The course blog

I have [...]]]> Over the past couple of years I have played around with using blogs and wiki pages in my courses.  This past semester I incorporated both into my Marine Biology course and feel good about the results.  My reasons for using each type of web technology differed, so I will hit them separately:

The course blog

I have been assigning readings from science blogs over the past few years to reinforce material covered in class and engage students with outside, related content.  This past semester I used a blog in my Anatomy and Physiology course to answer student questions that stumped me in class, or that I needed to research more fully.  After class I would post an answer to the course blog with links to additional reading.  But in my Marine Biology course almost all of the content was student generated.  After adding a few of my own posts as examples, I told my students to add a post of their own once every other week.  With ten students in the course this meant almost a post each day (although they often came in droves).  The only guideline I gave them was that the information had to have some connection to marine science.  You can read the results yourself, but I was impressed with the range of information that students added, and happy to see students commenting on each other’s posts.  A Zoomerang survey given at the end of the semester showed that 8 of 10 students agreed or strongly agreed that the blog was a helpful part of the course (the other 2 were neutral).  The one thing I would change next time is to urge students to use more diverse sources for their posts.  Almost every post was a summary of a news story from Science Daily.

The course wiki

A few years back our University started running MediaWiki software on our internal servers so that we could host our own wiki pages.  When I taught Marine Biology two years ago I had my students write information guides for species they saw during our end-of-semester field trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  I then used this content to write wiki pages on each species.  This year I assigned each of my ten students to write guides for two species each, and to add these to the wiki themselves.  Their entries needed to include some personal comment about their interaction with the species.  After some editing for style and format we now have the start of an online guide to Outer Banks coastal species that I plan to add to each year I teach the course.  And many of the students used their own pictures of the species they encountered, adding some new online content for others to use.

Both the blog and wiki seemed to engage students in material beyond the official meeting times of the class.  Students accepted both techniques quickly, and 80% found the blog valuable.  I will be curious to see how these tools work in two years when I teach the course again, as students will be building on an already rich set of content.

Thanks to a colleague for tacking this up in their office.

But the changes are more than skin deep.  I have added a list in the right sidebar of my favorite posts spanning some of the different topics that I write about.  And lower down in the right sidebar I have a section for Ashland science [...]]]> I thought it was time liven up this space a bit.

But the changes are more than skin deep.  I have added a list in the right sidebar of my favorite posts spanning some of the different topics that I write about.  And lower down in the right sidebar I have a section for Ashland science blogs.  These will include blogs by student authors from our science departments, most of whom started blogging as part of my senior capstone course on science communication.

I keep reading that bloggers need a niche, a focus that sets them apart from the many wonderful science blogs that are out there.  As an integrative biologist my interests span from visual ecology, vertebrate evolution and systematics to protein biochemistry and lens development.  But I am also deeply involved in mentoring undergraduate research, trying various technologies in my teaching (both new and old) and have developed an interest in exciting students about their ability to communicate science on the web through blogging.  Does this all equal a niche?  We will see.

I hope you keep reading.

I thought about this conversation while [...]]]> This week in my undergrad science communication course my students discussed whether it was possible to change an anti-science, denialist perspective with good communication techniques.  There was a mix of perspectives, but one view was that people will believe what they want, and will disregard scientific evidence to the contrary.

I thought about this conversation while listening to an excellent NPR story by Christopher Joyce on why our current abundance of snow does not spell the death of global warming.  Quite the contrary.  Wonderful reporting, but does it make a difference?

In a recent Nature editorial, Dan Kahan of Yale Law School criticizes what he sees as the dominant form of science communication:

The prevailing approach is still simply to flood the public with as much sound data as possible on the assumption that the truth is bound, eventually, to drown out its competitors. If, however, the truth carries implications that threaten people’s cultural values, then holding their heads underwater is likely to harden their resistance and increase their willingness to support alternative arguments, no matter how lacking in evidence. This reaction is substantially reinforced when, as often happens, the message is put across by public communicators who are unmistakably associated with particular cultural outlooks or styles — the more so if such advocates indulge in partisan rhetoric, ridiculing opponents as corrupt or devoid of reason. This approach encourages citizens to experience scientific debates as contests between warring cultural factions — and to pick sides accordingly.

One of Kahan’s suggestions is that scientific information needs to be presented by diverse voices, so that individuals can get information from people with similar cultural backgrounds.  This point was raised by one of my students as well, who argued that blogging has the potential to set up this type of communication.  Young science bloggers in particular may have the opportunity to gain the ears of their friends, and help promote scientific thinking, through their social networks.

Your thoughts?