From basic to critical and creative thinking : an exploratory study based on blogs

Abstract

Nowadays, when we refer to the Web and its importance in the teaching and learning process, we no longer think of read-only contents, but in the supporting infrastructure which allows to create and share contents and a space for collaboration and discussion, ideas associated to the concept Web.2.0. The blog, as a means to deploy the concept ‘on-line interaction’ is, according to Granieri, “the most accessible and natural tool for sharing and publishing: in addition to text, images movies and also sound will be increasingly disseminated, because of increasing speed of data transmission" (p. 31) [1]. It is therefore natural that the use of the blog is more and more frequent as a resource, pedagogical strategy or in other capacities at all levels of teaching [2]. In this paper, an exploratory study is presented based on some blogs, focusing on: the methodology for collection of text and multimedia materials; treatment and analysis of data with the NVivo software; findings and further evolution perspectives. The conclusions to derive are: a) the users’ spontaneous interventions show characteristics of basic thinking; b) evidence of critical thinking can be found in two contexts: as reaction to a direct challenge, proposed as a comment by a visitor or as an answer to the tasks oriented to this type of thinking proposed by the moderator; c) creative thinking is rare and appears almost always as a reply to the moderator’s incentive or that of an attentive specialised user; d) the role of the blog moderator is paramount in the development of complex thinking in the context of blog on-line interaction.