DEVELOPING ASSESSMENT PRACTICES THROUGH THE USE OF BLOGS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: AN INNOVATIVE EXPERIENCE IN THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF CATALONIA
DEVELOPING ASSESSMENT PRACTICES THROUGH THE USE OF BLOGS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: AN INNOVATIVE EXPERIENCE IN THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF CATALONIA

Summary/Abstract: Blogs have lately become one of the most known Web 2.0 tools and a common form of expression for the users of the Internet. Conscious of this fact, teachers are currently using blogs as learning and teaching tools. The Bologna process has signified an important change in the education paradigm. Competency-based design and assessment is just one of the aspects that has changed and is perhaps one of the most critical ones. However, are our students aware of its competencies acquisition? Do it actually have a bearing on their own learning process? For all these reasons, a research group led by the University of Barcelona proposes to carry out a project called “Formative competency-based assessment through blogs”. This project consists in the design, implementation and evaluation of a blog-based model for student assessment based on competencies. We have implemented the model in six universities and in different faculty degrees: pedagogy, social education, engineering, communication and Catalan literature. We will study one of these experiences in-depth and which was carried out in the “ICT Competences” course of the Catalan literature program degree at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). In this course, the blog is used as a platform to reflect about the learning process and about competencies’ acquisition. This paper presents the results based on students’ questionnaires.

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