Peer Feedback Through Blogs: Studentand teacher perceptions in an advancedGerman class

Recent years have seen the emergence of Web2.0, in which users are not only passive recipientsof the featured content, but actively engaged in constructing it. Sites such as ‘Facebook’ and‘Myspace’ are typical examples of this, as are blogs that allow users to present themselvesonline, to write about their daily lives or even to establish themselves as an authority on aparticular subject. Due to the opportunities for self-reflection and interactive learning offeredby blogs, they have also become one of the emerging tools in language pedagogy and highereducation. At the same time, peer feedback is a technique that is increasingly used by educatorsinstead of, or in addition to, tutor feedback, due to its potential to develop students’understanding of standards, to initiate peer feedback, and to engage the student in the processof learning and assessment.This paper is concerned with the question to what extent blogs can facilitate peer feedbackand what issues need to be addressed for them to be a valuable tool in this process. Afterreviewing the recent literature on peer feedback and the specific issues emerging from providingfeedback through computer mediated communication (CMC) technologies, the paperpresents the results from a pedagogic research project in an advanced German language classin which blogs were used for this purpose. Drawing on students’ blogs as well as the responsesgiven by students in questionnaires and focus groups and responses by experienced tutors ininterviews, the paper argues that blogs are potentially valuable tools for peer feedback, butentail the need to address specific issues regarding the choice of CMC tool for feedback tasks,training in the use of interactive online tools and the roles of teachers and students