Open the Windows of Communication: Promoting Interpersonal and Group Interactions Using Blogs in Higher Education

Abstract

Using educational blogs enriches online learning by creating a peer dialogue in the form of a reader response or a peer-blogger-peer feedback sequence. The present study explores interper- sonal and group interactions in an academic course using blogs. The findings show that, as pre- dicted by the theory of electronic propinquity (TEP), the feeling of nearness transmitted by stu- dents via blog posts interacted with different behavior variables (i.e., choosing post content-type, calling for feedback, responding to peers' comments) and positively affected students' interper- sonal online interactions. Furthermore, bloggers' ongoing responses to readers' comments pro- mote additional peers' feedback. According to the hypothesis, private authorship in personal biogs affected group interaction patterns in comparison to mu I ti-authored wikis. While educational blogs promoted communication among all course students, wiki interactions were affected by student offline former acquaintance and social contact. The present study findings suggest some recommendations concerning the use of educational blogs in order to encourage interactivity among students: {I ) projecting nearness to audience, (2) sharing work experiences, feelings related to learning or personal experiences, and especially sharing student thoughts, rather than providing information, (3) calling for feedback, and (4) re- sponding to peers' comments