We usually say that blogs are students and teachers’ collaborative production sites, with a physical environment which is the classroom. In this sense, blogs become an “expansion of the classroom”. But can these sites network if their authors are not physically in the same place? Are blogs tools to build such remote bridges “in the air”?
These thoughts derive from a concrete, remote, and collaborative experience:
the ARCA Project, which is carried out by Laura Benadiba, from ORT Technical School, Tomás Biosca Esteve, from the El Morell de Tarragona Institute (Catalonia), and their students. This project, based on Oral History work,
was awarded towards the end of last year by the
Institute of Educational Sciences of the Autonomous University of Barcelona for its innovative methodology and for being a student-centered experience (See
video of the awards’ ceremony).
Laura Benadiba narrated in the
Oral History and Education blog that the project applies the methodology of Oral History to analyze how people remember the last military dictatorship – Franco’s regime in Spain and the 1976 dictatorship in Argentina- and the silence that still remains in both cases. The Oral History is a useful tool to think about the individual and collective past, and to promote the dialogue among different generations.
During the first phase of the work, there was training in the use of this methodology; the second phase, which will be carried out this year, will deal with the comparative history in both cases and the analysis of the interviews. Therefore, it will be very helpful to have a space for exchange and collaborative network production as the blog, which in turn enables the analysis of the progress attained in the work.
Tomás Biosca Esteve fostered this type of remote, collaborative work, which was facilitated by the new technologies: “an attractive project, a clear goal, and willingness to work are the only things necessary”, he said.
Related post:
Videoconference among students from both campuses.
