Experiences of Adopting In-class Blogs in the Teaching of Hands-on Computer Laboratory Courses

One of the teaching challenges in computer-based laboratory is tracking student progress and giving assistance on an individual basis in the lab classroom. When finishing a lab, students are asked to submit their results at their own blogs and make a notice by placing a link at the instructor´s blog. Pursuing the links and checking out students´ blogs, the instructor can grasp immediate status of student progress and make informed judgments on which students to walk towards and initiate further interactions with. We also use blogs as tools of social learning. By browsing the selected peer works and the comments made by instructors on students´ blogs, students are empowered to stimulate new ideas different from each other. Survey results shows that students who took the lab courses are satisfied with turning in lab results through blog posting, getting instructor´s in-class interactions, piracy reduction, and social learning.