Overview: This presentation conveys the findings of a research study on a blended course design in which a newly developed blog writing view system called PISION is implemented on Moodle. The goal of this presentation is to share ideas on if and how a visualization of our online activities helps in our online teaching and our learning in order to produce higher learning outcomes. PISION, which is currently being developed by one of the presenters, enables the compilation of blog text content produced on Moodle and creates a visual representation of the blogs on a separate webpage. These are organized chronologically at two levels: entire class and individual contributor. With PISION, the course teacher and students can easily track when and by whom a certain blog entry was made. Using the PISION map magnifier, a specific blog entry can be accessed and read, similar to online map systems such as Google Maps. Although research supports blog writing to increase online participation of students (Author 1 & Anderson, 2010), methods to further raise its efficiency with satisfactory learning outcomes is not yet evident. Therefore, this research tested PISION to examine its effects on blended learning using blogs. Context: The research was conducted in two undergraduate English classes of engineering majors in the fall semester of 2009. A total of 56 students participated in data collection and consented to analysis and publication. The course was a blended design with 15 face-to-face weekly meetings and out-of-class blog writing assignments on Moodle. To compare the effects of implementing PISION, the system was introduced in the middle of the course so that students could compare their course experience with and without PISION. The blog provided two writing options, free and topic-based, and was available any time during the second half of the semester. The topic-based blog was managed by the instructor with a new topic posted each week to which students were required to respond at least once per week. The instructor occasionally set up a PISION viewing session in class to draw students' attention to its utility. Questions: At this stage, the research question is to determine 1) if the usability of the PISION system is functional enough to be a part of a teaching strategy; 2) if implementing the PISION system produced positive effects on the learning performance of the students, so that it is practical for further use in teaching; and 3) if the blended course design was appropriate to and effective in the overall learning of the students. We hypothesize that if the PISION system works as intended, the macro-level visual information on the blog writing performance of peer members will help increase the self-awareness of individual students on their own performance as a "nondirective" instruction, and therefore help foster steady participation. Should any serious negative effects be found, necessary amendments to the course design shall be made to the main research phase. Methods: To answer the abovementioned research questions, two rounds of pre-/post-course online questionnaire survey were executed. The pre-course questionnaire consisted of questions about the general profiles of participants (age and gender) and an open-ended question about their perceptions regarding English writing. The post-course questionnaire included questions about the general profiles of participants (age and gender), usability of PISION measured on the System Usability Scale (SUS, Tullis, & Albert, 2008, pp. 138-139), specific questions about PISION posed by the system developer, perceptions of the students regarding English writing, and specific questions about the integrated course design posed by the course instructor. The same open-ended question regarding English writing was repeated to compare possible changes over the course. The analysis was performed using SPSS. Results: The usability of PISION was fairly manageable: the students particularly noted its merit in acquiring "the complete picture" of the writing performance of other students. Student evaluation of the blended course design was positive, with the content delivery on Moodle being valued the highest. They perceived blogs as helpful in improving their writing ability. Furthermore, text analysis of the answers of students to the open-ended questions revealed that the students became more methodical in improving their writing. Likewise, PISION map analysis suggests that after PISION, the writing pace of the students became generally more regular. However, correlation analysis did not show strong evidence that the implementation of PISION was related to their positive evaluation of this blended course nor their notion that their writing improved. Conclusions: The study concludes that the usability of PISION is sufficiently developed to be a teaching tool used in further studies. However, modification of the research design is required 1) to clarify the relationship between the implementation of PISION and the motivation of the students to write blogs, and 2) to apply objective measurement to the changes in their writing ability. Discussions: From the viewpoint of the course instructor, the merit of acquiring "the complete picture" of the participation of students at a glance, without having to verify each posting of the students dispersed here and there on a course management system, is undeniable. If there is a view system in which both teacher and students can share all the activities (not only blogs but also forum discussions, wikis, and so on) at a glance, including whether a member is active or absent online, we may obtain a better grasp of what each member is doing in a specific online educational sphere without feeling lost. Further research will be conducted on the ways that visualization of participants' activities can contribute to online teaching and learning. (Author 2), Tanikawa, T., & Hirose, T. (2008). Proposal and evaluation of an Interface to view SNS data accumulated through practical learning. Journal of Human Interface Society, 10(4), 197-206. (Author 1), & Anderson, T. (2010). Learning outcomes and students' perceptions of online writing: Simultaneous implementation of a forum, blog, and wiki in an EFL blended learning setting. System, 38(2) (in press). Tullis, T., & Albert, B. (2008). Measuring the User Experience. Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
