an awesome way to create this community vibe in education, as was shown in this specific article.  I would like t see more studies done on this topic because i feel that if teachers sued technologies better and more confidently, than it in fact could have a better impact on student learning and motivation!