I’ve been working on applying blogging to developing Donald Schon’s concept of the reflective practitioner and his idea of the practicum as a 

‘virtual world, relatively free of the pressures, distractions, and risks of the real one, to which, nevertheless it refers. It stands in the intermediate space between the practice world, the ‘lay world’ of ordinary life, and the esoteric world of the academy’ (Schon, 1987 p37).

This is a space to build a community of practice, where the processes of problem solving, experimentation, coaching and building a professional repertoire of experiences can be undertaken. Blogs can act as the ‘glue’ to hold these activities together, acting as a reflective commentary on the practitioner’s growth.

My argument is that blogs provide a perfect vehicle for reflection and critical self-awareness, and as such they provide the possibility of what I term the eflective practitioner, because of their unique qualities that raise them above traditional learning journals.

The key reasons for this are that they map the learning journey in real time; they are deeply personal, giving a whole person view; they use rich media that becomes searchable and reconfigurable using tagging; they are portable and easy to access; they encourage dialogue, interaction with an audience and peer group feedback; and they are emotional and playful too. They also give great insights into how learners learn, articulating how experience is transformed into learning.  

I’ve posted a presentation on this that is a modified version of my Wimba talk that I also gave at the designs on e learning conference 2008 at Penn State here at slideshare

you can register here 

the abstract is here

Blogs form a vital part of the collaborative space in which postgraduates interact with each other and with tutors and industry professionals; operating as the core of the learning circle, connecting and interlinking its stages and transforming practical assignments into an Schonian repertoire of experience that prepares the student for professional practice. Their real time nature and the seamless mashing up of ideas, reflections, images, links and emotions of the blogging format create the foundations for a future generation of E-flective Practitioners.

This presentation discusses how the School of Media at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, uses blogs alongside synchronous interactions using the Wimba classroom to map the participants learning journey on the course in both full time face-to-face and fully online part time modes, and to build a collaborative community of practice on the course.

Blogs act as a conduit of connected knowledge between the teaching staff and the cohort, offering an unparralled insight into the working methodologies, influences, problems and successes of the group in real time in a way traditional tutorial forms cannot replicate.

The Media School targets mature students who are mid-career professionals looking to deepen and extend their practice, or who are looking to gain the skills and methodological toolbox to operate as professionals in the media and related areas.

Through student feedback and analysis of the role of blogs on the course, the course team identified several key features of blogs, identifying both the strengths and potential problem areas; and how they map onto Schon’s concepts of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action: