Blogs for Corporate Learning

The user experience of creating and maintaining blogs provides an easy way to publish content on the web, and has contributed to the proliferation of blogs. Taking notes while studying is a good habit, and most people tend to do it. The format of a blog has clear benefits for this purpose. The process of writing has the benefits of organizing thoughts, synthesizing ideas, memorizing by repeating, and of creating a good source for re-reading at later stages. Beyond personal benefits, other students may gain a lot by going over the study blogs of their peers. In this paper we describe three case studies we conducted with corporate learning students who used blogs to share their learning experience. We describe the rationale for the use of blogs, follow the case studies, and present initial results and conclusions we reached by examining the usage patterns as well as collecting data through questionnaires. We conclude with a list of features and ideas for enhancing a blogging environment for learning.