Findings

Findings on Survey

Hypothesis

There are 3 hypotheses

Do the students use the blogs for learning?

Do the students act as the lurker in the blogs?

Do the blog builders and blog readers build up the inherent environment for learning or knowledge building?

Hypothesis 1 (1)

Summaries the data from questions in part (a), (b), (c) and (d) to obtain the following results

Apparently, there are 54 students out of 57 students spent at least 1 hour per week to surf the Internet

Also, only 46 students read and/or write the weblogs

Hypothesis 1 (2)

Table A: How long the students read the weblogs per week

It shows 46 students (80.7%) read the weblogs

Hypothesis 1 (3)

Table B: Content of weblogs read by students

It shows the students use the weblogs to keep the friendships,

rather than learning

Hypothesis 1 (4)

Table C: How long the students write the weblogs per week

It shows 46 students (80.7%) write the weblogs

Hypothesis 1 (5)

Table D: Content of weblogs written by students

It also shows the students write the weblogs to keep the friendships, say writing personal diary

Hypothesis 1 (6)

From Table B and Table D, we observe that the students really uses weblog for either sharing ideas or sharing knowledge, but their percentages were relatively slower.

Thus, in Hong Kong, using weblogs by the students for learning is infancy.

Hypothesis 1 (7)

Other evidence

33 students (57.9%) told us that their teachers had their own weblogs for sharing and discussing among the teachers and students.

For these 33 students, there was only 1 student (4.2%) frequently visiting the teacher weblog.

Hypothesis 1 (8)

Other evidence

Table E: Comment on teachers’ weblogs

It shows that few students found the teachers’ weblog helpful

Hypothesis 1 (9)

Other evidence

It also provided the preliminary evidence

the school couldn’t create the supporting environment for the students that fostered using the weblog for learning.

Fortunately, there were 34 students (59.6%) to be willing to use the weblog for learning in the future.

Thus, in Hong Kong, using weblogs by the students for learning was proved to be infancy.

Hypothesis 2 (1)

Definition of lurker

Lurker usually reads the weblogs, but do not give any comment on weblogs.

Hypothesis 2 (2)

Table F: Give comments on the weblogs

It shows many students (69.6%) always give comments on the weblog

Hypothesis 2 (3)

Table G: Response to comments on the weblogs

It also shows many students (73.9%) always response to comments given by the reader on the weblog

Hypothesis 2 (4)

Conclusively, we observed that the students were relatively active on writing the comments or response to the comments

Hence, it was apparent that Hong Kong students were not the lurkers in the Internet

Hypothesis 3 (1)

Learning required more sharing, discussing and reflection among the students and teachers

Weblogs usually provided the inherent facilities to meet such requirements.

Hypothesis 3 (2)

Table H: Status of students while using weblog

It also shows there are 42 students (73.7%) to be going to both read and write weblogs

Read Weblog

Hypothesis 3 (3)

In our survey, we found that 23 students (79.3%) out of 29 students, which always read weblogs, wrote the comment, then the weblog owner gave the responses and the student replied on the responses.

Hypothesis 3 (4)

Moreover, there were 23 students (71.9%) out of the 32 students, who always wrote comments, to be willing to keep track on the specific weblogs for further discussion.