These are the slides from a blogging workshop run by my colleague Marion Waite (Senior Lecturer and Brookes Teaching Fellow) and me, for the Oxford Brookes University Faculty for Health and Life Sciences Research Conference, 25 June 2013.

1. Blogging for
Health & Life
Sciences
A critical evaluation
by Dr Anne Osterrieder & Marion Waite
Faculty of Health & Life Sciences Research Conference
25th June 2013

2. Where are you?
Have you already started blogging and want to know more?
OR
No idea about blogging .....but ...Curious?

4. Wordpress - http://wordpress.com/
The 'Dashboard’
(powered by Wordpress.com)

5. Benefits of blogging for teaching &
learning
Facilitate
courses, build
content
Share
resources
Develop
writing
skills
Alternative
way to
present your
work
Create an online
presence

6. Reflection & evaluation (Brookfield, 2005)
Brookfield's critically reflective lens 1: autobiographical experiences of
teacher/author/learner
As a source of
primary
research data
Models and
demonstrates
reflection
Ongoing
teacher and
peer feedback
Links to
secondary
data &
current
thinking in a
discipline

7. Elements of Graduate Attributes
Promoting
• Digital literacy - students & staff
• Critical self - awareness ... (of learning &
feedback styles) - students & staff
• Global Citizenship (by valuing learner diversity &
sustainability through paperless practice)OBU Graduate Attributes

9. PhD blogging
http://sciencehastheanswer.blogspot.co.uk

10. Curating information

11. Academic blogging - common barriers
• Lack of confidence in: writing skills, subject knowledge, technical skills.
• Time constraints.
• Fear to appear unprofessional.
• Keeping a blog going.
• How to write a blog post?! How often? About what? How to promote it?
• Questions around legal issues such as copyright, intellectual property, libel
law, institutional guidelines....

12. References
Brookfield, S. (2005) Becoming a critically reflective teacher, abriged in Oxford Brookes University
RADAR collection [Online] at https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/file/e646a903-79ca-7312-51f0-
b0360a77c0b8/1/index.html
'Science has the answer' by Dr Heather Doran: http://sciencehastheanswer.blogspot.co.uk/
Guardian Science Blogs: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science-blogs
Plantcellbiology by Dr Anne Osterrieder: http://www.plantcellbiology.com