Is this a good idea? Blog Aggregation Management

Is this a good idea? Blog Aggregation Management

by David Jones -
Number of replies: 2
G'day All,

I'm a newbie to Moodle. Have spent the day trawling the websites. Have decided to follow the advice and ask if this makes sense. If it does, I'm also interested in any suggestions for implementation you might have (beyond those I can find online).

Background

Since about 2006 I've developed/maintained a service at my host institution under the name Blog Aggregation Management (BAM). It's based on the institution's existing e-learning infrastructure. Infrastructure that disappears in 2010 as we move to Moodle.

Academic staff currently using BAM, would like to continue.

What is BAM?

It's explained in more detail on the BAM page and in the ELI guide to blogging.

In summary, it provides the administrative and marking services required by academics to manage each student having a reflective journal that is used to answer specific, usually "reflective", questions. This includes support for courses with 10-20 academics marking different student journals and a need for some sort of management/oversight.

If necessary, 2009 paper has some more information. Most relevant is likely to be this section that has some screen shots of the existing system and a bit of a description of workflow.

Obvious negatives

I can see three obvious negatives associated with this idea and Moodle. They and some potential responses are:
  1. Moodle already has blogs (a couple if the OU Blogs are included)
    The focus on BAM isn't the blogs. It's on the management/marking interface for the academics.
  2. Potentially this breaks some of the assumptions underpinning the use of blogs in Moodle
    To some extent this should be considered, but if the academics here want to use it this way.... Also, it isn't really about blogs, it's about the interface that makes it easier for the academic staff.
  3. It would duplicate existing or soon to arrive functionality (e.g. the blog improvements project)
    This is obviously something I need to and will check. But any advice from those who already know would great.
At this stage, #3 is the only reason I wouldn't go ahead. But then I'm a newbie.

Any and all comments welcome.

Thanks.

David.
http://davidtjones.wordpress.com
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In reply to David Jones

Re: Is this a good idea? Blog Aggregation Management

by sam marshall -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
(Note: I didn't read any of the links.)

It doesn't sound that much like blogs to me. If you're asking people to respond specifically to individual 'reflective' questions, almost sounds more like assignment! Or journal. Maybe you want students to be able to read each others' answers though? I guess that would be a bit bloggy.

Basically I don't see a problem with the idea, seems like a perfectly good module that you could add to the contributed code repository for people to optionally download (like oublog)?

One suggestion though - if possible, maybe you could come up with a different name than 'blog'? Unlike oublog, it doesn't really sound like this system necessarily replaces the existing blog system, so it would be helpful to come up with a different name. For example, maybe you could call it 'reflection'. Then make clear that it's a course-based activity (just like a wiki say) and is independent from any blogging facilities that might or might not be available. That could make it easier for people to understand the concept and also for you to, if necessary, extend the interface to make it better for its purpose but in ways which wouldn't be appropriate for a standard blog.

--sam
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In reply to sam marshall

Re: Is this a good idea? Blog Aggregation Management

by David Jones -
G'day Sam,

Thanks for the response.

The idea about remove blog from the name is a good one.

We'll see how things go as I start work on it.

David.
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