Useful blogs?

Useful blogs?
One of the key things that I wanted to bare in mind when looking at blogging research was the usefulness of the blogs – I wanted these to be k-logs (bodies of knowledge) which were in fact reflective diaries; this is the only way I could see the blogs being useful and for it to be possible to submit the work as assessment evidence.
A number of papers, notably from the teacher training and medical training professions, (Sauer et al, 2005; Stiler and Philleo, 2003) were uncovered and it is interesting to see that students saw the importance of their k-log as a record of occurrences as well as integrating this with applying theoretical perspectives.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/6/41 - was particularly interesting as this set the context well for the use of blogs to record professional research (both formal and informal) and developed the idea of the benefits of allowing others to share and comment on the blog. While much is also written about wikis (‘…from the Hawaiian wiki, to hurry, swift…’ as it states within this paper), this will not be part of this project.
Of much interest is this article -
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/brisbane05/blogs/proceedings/22_Farmer.pdf - as there are clear references to the theoretical perspectives I would envisage taking, such as thoughts from SchÖn, Boud and Vygotsky. Additionally, the paper set its research within HE students, which is again relevant to my proposal; the quote of ‘…the application of weblogs in an education setting will, at best, have a limited impact if due consideration of these developing communication dynamics are ignored…’
So, lots of reading and summarising to do…
I have also been looking at the project requirements and have decided to do Project A, the research proposal. In considering this I thought the best idea, in the absence of a pro-forma to complete, was to work round the flowing headings –
Introduction
Background
Literature review
Methodology
Resources and feasibility
Limitations and ethical considerations
Expectations
Likely further research
Recommendations
I still need to try to try to find some institutional guidance on the ethical issues, as no policy appears to be in place.
References
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/6/41/
Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education
Maged N Kamel Boulos, Inocencio Maramba and Steve Wheeler
BMC Medical Education 2006, 6:41doi:10.1186/1472-6920-6-41 (accessed 01/06/2008)
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/brisbane05/blogs/proceedings/22_Farmer.pdf
Blogs @ anywhere: High fidelity online communication
James Farmer and Anne Bartlett-Bragg
Faculty of Education, University of Technology Sydney, Australia (Accessed 01/08/2008)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1525-1594.2004.29005.x
Thoughts and Progress "Blogs" and "Wikis" Are Valuable Software Tools for Communication Within Research Groups Igor M. Sauer, Dominik Bialek, Ekaterina Efimova, Ruth Schwartlander, Gesine Pless and Peter Neuhaus Artificial Organs Volume 29 Issue 1 Page 82-83, January 2005

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LDTMpFYZQnPJlh8wyf7dnxrxkJctvW2jHYyP5Ghw8kGqbzCzgN1Z!-500149612?docId=5001961901 Blogging and Blogspots: An Alternative Format for Encouraging Reflective Practice among Preservice Teachers Journal article by Gary M. Stiler, Thomas Philleo; Education, Vol. 123, 2003